Live & Learn -- Pottery Barn

Did you know that Pottery Barn and Pottery Barn Kids are NOT the same store? I learned the hard way...

I saw this great storage system in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog that I thought would be absolutely perfect in our media room. It had drawers, cabinets, cubbies... everything to keep all our movies, games, toys and sports memorabilia all organized and displayed neatly.

However, I wasn't sure about the finish. I wanted a black/brown color to go with our media center and coffee table, but the "Espresso" and "Tuscan" finishes didn't seem quite right from what I could see online. So I thought I would call the company and confirm that the finishes shown online were a pretty accurate representation of the colors (we've had problems with this in the past).

The customer service rep I spoke to said that one of the finishes might actually be very close to what we were looking for. She suggested that we stop by one of the local stores to see the finish samples in person to confirm. Perfect.

So one afternoon Stew and I drove into Bellevue (the closest Pottery Barn to our house), fighting through traffic, a crowded parking lot, and a bustling shopping mall, to check out the finishes.

But when we walked into the store, the sales person seemed quite confused. She did not have any finish samples called "Espresso" or "Tuscan" and wondered why we had been told that over the phone. Finally we figured out the problem.

Pottery Barn and Pottery Barn Kids are NOT the same store.

We had gone there for nothing, and Stew was not at all pleased to have had his time wasted. But how the heck was I supposed to know?!

The closest Pottery Barn KIDS was another 30 minutes away, but since we were already out and determined to finish our errand, we headed into the city. I even called them on the way to confirm that they had the finish samples we wanted to see.

At this point rush hour traffic was really working against us, but we finally made it to the store and saw the samples, which were absolutely NOTHING like what we were looking for. I think Stew really wanted to throttle me at this point.

However, once we saw the unit in the store, we ultimately decided to go with white, and an extremely nice sales person ended up giving us a great deal on our order, so I still think it was all worth it in the end. And now that the whole thing is set up in the media room I'm SO happy with how it turned out.

Pottery Barn catalog photo since I haven't taken one of my own yet.

But yeah, next time I'll be sure to do a little more fact checking before dragging my husband all over town... Live & Learn.

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