Carson added, "I made it clear that didn't seem right to me."
Carson said he then put his wife in charge of furniture selection.
"I left it with my wife to help choose something," he said, adding that he "dismissed" himself from the process because he had more important things to do.
Carson said he was shocked when he found out about the US$31,000 price tag.
"I said, 'What the heck is that all about?"' he said.
"I investigated and immediately had it cancelled. Not that we don't need the furniture but I thought that was excessive."
On his wife's role, Carson said "a style and a colour was selected by her with the caveat that we were not happy with the pricing and they needed to find something. If anybody knew my wife they would realise how ridiculous this was, she's the most frugal person in the world."
Carson told the panel that if it were up to him, "my office would probably look like a hospital waiting room."
Carson said he chose to redecorate his office with furniture and curtains he found in HUD's subbasement, with a total renovation cost, including new blinds, of US$3500. But Carson said a few months later he was told that the dining room needed to be replaced "because people were being stuck by nails, a chair collapsed from somebody sitting in it."
Carson said his staff felt that the dining room table was "a facilities issue, not a decorating issue," in response to why his staff did not notify Congress of the purchase, which exceeded the US$5000 cap.
-AP
