Monday, November 21, 2011

Furniture Shopping Can Lead to An Existential Crisis

This past weekend, we spent an afternoon shopping for a couch. Our current couch was purchased 14 years ago to furnish our first apartment. It was part of a set that we bought for under $1,000. It was not high style nor was it high quality. We needed a place to sit and the couch filled that need.

I have hated that couch for the past 13 1/2 years. It's not my style. It doesn't really match the rest of the room. It's kind of ugly. But it was comfortable so it stayed.

I am embarrased to admit to the present state of the couch. But after 14 years, two kids and two cats, I am sure you can guess that it is not good. Finally, I got sick of looking at the tears and sitting on broken springs. It was time to buy a new couch.

We went shopping. We sat and layed on a bunch of couches. We saw some we liked and some we did not. But nothing really jumped out at us and said "this is it". I pondered do we do a red couch with neutral walls or a neutral couch with color on the walls. I asked Facebook the same question. I had no effen idea what to do. Comfy couch? Nice looking couch? Color? Neutral? It was all too much.

Then I turned to my husband and asked a profound question "What do we want from this couch?" It was followed by an even more profound question "Is this couch for right now or for the next 15 years?" Deep, heavy stuff. Profound and profoundly stupid.

I think the root of my problem is a question of "What do I want from my house?" I do not know if I want to keep the living room as a family room. I think I would rather re-finish the basement (that has been partially finished for the past 4 years) and have that be the family room.

Family room downstairs = nice fancy couch upstairs
Family room upstairs = nice comfy couch upstairs

What do I want? How do I decide? And given my track record of finishing the basement, are we going to be stuck with busted couch for the next 10 years?

1 comment:

Nancy said...

We've got the same existential crisis at our house. I got a couch three years ago that I loved from World Market, but the springs and cushions have turned to total crap and it'll cost more to fix than it's worth. We've spent months going back and forth about how we want our front room to function and how long of a "shelf life" we can expect from the piece with two not-so-petite grown ups, two growing-faster-than-they-should kids a cat and a dog. If you get this figured out, please let me know. Good luck!