Way back on Valentine's Day, hubby took me furniture shopping. Our original plan was to find something to replace the ancient couch and chairs in our sun room (this is the place where we all gather when my large family descends upon us in December, so it is essential to have comfortable seating options). Thus, we started at the furniture resale stores, hoping to find something second hand which would do the job. We ended up finding a really lovely new reclining sofa/love seat set at a different store. Thinking the new set would be too nice to use for the sun room, we decided to put the new set in the living room and shift our tan sofa and chair set into the sun room. The perfect plan.
First, we waited and waited for the furniture to be delivered. Two separate delivery dates were set and scuttled, thanks to delays on the store end. When the set finally arrived on Tuesday, we discovered a giant glitch in the perfect plan. The tan set cannot be moved into the sun room because of the new sliding glass doors we had installed about a year ago. The couch is about an inch and a half too big. Goodwill picked up the old furniture on the porch/sun room on Wednesday. Now we are stuck with the couch and recliner in the dining room (awaiting a decision on where they will go).
We thought about moving the couch from our guest room into the sun room, but that one is patterned and not the best match for the other sun room furniture (two old orange - yes, you read that right, orange recliners). There's an old neutral couch in the basement (a room we hope to turn into a gaming room for the younger boys once they reach middle school), but it is almost too heavy to move (seriously, it is like the thing is made out of bricks). So, for now, we are inundated with furniture in our front rooms and don't know how long this situation will last before we resolve the furniture dilemma.
The shifting couch dilemma is compounded by the entertainment center dilemma. We had one of those old giant oak entertainment centers in the living room. It matched the oak desk nicely and fit with the rest of the furniture, but hubby hated the whole wall being crammed with furniture.
He also thought the entertainment center was out of style. Thus, he purchased a sleek glass t.v. stand and a newer flat-screen television to replace the old behemoth in the photo. We shifted the oak clunker to the dining room awaiting its sale on Craigslist. Alas, no one is buying the outdated entertainment centers, so as expected, it failed to sell. Thus, it is in the dining room as well (you might wonder how we can even eat with so much furniture crammed into this room, but it is spacious enough to still leave room for comfortable eating around the table).
I hate the new t.v. stand. It shows every drop of dust moments after dusting it. Moreover, with fewer shelves, it didn't allow enough room to leave our old turntable record player plugged in (yes, we still have one of those and records to go with it, not that we use it, as my husband is keen to point out). I'm not a fashion-conscious individual, so I'm trying to convince him to move the big, old oak piece back into the living room and shift the t.v. stand into the boy's room (currently crammed with a daybed with trundle, a captain's bed and a bunk bed set, which we are attempting to sell, as well). Alas, until the bunk bed goes, we cannot shift the t.v. stand or the oak entertainment center. So, we are stuck with furniture all over the place, basically.
We don't have a showcase home. Thankfully, we're not the type who entertain. Apart from school friends who come over, we never invite people over. Still, it's going to be a bit uncomfortable to have all this shifting furniture taking up space until we sort the whole thing out. It almost makes me laugh.
The plans certainly have "gone awry," but in light of recent days, we can thankfully look at the furniture issue as a mere wrinkle. My mother went into the emergency room this past weekend with chest pains radiating into her chin. They kept her over the weekend and finally, after performing a heart catheterization, discovered a blockage in an artery to the heart and were able to put in a stent. The doctor said that if they hadn't found this at this time, she would have certainly suffered a heart attack. We are so grateful for the doctor's intervention.
There was a brief period where she was very confused and I was concerned that she had suffered a stroke. The thought of not being able to communicate clearly with my mom was a significant blow and I was reeling. I was also thanking the Lord for our recent trip down to visit my parents in Florida over spring break. A reminder that you never know when life will take you down a different path and things will change forever. Thus, the furniture is an inconvenience that will eventually get sorted. Despite our plans going awry, we have much to be grateful for and I'm going to give my mother a gigantic hug the next time I see her (hopefully soon, as they often come in June). And, as an added bonus, she'll have lots of seating options when she comes - ha!
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Wrote the above post on Thursday. Today, all is well again. We were able to move the tan furniture into the guest room (where it has produced a cozy little reading nook in one corner which I certainly expect to utilize fully). The older couch in the guest room easily fit through the sliding doors to go in the sun room and a couch cover makes it a decent match. Hubby still won't agree to give me back my huge entertainment center (is simply going to donate it to Goodwill), but it was a good thing we still had all those beds in the little boys' room for a sleepover Trevor hosted last night. Also, called my mother yesterday and she is doing really well. So the plans all went well after all, just not as anticipated. As ever, learning to go with the flow.
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