We were pleased to transition from weekly Home Depot & Lowes visits to weekly Ikea visits, but we knew that we would soon need to tackle the big stuff and aim for more adult furniture. We resumed our home improvements this month with Mark from Live Wire installing a roof-top antenna and wireless access point and re-programming our security system. We also had our gardener clear out the gutters and repair our limp backyard fence. Meanwhile, we considered official interior decorator help, but ultimately decided to go at it ourselves, armed with ideas from Houzz. Our first trek was to Arden and Carmichael, which included underwhelming visits to Beck’s, American Furniture Galleries, McCreery’s, and La-Z-Boy. The second was further east to Fair Oaks and Rancho Cordova, following a brief flirtation with a Steinway model M in Roseville and a sushi bite. We checked out Scandinavian Designs, Naturwood, and six other places, but ultimately came away with just a chaise and coffee tables from Beck’s, a secondhand Aeron chair from Jamesville Furniture, and leftover soondubu from YD House. The following week, we headed west to Vacaville for our third hunt, and had our interests piqued by a German leather sofa and Danish office desks, but were dismayed by the 6 month wait. We returned to Fair Oaks to the first Scandinavian Design store, which had a more reasonable timeline for the desks; and at the same time spied Italian sofas from Furnitalia which made us reconsider our sofa choice. We remain couchless at this time, but at least we found a Russian buffet at Firebird, which featured a terrific spread of borscht, goulash, stuffed cabbage, and stews that is sure to bring us back for our next furniture hunt.