Day +33: A New Couch!

We are the proud owners of a new, big, fat, lazy, slothy, comfy couch. It is delicious and yummy and screams "home" to us. And I love it!

Before you jump all over us and say "What bad parents - taking your child out furniture shopping when he should be in isolation", let me agree with you on that point. Yes, we took a calculated risk, and we did everything we could to mitigate the risks. Sean wore a mask the whole time, we went to the stores late in the afternoon, on a Sunday afternoon no less, where there were very few other customers, and he stayed in the stroller the whole time. We were at the shops for a very short period of time - the driving to and from the shops took three times as long as the shopping did.

Jonathan and I decided it was time to get a new couch, based on the fact that our couch (read: "my couch") was starting to give. The frame was sagging pretty badly at one end, and it was far too long for our living room. We really needed a couch that was no bigger than a 2.5 seater, and we certainly didn't need a chaise running off the side of the couch. We both wanted a fabric couch - neither of us ever really wanted a leather couch, and I really wanted the new couch to be much deeper than our current couch.

You may laugh, me, the short thing at 5'2", wanting a deep sofa. But in my head, once I had a family, I envisioned a big, fat, lazy, slothy (read: "deep"), comfy couch that the whole family could curl up on. Yes, the whole family, including my 6'1" husband, curled up on the couch. The current couch was great - I could definitely curl up on it, even with Sean in my lap, but Jonathan had to turn sideways to curl up. With a husband much taller than me, I also wanted a couch that, when he sat down, the end of the seat cushion reached the back of his knee, not ending half way up his thigh.

I bought our current couch, the 3.5 seater sofa + chaise in brown suede back in 2007. I was very much single and living in my one-bedroom apartment. I had always wanted a chaise lounge, and found one that gave me a few different configurations. My living room had a long wall where I put the couch up against, and it filled the room nicely. The company I bought the couch from was one I will NEVER deal with again, but the couch itself had been a faithful servant.

I had fallen asleep on this couch many a time, and the couch had seen many visitors over the years, including a few overnight guests. Even Jonathan's mum had spent a couple of nights on the couch when she came to visit us. It was, and still is, a comfortable couch, but it was time to buy a new one, with a frame that didn't protest under Jonathan's weight.

We had done a little bit of research prior to Sean's diagnosis, so this couch had been a long time coming. We had seen two that we liked in Ikea, but we weren't completely sold on those. Jonathan was keen to look at the Delta by King Furniture, because the Delta had the storage option that would suit us (with Sean's many toys). I was keen to look at the Jasper, so we agreed that King Furniture was a place to visit. We had been given a suggestion by our good friends Ian and Kate to visit Oz Design Furniture, as they had recently purchased a sofa from them and they loved it. So Jonathan looked up the store locations of both stores, and found they were both in the Home Hub Hills at Castle Hill. As we had also intended to drop in on Ian and Kate at Baulkham Hills to collect a camera I had purchased through Ian's work, the plan was forming and the pieces were falling into place.

Sean was such a good boy, letting us put the mask on him and strapping him into the pram when we arrived at the Home Hub Hills. He had had his nap, and had been fed, so he was in a good mood, and we walked briskly to the shops to try and look at the couches as quickly as possible. First stop: Oz Design Furniture. Ian and Kate had told us the model they bought, so we walked around, looking at the different couches, before finding it.

The Lincoln

I sat down, and I didn't want to get up. This was the couch I had dreamed of. This was the couch I had been searching for. It was like coming home. This was it. No other couch existed for me.

Jonathan liked it too, but he didn't want to rush into it, and it was, after all, the first couch we had seen, so after dragging me off the couch, we asked the salesperson Trent a few questions, before heading out the door to visit King Furniture.

We found the Delta as soon as we walked into the showroom. Jonathan sat down, and immediately noted it was not as comfortable as he thought it would be. Although he still liked the storage space, he was not as keen on the Delta now as he was before he sat down. We quickly found the Jasper, and sat down for a test drive. The comfort level was as good as the Lincoln, but at over twice the cost, I would much prefer to go with the Lincoln than the Jasper. Jonathan argued that we were paying for a steel frame in the Jasper, which was why it was more than double the price.

A rather scary sales lady tried to help us, but with broken English and clear frustration at us not falling at her feet and saying "Please, take our money now", she was not the person we wanted to speak to. She was a bit pushy, and a bit disorganised, and got quite huffy when we kept asking for measurements of the Jasper. Based on her (lack of) service alone, I didn't want to give King Furniture our hard earned cash!

We paid a quick visit to Harvey Norman as well, but it was getting quite late in the day, and none of their salespeople really seemed to want to help us. Plus the couches we saw didn't quite match up to the Lincoln. My heart was still set on the Lincoln, so we decided to head back to Oz Design Furniture to have another look, and to find out when their sales promotion was ending.

We asked Trent a few more questions once we got back to Oz Design Furniture, about the configurations and what we can do with the bits. Trent kindly told us that the sales promotion was due to end today, and after a few seconds of humming and harring, we decided to buy the Lincoln.

Yay!

So this is what we hope will be delivered to us in 6 weeks' time: a 2.5 seater, as well as a separate chaise lounge, in a colour called Glacier, that will match our rug nicely.

Oh, yes, you read it correctly. We bought TWO couches. And yes, we are replacing the fold up sofa futon bed as well.

We hope to donate the couch to a Vinnies Centre near us. The cushions are still good; it's just someone will need to have a look at reinforcing the frame a little. I will give them a call later this week to find out how much notice they will need to get a truck up to our place to collect the couch, around the same time our Lincoln is being delivered. We have already found a good home for the fold up sofa futon bed - it too had seen many visitors and had served us very well over the years.

It was a very productive outing. Sean was terrific through the shopping trip, although he did fall asleep just as we were paying for the couch. We headed to Ian and Kate's new abode in Baulkham Hills straight afterwards, with the intention of dropping in quickly to pick up a camera I had ordered from Ian. Ian and Kate were going to pay us a visit today, but they had both been feeling quite unwell all week, and were completely paranoid about sharing their germs with Sean, hence our "fly in, fly out" visit this afternoon.

As it turned out, our visit included our very own (separate) personal tours of Ian and Kate's gorgeous new home. Stunning, amazing, and gorgeous. And they seemed very happy to be there too. I loved their landscaped back courtyard - the previous owner had dumped a lot of money into making it spectacular, and Ian and Kate were thrilled with the results. As one should be - I would LOVE something like that in our paved courtyard area! And wouldn't you know it - our couch was the exact same colour as Ian and Kate's!

So, not only did we buy a new couch today, I also picked up my new camera! I have yet to do the "big reveal", the "unboxing", if you will, so stay tuned for that!

It had been a very productive day all round. With Jonathan's help, I cleaned out some of my old clothes and put them into bags to be donated to Vinnies. It was a job that was long long LONG overdue, and now I have a very neat and tidy chest of drawers, with all the clothes categorised in easy-to-find drawers. I will need to do more culling next weekend, but that's next weekend's job.

I realise that I now get quite excited over little things, but hey, who wouldn't be excited about finding their dream couch? I sincerely hope I have a much better experience with Oz Design Furniture than the last mob I bought furniture from. You can read about that here. I still shudder with rage whenever I think back to those few days when I was so severely jerked around by that furniture company!