3/1/13

Out with the old, In with the new


We've had this couch now for about a decade I think?  Before that it belonged to some other family members who had bought it for cheap years before that.  We were happy to take it at the time, since we had no furniture (other than one broken futon)...but over the years I've come to both loathe and accept it's position as a giant plaid eye sore in my living room.  An eye sore that is unable to perform it's basic function of a couch.  I kept  hoping that we'd come across an upgraded hand me down couch, but no such luck.  For the past few years we've had a new one on our wish list.  We planned on using last years tax return but then we were led into another adption... our tax return paid for our homestudy.   So it was put on hold.  My son is worth more than a new couch any day!!  

So being that it's tax return season again it was back on the wish list.  Typically we count on that little bit of extra money to pay for any extra expenses.   This year it's ear marked to pay for Elijah's dental work, summer camp for a couple kids, some tires, and just enough left for a new couch!  Yippee!



Our house is old, with narrow doorways, and right angled corners in strange places so furniture is difficult to move in and out.  We have an odd little doorway in our living room, that is only used as a toy closet and a fire escape.  It leads outside but actually has no steps below it. ...just a door suspended about 4 feet off the ground, facing nowhere, just a few feet of grass and our treeline.  This house was moved onto this lot from an old farm a few decades ago and I think they positioned it very oddly.  We had to open up this door, that was permanently covered with an old blanket to keep out the draft,  to get the couches in and out.  Even then it was a tight squeeze.  


A sawsall came to the rescue. 

While the fabric was in somewhat decent shape ...the structure of it was completely gone.  It was the kind of couch that swallowed you whole when you sat on it.   If it had still been in good shape structurally, I would probably have just covered it up.  





Celina was shocked.  We explained very clearly the difference in how we treat our new couch to how we  just treated the old one. 

No pity or remorse at all.  Just glee. 


Our new couch.  We went out "just looking" this morning and came across this one on a really good sale.  Because it was the floor model we could take it home the same day.  We wanted something simple and low backed enough to get through the door...other than that we had no idea what we were looking for specifically.  I don't care for the little pillows but I think they would look great recovered in red fabric.  


This is our living room after I cleaned up the chaos created.  We also bought the rocking recliner picture here on the right.  I've always thought it would be such a comfy "mom chair" for all the time I spend snuggling, rocking, and reading to kids.  They were both on sale and when be bought both they gave us an even better deal.  

    


It may not seem like anything all that exciting...but I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying sitting on these.  I can actually SIT on this couch! The other one killed my back, so I would sit on the floor to read to the kids if there were too many to fit on my lap in the other chair.  You know you have a crappy couch when the floor is the better option!  I've never been so comfortable typing on my laptop than I am with my feet up in the recliner right now!  It's heavenly.  

....in fact I may never leave it. 





1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love C's hand going up to her face as the couch drops down! So funny, even from the back!

In one of the houses I lived in growing up the hallway was very awkward for anything big to be moved in. And I have an, ummm, addiction to books - and thus lots of bookshelves. Which couldn't be taken up the curving staircase, or turned down at the end of the hallway to get them into the new room. My father, with his engineer background, and my brother's teen guy friends, decided the only solution was through the window. Somehow they thought lifting them up off the back of a U-haul, dealing with a sloping roof, and trying to get them in the window without breaking something (or someone) would be the route to go. It worked...but those bookshelves did not move out when I did. Or when my family did. They convinced the buyer they might be handy. :-) I think my dad knew all those helpers he had a decade or so earlier were all off at college or scattered around the country, and if it were up to his older body and that of his friends, the window route for the bookshelves wasn't going to get a repeat attempt. Ha!