The Find: The Ella Side Chair

If you've been following, you know that my wife and I are taking design cues from Restoration Hardware in designing our new house.

One thing that we've decided to purchase from RH is the Monastery table in natural to contrast the dark flooring that we are having installed. We didn't have a decision on our dining chairs until we fell in love with these "Ella" chairs at World Market.

At $179/ea, they're not cheap. We looked elsewhere on the web for "French round" chairs but could not find a better deal. Luckily my wife overheard the salesperson talking about the up coming "Friends and Family" sale (this weekend) that got us 25% off of all furniture purchases! Score!

Comparatively, RH has these chairs (known as French round) that are nearly identical at RH prices of course. We saved about $100 per chair.

New house: The "Industrial" Look

Designing a house with your spouse can be a daunting task, especially if you have differing tastes (I.e. rustic vs. contemporary). Fortunately for me, this is not the case. I've always been a fan of the look (not the prices) of Restoration Hardware and luckily, the looks from the store catalogs also fit the bill for my wife.

Thus we've set about "pre-purchasing" our new home furnishings as we find them at great prices. Using the Restoration Hardware look book for inspiration, we've set about researching the web and local furniture stores for deals. There are some items that we felt could not be replaced and we are budgeting for purchase from RH, but only when the price is right.

Stay tuned ...

Our New Home: Intro

"Don't judge a book by it's cover" I've been told that many times before and have told others the very same thing. But I am really swallowing my pride in admitting that wife struck gold and found our dream home in an unlikely package.

You see, it has been my desire to live the metro lifestyle (or as close as you can get in North Carolina) with accessibility to dining, grocery, and entertainment within walking/biking distance - to live more of a lifestyle that resembles a quaint city such as Charleston but without all of the hustle and bustle and unavailable parking spots.

Therefore, I expected to find and live in your more "traditional" town homes - those that didn't look so "homey". If you look at the photo below, you can easily see how the facade of these homes resemble traditional, almost country homes. That was exactly NOT what I wanted. I agreed to view these only as a last resort at the behest of my wife.

Iron Man V. Man of steel

Which of these metallic alloy themed characters is first on your list for the summer?

MARKETING 101: Today's lesson upselling current customers for car dealerships

With the recent trends (at least from what I've seen having bought a new car in the last three years) in car dealership offerings, I find it a perfect opportunity for the service department and the sales department to implement CRM software that will allow for upselling the customer to a higher end package of existing cars or even higher end models.

This is for dealerships who offer: 1) free loaners for customers who are bringing their cars back to the dealership for service and; 2) offering customers a buy back option if they choose to purchase a newer car while maintaining their low monthly payments. I own a 2010 Mazda3, a car that I absolutely have been glad that I chose and happy with.

Image from Car and Driver

Dream Casting: Lex Luthor should be played by ...

Just came across a video of gameplay in the upcoming DC Comics video game, INJUSTICE: Gods Among Us and if you look at the video capture ... who does Lex Luthor look like?

Image from ComicVine.com