Decorating vs. childbirth: Which is easier?

If you've been reading my blog for long, you may recall that for the past year, we've been working our way through our ground floor level updating our decor and changing from a floral/pinkish color scheme to a green / gold / brown ("That 70's Show") palette. It's been a painful process, involving stripping wallpaper, compromising on color, and general marital strife.

In the family room, we needed to replace our two floral chairs (lovely, but not in line with this color scheme) with solid camel-colored chairs. We've been to every furniture place in the area. We looked at re-covering our current chairs and found that to be completely cost-prohibitive. It would cost over twice as much as we paid for each chair. Finally, I came to this conclusion: If we could never afford to re-cover them, why buy really expensive chairs? These chairs get little use anyway. So last night, we bopped on out to Target and bought two club chairs. They're really comfy and just the right color. And I could buy two more and still be ahead money-wise.

Meanwhile, I've been searching for a tablecloth and centerpiece *something* for the dining room table. This is not going so well. In just the past week, I've purchased and returned so many things that it's just a matter of time before I get a call from the credit card company wondering if I'm involved in some sort of scheme. Here's a sampling of my recent activities:

* Visited every store in the area which sells table coverings.
* Purchased and returned one tan tablecloth.
* Purchased and returned a second tan tablecloth.
* Purchased and returned a brown tablecloth.
* Purchased three candlesticks and three candles. Returned the candlesticks but kept two of the candles (they smell good). The third candle is still riding around in my SUV. It doesn't smell that great.
* Purchased and returned a bronze candle holder.
* Purchased a gold-colored table runner, which may or may not be kept, depending on the color of the tablecloth.
* Decided to skip the tablecloth and look into having glass panels cut for the table.
* Considered making a tablecloth from purchased fabric, instead of paying a ridiculous amount for a ready-made cloth.

In desperation, this morning I put the old tablecloth back on the table and gave up. Childbirth was MUCH easier.