Tasteful Home Furnishings and a (not so) Brief History of Seedy Effects

I have the cutest furniture models out there

Today as I was ripping cardboard and sending a veritable blizzard of styrofoam dust flying across my living room, I realized I have never owned a new couch before. Ever. And the feeling was what I imagine getting a new car with zero miles on it would be.  I'm sure we will love this new furniture into the ground until some day I send it, sagging, soiled and pathetic, to live with one of the girls in their first college apartment.  I honestly feel like I've reached some milestone here--Like giving birth to two kids and moving to a foreign country with my own family weren't enough to clue me in--You guys, I think I'm now officially grown up.
 
I know, out of context, this probably sounds ridiculous. Especially to people who have purchased more than one new couch in their lifetime.  But, let me lead you down my unsavory historical path of hand-me-down furniture.

First of all, it's important to understand that my senior year of high school I basically lived on the futon in my parents' basement.  My brother and sister were away at college, no one else used the downstairs but me; the world was my oyster.  So, I chose to camp out in the living room, watching wheel of fortune and endless episodes of Tool Time (back in the day when those things were freely accessible by rabbit ear antennas) while doing homework, eating grapefruits and eventually passing out in my clothes with my contacts glued overnight to my eyeballs.

I was kind of a big deal.

But, really, I just wanted to illustrate that my standards at that time in my life were on-par with a grapefruit-eating frat boy.  And so, my subsequent living arrangements reflected that.  I lived in the dorms with NO furniture to speak of for a few years before getting my own apartment in a house that I seriously was worried would collapse during a mild hail storm; the floors in this place all sloped towards one end. None of the doors (including the one leading to the main hallway of the house) matched up with the door frames, forming some sweet gaps that were good for getting to know your neighbors. And the only piece of furniture I could get to fit in my outdoor-patio-turned-living-room was a love seat my parents had from God-knows-when with a really tasteful Native American geogram print on it.

In between my sweet solo apartment and dorm life, I spent the summer in a friend's townhouse sleeping on something I don't even know how to describe.  The thing was red...orangish red, meaning, I have no idea whether it's original color was red or orange, but now it was neither. This glorified hunk of foam with obscure-colored fabric covering it was supposed to perform as both a couch and a mattress.  And, unsurprising to anyone who knew me at the time, I owned it.  I covered it with silk throw pillows in a grand attempt to make people think I had chosen to sleep on the floor like some kind of destitute maharaja.  At the time, my best friends in the world--good people, one and all--were living in a house with a trash heap in the garage.  So, you can see how a girls standards weren't the highest. 

Klassy...with a K.  That's the word you're searching for.

When John and I moved in together, he brought with him a gigantic, fluffy seven-foot monstrosity of a couch that made my stylin' love seat and questionably-colored bed/sofa look like they belonged in cousin Eddie's camper.   And John's trusty old boy stuck with us through the years until we left the states.  There's just something about a man's relationship with his couch that runs deep.

So, there you have it.  Do you feel the need to take a shower?  Because I sure do.  I might still try to fall asleep in my clothes, but for the most part--grapefruit eating aside--my frat boy days are over. (Please, for the love of Pete, don't take that sentence out of context)  Which is all the more reason to be ecstatic about the arrival of our new furniture.  Normally I don't get terribly excited about physical possessions...and I certainly wouldn't lose sleep over it if we had to return these for some reason, but I find I'm more enamored of what they represent--I'm growing up.  A few graduations, a marriage, two kids and an international move later, I'm finally getting it.

And, for the record, this couch is really comfy.  Now, come sleep on it, would ya?

I promise to get rid of the garbage heap by then.  (I kid, Mom!  I kid!)