I folks. I haven't had a time to catch up with forum reading today. DH and I are on vacation in Charleston! What a beautiful city. I can't stay on the computer long, but I wanted to thank everyone for the great lamp suggestions. Nanny2a - I love that lamp! That just might be a winner, although it is more than I wanted to pay. So what do you guys thing of that one? Does it have a cottagey feel? I am through trying to match the one in the inspiration picture, but do want to stay with the feel of the room. I saw an alabaster lamp at Homegoods a few days ago. I'm going to look at it again when I get home. I know the shade was awful, but I could change that. My3Dogs, I want to take another look at the marble ones you found. I can't use the brass lamp I have, 'cause I only have one. Mom2Reese - that red lamp has a pretty shape, and I might end up having to paint, but I'm hoping to find one ready to plug in. Kimberly - here is a link to some of the pictures. There are other pictures of it on another sight. I can give those to you once I get home. Or google Carolina Jessamine Cottage Here is a link that might be useful: Cottage Link

oceanna, Two words: reciprocating saw. :-) Move as much as you can into another room, cover everything else with dropcloths and/or old sheets, and have at it. We've had to take furniture out in pieces a few times. About 10 years ago we had an enormously-heavy sleeper loveseat from the 60s that DH and his two brothers somehow bent the space-time continuum to get up into our third-floor apartment (top floor of a mid-1800s three-flat), but there was NO way it was getting back down. We disassembled it with a crowbar and hammer and hucked the pieces out the window, which really confused the downstairs neighbors. :-) It was a pity that we had to render it unusable for someone else when I would rather have put it out on the curb as we lived in a very poor neighborhood and it would have been snatched up in a matter of minutes even in its worn-out state, but it had become pretty much unusable for us too and the apartment was far too small to blow that much space on something that couldn't be used - the living room was just barely big enough for one full-size futon couch (moved in and out disassembled), one chair, and a tv stand! That was it! Anyway, if you detach the plywood-box section from the headboard (and footboard if there is one), it is more likely that the headboard(/footboard) could be removed intact and reusable - if you post them on Craigslist, just specify that they are extremely heavy so people should be prepared to bring along help. Cut the plywood into smaller sections that can be moved, although a circular saw would probably be easier for that part. If you/your son aren't up to doing this yourself, hiring a handyman (through Craigslist? heehee) to do the cutting-up and lugging shouldn't be too awfully expensive especially if you don't go through one of those dreadful overpriced franchises. You'll have some cleaning to do in the bedroom but it's better than being stuck with furniture items you no longer like and cannot get rid of. I do know what you mean, BTW. Two houses ago we had a very large master bedroom (or at least very large to me, small compared to some folks'!) and purchased secondhand a 6 piece bedroom set, all pretty large pieces, which fit the room quite nicely. I got quite bored with the matchy-matchy thing and when we moved it did not fit at all into the new house's smaller bedrooms and couldn't really be divided up between rooms. A Craigslister got a nice bargain, since we just needed to get rid of these things that were crowding us out.

Only five books? Hardly a plethora... I just went upstairs and counted. On my wife's side there are fifteen books on the stand, on my side nine. That at least is getting closer to a plethora. Can't argue about being able to put them inside, but then you can't reach them easily. Hmmmm.

I love having closed storage beside the bed because I always have a stack of books, an iPad, pen, paper, tissues, lip balm, etc., none of which I want to see stacked on top of my night table. I think you will really enjoy your new stand and your husband will love that one little irritation is removed from his life. :-)