Livin’ It Up in the 5400

I had a whole first paragraph written out last night about actually writing before Sunday morning and how proud of myself I was. However, before I could finish the post I fizzled out and ended up helping Trout decoupage our TV cabinet instead. Anyway, now it’s Sunday morning, and hopefully this post will actually make it to my blog.

This weekend Trout and I had nothing particular planned. However, a combination of events led us to do something neither one of us had ever done before. Yesterday, after searching in two different towns, we purchased real, grown-up furniture.

It all started Friday night at a going away party for one of Trout’s coworkers. A couple of his coworkers and I were admiring the host’s living room furniture. Those of us in the conversation discussed how nice it would be to one day own actual furniture that wasn’t inherited from friends or family, or bought at a second hand store. We agreed second hand store furniture could usually be restored and decorated to one’s own tastes, but the inherited furniture, more often times than not, left the spaces in which they occupy looking mismatched and eclectic, but not necessarily a good eclectic. This describes Trout and my living room perfectly.

The second catalyst to this story has been in place since I moved to the 5400. As you all know, I left my massive (and free) couch in the hands of a thrift store before I departed Denver because Trout already had a couch, and it just seemed silly to bring mine along. Well, Trout’s couch is really a loveseat, and a pretty worn down, sagging loveseat at that. It’s been a great little piece of furniture, it’s served us well, but it’s very hard to get (or stay) comfortable on it for any period of time anymore. It’s also more of a futon than a loveseat, as the cushions fold out to make a mattress/sleeping pad of sorts. This gives the whole couch little structural support. Now that we have an actual guest bedroom, we have no need for a sleeper sofa, let alone a couch that makes our backs hurt.

Watching an early morning soccer game between Tottenham and Southend, Trout and I decided that enough was enough, we needed a new couch. This was not an impulsive sort of idea, we have been thinking about this for awhile now, but this morning, we realized we couldn’t go on sitting like this for much longer. After looking in three different furniture stores, (and going to a town 30 miles away) we found our new couch. I should probably pluralize that, because after a bit of debate we also bought the matching loveseat. Now, once we saw the couch we actually liked, we realized we had one big obstacle to get over. We had to release ourselves of our college furniture mind frame. Just because a couch isn’t $50 doesn’t mean it’s not worth investing in. Spending money on something you would use everyday is okay.

And spend a lot of money we did. Or I should say I spent a lot of money because I was the lucky soul who handed over her credit card to pay for our new lovely pieces of furniture. I do get double frequent flyer miles, so not only do we have classy furniture, but we’re also well on our way to earning a free trip to somewhere, at some point in the future. It’s a win, win situation!

Tomorrow the new sofas arrive and we have to figure out a way to break it to our current loveseat/futon. In the meantime we’re being extra nice to it, and we should probably remove it before the new couches arrive, otherwise it might throw itself in the dumpster. It deserves better than that.