Oversized, Overpriced, and Crappy

One of the problems with being an occasional blogger instead of an occasional poster or commenter is that I need to sustain my own level of output. If nothing gets posted for a week or two, then the place doesn't go on without me. Any previously tempted reader (I kid) will simply wander away for lack of activity. Anyway, it's not a political post, even if you could parse the title that way with depressing ease. There's enough of that coming down the pipe in the form of book reviews (one turgid and one fervid), and I'm not exactly the rare writer that rises above being a bore about that sort of thing. So as I try to procrastinate my way through another rough month, are there some fallback Keifus posts I can depend on here: Recipes? Kids? Mediocre science writing? Home improvement? Colorful complaints? The last two, let's go with that.

I don't know if mentioned it in these pages, but in the last couple of years, my darling wife has re-educated herself (over-re-educated herself really), and worked her way into a new career, which, by all evidence, she thoroughly enjoys, at least for these first few months. If I don't say it enough, then let it be known--she has impressed the hell out of me. Now that we have more income, as well as less frustrating time to spend it (the mythical black positively looms), we're re-evaluating the pointlessly expensive home projects we've been putting off for seven years, things like a working drier (which could have easily paid for itself by now), replacing the tattered and filthy carpets that came with the place, replacing the kitchen chairs with ones that aren't broken and downsizing the table to one that actually fits in the room.

Pity the poor furniture shopper that doesn't live in a McMansion! All of our choices over the years have been made to creatively optimize comfort in a small space, having quickly found the overstuffed sectional with the built-in recliners and a pull-out drink holder (what a fucking mistake that thing was) isn't really designed to be tucked into a corner, or even to occupy a mere wall, or even to leave room for thoughtless family members, those who occasionally choose to disrespect the mighty altar of sedentariness, to perform the profane act of opening the door and walking out into the air. For a springy monster like that to fit, it either has to be the center of attention, or your living room has to be the size of a cathedral. And it's all like this. I want to fit a hypothetical new kitchen/dining table into a finite oblong space, but even the so-called pub tables you can buy demand to be massive centerpieces, only tall enough for a barstool. Yes, you can buy small items that are cut-rate in quality, but I want something to at least survive the kids here, without devolving immediately either into trailer-park chic or tasteless excess. The woes of the petite bourgeoisie, lemme tellya. I don't know how the city folk do it. Probably with less whining.

And let's not pretend the quality gap isn't intentional. I've lamented(in media now buried and forgotten) the extra engineering that it takes make lower-priced bathroom fixtures stay ugly, but that's mostly because it's a tube of metal without many moving parts. When there are obvious pathways to chintz, they're rarely left unexplored, even in the suspiciously sparse land of mid-level pricing. Home Depot, I want to point out, is the undisputed king of the shitty middle. Their basic hardware doesn't deviate very far from the standard (understandable enough, given the piece of the retail market they occupy), but it's the suite of more aesthetic and individual products--carpets, lighting, cabinetry, things like that--that carries that special vibe of inferiority about it. A knock in quality, but at all of the price. Even a hack like me can spot it a mile away. Back when my buddy Jay bought his suburban palace, I could identify every fixture and accent as a Depot special--it screamed. (He has since made a lot of subtle improvements that have classed the place up immensely. The fact that it's far better than my mashed-thumb, bent-nail masterpieces is only partly because he has better tools, space to work, and can sometimes afford contractors.) You will never, ever get a deal on anything at Home Depot, and its semi-exclusive product lines makes it very difficult to shop around if you do find something you like (except maybe at Lowe's, which is close enough to exactly the same to not really matter).

About four years ago, I tiled my kitchen, and it's finally looking like we can afford something comparable on the adjoining living room side, get rid of the ancient doggie damage at long last, and just in time for our own dog. We're planning on wood or laminate (i.e., fake wood) floors for the purpose, because it matches our general style (if you can call it that), and because while they might wear (or fade), I've been looking at stained carpet for altogether too long.

Flooring is an excellent window into pricing and quality standards of retail outlets. We were lured down to one discount flooring place, naturally enough, by $0.79/square foot laminate, which would have been all right as far as the thickness and durability went (sinking too much quality in this place is folly, and at that price we could just replace it in five or ten years), if it didn't look so godawful fake. There were about six samples below $3, two of which were the ludicrous choice of unfinished pine, and a big cluster of okay material between $3 and $4, before heading right off into exclusively furnishing the loathed hautes.

It turned out that matching the tile while not shrinking and darkening the bedrooms was a more difficult task than expected. (Dark wood would look great against light tile, but...) Nothing fit the bill at Discount Floors, but, God help me, the Depot had the perfect pattern. The pricing for flooring at Home Depot is, roughly, $1, $3, or $5-7 per square foot, with striking differences in quality. That rare match was a Pergo brand product, but made by subcontractors in some factory in Croatia, only for the store chain, and not exactly finding rave reviews online. Even at three bucks, I'd rather get wood, or at least get some known product that I could shop around for and compare. As it is, it looks like I'll hold out against my home improvement nemesis for just a little while longer.