Less Home and Garden, more Home

Dear Person-who-took-a-brown-couch-to-the-consignment-store, forever now known as Couch Lady:

Can I just say something? I SO did not want to add another couch to my living room.

You know me — well, not technically I suppose, but you know people like me. We like our living rooms to look magazine perfect. The sofa cushions plumped just so, the area rug perfectly aligned and honkin’ big bouquets of fresh flowers about which you have lied about the price to yourself.

(That conversation sounds like this. “Oh, look, these pretty flowers would really liven up the dreary winter days. It’s really no more than buying a latte. And I rarely do that so I deserve this honkin’ big bouquet.)

We like things dusted. We like artsy-fartsy arrangements of antique vases and, I dunno, brass keys and a precious collection of our father’s cats eye marbles. We like people coming in and saying “Oh, this is so beautiful. I just love what you’ve done.”

At which you smile, shake your head and murmur, “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry it’s a mess today.”

You know who we are, Couch Lady. You might be us.

I’ve loved the living room I’ve created in the last few years, a blend of contemporary and whimsical with “just right” seating. Throw pillows that took me forever to find and a “fun” shaggy rug in bright green.

I wanted to lick my living room, it was that delicious. She said modestly.

No matter how scrumptious, however, there was the problem of not enough seating. The perfect couch and chair (which, it pains me to say out loud, took me four years to choose. FOUR YEARS.) are not holding everyone. Unless we are feeling ever-so-close.

“Too many adult-sized butts,” eldest daughter termed it. “The little girls are too old to just pull up a piece of the floor anymore.”

Mind you, “the little girls” are taller than most of the rest of the family, and fully formed.

And there was just no room for company. Now that we’re hosting some of Camo Man’s events at my house, that’s a big problem. Which is not to say it’s a big butt problem.

 I began half-heartedly scanning the furniture horizon for something affordable that was not also hideous. I had no optimism at all, given how long it took me to find couch happiness the first go round.

But, Couch Lady, you saved me! At some point, you decided to take your perfectly wonderful mocha couch to the consignment shop. Who knows why  … I understand not being able to live with a piece of furniture for ANOTHER SECOND. Ask Camo Man, I’m kinda legendary for that.

Anyhoo, on total impulse, I swung into the parking lot and went in. Mostly so I could tell myself I tried to find something used. I walked the store, going in a full circle before I spied it.

There it was, in contemporary and clean lines and a lovely shade of brown that would complement my living room perfectly. Like I had dreamed the right thing into existence. Your darling — comfortable — sofa was ultra spiff and not a hole or loose thread to its name.

Which now happens to be “New Couch.”

George, owner of the store, told me New Couch had come in just days before. “I think she told me it was three or four years old,” he maintained when I tried to haggle on the price. This did not work.

Nonetheless Couch Lady, you made my day, my week, my month! And I can’t tell you how relieved Camo Man is to not be going from store to store and threatened with a trip to Portland and Ikea. In fact, he is the one who really should be thanking you.

Bonus gravy, my living room actually looks bigger and more homey. And STILL hip. Everyone has a spot for their aforementioned butt. How can that even happen?

Couch Lady, call me up. I owe you coffee. A latte that costs about as much as a honkin’ big bouquet of fresh flowers, actually.

Sincerely,

New Couch’s mommy