June 19, 2000

One year ago: I go to the Parade of Homes with Mary and Molly. This one year ago thing is making me realize how repetitive my life really is, but I guess if I'm repeating the fun parts, that's a good thing.

The big news of the weekend is that we got new living room furniture. I don't think I mentioned this in here yet. One of Jim's coworkers is moving to Vermont, and he had an extra set of living room furniture to unload. Their current house has two living rooms and I guess the new house only has one, so they wanted to get rid of the older set. It's only about two or three years old and in really, really good condition. So we got a new couch, loveseat, chair, ottoman, two end tables and a coffee table!

Before we bought it, we went to the coworker's house to check out the furniture. Our current living room furniture consisted of: a couch I bought for $60 at a used furniture store five years ago, and the cats had ripped the upholstery to shreds in the back, and it didn't have any back cushions, but it was still really comfortable; a loveseat that Jim's mom donated to us because we had nowhere to sit when we first moved into this apartment and couldn't get our couch through the narrow doorway (we eventually did); a coffee table that Mary was going to throw away once she graduated from college, and I nabbed as it was headed for the dumpster; two TV trays that I was using in lieu of end tables; a chair that I got from my great-uncle's house when he died; a lamp from same; what we used to call the "$20 Lechmere lamp" before Lechmere went out of business, but is essentially the torchiere-style lamp you see in every college dorm room; a really cool end table rescued from Jim's parents' front porch; and the entertainment center built by Jim's dad. Total cost to us of all furniture: less than $100.

Once we had seen the furniture in question, we immediately decided to purchase it. Now it was just a question of getting it to our place. We decided to rent a U-Haul truck. Even though we have friends with trucks and could probably call in favors, we didn't think all of the furniture would fit in one trip, and it was easier to just pay the $20 and do it all in one trip, and save up our favors for something more important. We got the furniture loaded into the truck without much problem, but as we were driving back to our apartment, it started raining. This was bad for two reasons. One, no one likes moving furniture in the rain. Two, we had put our old couch out on the curb, hoping some Sunday morning garbage picker would take it. But the chances of someone taking it decreased exponentially the more rain-soaked the couch got. By the time we pulled up to our house, it had stopped raining enough to allow us to move in the couch and all the tables. I vacuumed furiously while we waited for the rain to let up enough to get the rest of the furniture. It did, and we did, and suddenly we had a room full of furniture!

We didn't even try to pretend that we were going to get creative with the furniture arrangement. Jim wanted the chair/ottoman combo in a prime television viewing spot, but this was just not possible without moving the entertainment center, which was more than either of us were willing to do. The final arrangement, as shown in these pictures, is a little more cramped than we are used to, but I'm sure it will be fine once we are acclimated. It's so weird to actually have choices of where to sit! And be comfortable! And it looks decent! I should point out that in some of these photos, the furniture appears to have big dirty spots, and it really doesn't. It must have been the lighting or something. My biggest concern was that the furniture would clash horribly with the Oriental rug, but it's not that bad. It's not what I would choose if I were going to set up a room from scratch, but new rugs are expensive and it's not as bad as I had feared, so we're sticking with it. I think the Feng Shui of the room is probably all messed up because it's kind of like a maze to get from one part of the room to the other. We were a little concerned about that (not the Feng Shui aspect, but the tripping over the ottoman a la Rob Petrie aspect), but I'm sure we'll deal. Even though it leaves a lot less empty space in the room, as I told Jim, it's not like we organize kickball games in the living room. What do we need empty space for?

You wouldn't think I could go on for an entire journal entry about my new furniture, would you? Well, you'd be wrong. I just did that. If you're still awake, I commend you.

P.S. Reunion Countdown: 26 days away!