We picked out our biggest wedding present in the week after our wedding day, and it arrived about a month after that. What was it, you ask? Well this was our living room before (clutter and all) :
And here is what our living room looks like now:
A new couch! And a leather couch at that! This is a gift from my very generous parents – my mum’s parents gave my mum and dad a leather couch as a wedding present, and the couch is still in good condition in my parents’ house. Leather lasts, so the stipulation was that we choose a leather couch within a certain budget. The living/kitchen/everything but bedroom area of our house is one big funnily-shaped room, so we knew we’d need a corner couch or two loveseats again. We thought the corner sectional would be the way to go. We checked out The Bay, and one of the couches that we liked there was by EQ3. I’d remembered seeing an EQ3 store down by our Ikea, so we paid a visit there to see what our other options were. It was great to see so many of the leather colours on furniture, rather than 6″ square swatches, and the Bay only carried 3 of the many lines of couches that EQ3 makes. We ended up buying an exact replica of one of the display couches, the EQ3 Solo in Raven leather:
Mr CB, acting cool in the store.
I also really wanted to buy this ottoman that was displayed by “our” couch, but we have nowhere to put it:
I love the one black section with the rest patterned! How awesome is that?
Buying direct from EQ3 was cheaper than the Bay, even though we could have had our registry discount applied to the purchase. Plus, the delivery time EQ3 quoted us was half the time the Bay quoted us. Sold!
Here comes the ‘lesson’ part of the post. If you know you have a large new piece of furniture set to arrive in 3-4 weeks time, start finding out who wants to take the old stuff ASAP. When we got the call that our couch was in town, it was about the time we were expecting it. We just weren’t expecting them to have a delivery driver ready to get it to us the next day! We (for some reason) expected to wait a week or two for delivery. At that point, we both posted on Facebook to see if anyone was interested in the old couches.
Mr CB had had a bite from a friend of his on Facebook, but she couldn’t get the couches before the new ones arrived, so I upended them and stuffed them in our entryway on the day the new one arrived. Mr CB’s friend wasn’t very quick about getting back to us, then wasn’t sure when she would come, blah blah blah… I got tired of waiting on her and posted the couches in the free section of Craigslist, and on Freecycle. I had a few bites on Freecycle, but most people said no once I’d sent them a picture. What up with that? One lady really wanted them, but her friend with a truck fell through so she had no way to get them out of our house. This went on for WEEKS before I thought about calling a charity to come pick them up. A lot of the ones I phoned wouldn’t pick up furniture (even if their website said they would. Grumpy Cinnamon Bun). Habitat for Humanity wanted a photo before they’d commit, so I sent one of the ones from the top of this post. They emailed me back saying ‘Sorry, we don’t do floral.’. WHAT? They’re not that bad! I felt a bit like a parent telling their child to eat their peas because there are ‘starving children in Africa!’. SOMEONE TAKE THESE COUCHES ALREADY. I know there are people in this city that must need furniture, but we had no way of connecting.
Finally, I found someone who could pick them up (Interfaith Thrift Stores)…. but it would be ten days. I was just happy to find someone who would take them off my hands, because by the time the nice Interfaith people come, they’ll have been hanging out in our entryway like this for a month:
Only a small fire hazard… Actually the door is still pretty clear, no worse than if our entryway was walled in instead of open (one giant room, remember?), but if I want anything from the storage room (the open door you see) or our coat closet (hiding) it’s an adventure.
Do as I say, not as I do. I wish I’d gotten on the couch problem sooner, and lived for a day or two with no couches rather than a month with twice as many as fit in here.
Did you get any furniture for your wedding? Do YOU want my couches before next Saturday?
They make me think of sunshine, which is good, because it is still -fricking cold out. The funny thing is that it is about -15C out (-22C with windchill), and felt oddly warm when we went out to get groceries tonight. See, temperature is all relative. After a couple days of -40C to -50C, -22C is positively balmy.
