I'm sure DC has more than enough stores and bargain places. A home visit with Gordan is a long, chatty, room by room conversation. Ideas come out piecemeal but steadily. He'll remember but you better make notes as you go along. A shopping trip is long and purposful. We may be on a shopping mission but other things will catch his eye and present opportunities. The man has incredible stamina for doing it. He'll wear you out. There are a lot of important details.

Shopping around here, he's looking for specific pieces but he shops so much he remembers pieces and bargains that might work for a new customer, as with our "thing." I think it was in the store for a year or more until we came along. I'm sure there are hundreds of other things that would work in that space and clients with specific tastes, specific looks, and less need for a bargain than we are.

With your eye it shouldn't be a problem. He'll say a piece "like that" because .., a fabric like that ... a color like that. If you don't see the very thing at the time, you'll know better what to look for. I'm sure you know many good places to shop and browse.

The most economical fun is moving furniture around which is his best "get a house ready for sale without spending too much" skill. When we angled our furniture, we moved things inches and degrees until he liked it. Then he scoured the house for other pieces that either looked great in a new place or gave the idea for a new piece. We took our bedroom mirror and placed it over the thing, we'll move the original mirror to the bedroom. It will make both places look better. He'd find a picture in the house about the right size and I'd hold it up on the wall. He'd say, "move it up an inch, to the right two inches ..."

For a sense of something at the end of our kitchen counter, we stacked some junk until we got the right height, the right width, and the right placement. At the end he said "see?" We did see.