We began redecorating with considerations of what we needed to remove from the house. Foremost on the list was a chocolate brown couch (c. 1982) that has a wide rib corduroy type texture. Imagine the worst pants you have ever seen. Then, imagine those pants as a couch and you get the basic idea of what we had before us. I have a hate-hate relationship with this sofa from long before I met my lovely fiancé. It was a gift (read: cast-off) from my grandparents and traveled with me from Chicago to Austin in a U-Haul which repeatedly broke down between point A and B. The truck finally died outside Oklahoma City, requiring my father and me to transfer the sofa from one truck to another, along with the rest of my worldly possessions.
The couch weighs as much as a Buick. It comes from those halcyon, pre-Ikea days when furniture was made from steel and little else, like a Detroit muscle car. Lifting this sofa a handful of times gave me pain I have not felt before or since. It almost crippled my father, who has an already delicate frame caused by drunkenly carrying a boat motor through the woods in the Canadian wilderness (but that’s another story). The couch has gone from two separate apartments to the condo, where it now rests in the sitting room. Having long since lost the casters that served as feet, it rests on a couple of two-by-fours like a broken down car.
Given this history, I was only too ready to sell this monstrosity or delight in tearing it apart and tossing the pieces in the dumpster. But the only couches we really liked were from places with price tags better suited to Sotheby’s than bourgeois home stores. We did, however, possess sufficient funds for an alternative project. Gradually, we added to or modified the contents of the room in a way that embraced this once hated piece of furniture and made it the veritable centerpiece of our plan for revamping our space. This embrace of a repulsive object allowed us to expand our imaginations and craft sensibilities into creating something that steered away from the overdone, catalog photo living area and into something that was collectively fashioned, rather than purchased readymade. At least, that is what we have decided to tell ourselves, but our additions have certainly helped. More importantly, it is surprising to realize the sheer joy in creating by hand certain additions to a space that one could buy.
Here is the entire room, including the couch, before we started the decorating process. Stop by tomorrow for more on the living room decorating.
Have you ever had a piece of furniture that you had to decorate around? If so, tell us about it.
