Out with the old, in with the new.

I was very fortunate to have my parents buy me a used living room furniture set for my very first apartment during college. It was so huge, comfy and much nicer than most people's college furniture. Well, eight years and five moves (one being halfway across the country) later, we were more than happy to recently say goodbye to the big couch that was once a blessing but was now more a curse than anything. Since all the cushions were removable, every last one of them inevitably ended up spread across the entire downstairs to create a giant toddler obstacle course nearly everyday. Plus the couch had more stains than we could count.

Brittany and Dennis (Brian's sister and her husband) gladly accepted our extrememly used couch and oversized chair to furnish their newly carpeted basement/toy room. It was raining the night they came to haul it away so they had to bring their van and not a truck as originally planned. The furniture was pretty big and Brian and I were skeptical that it would fit in one trip. But lo and behold it did and we have pictures to prove it!

With the furniture gone, we were able to steam clean our carpet (it desperately needed it!) and spend 3 whole days with one big (mostly empty) room. The boys loved having all the extra space to play and I seriously entertained the thought of sending the new furniture back and giving up all hope of having adult seating when we have visitors or having anywhere to watch tv after the kids go to bed. However, when the new furniture was delivered, it was so nice to finally have a comfortable, clean place to sit and relax or watch tv. For the first week or so the boys made it their trampoline, but have since moved past that (well at least 85% of the time). Of course with small children, we decided to add a protection plan. Sure enough, within 2 weeks of having the couch we had a call in for specialty cleaning to remove a spot caused by one Peter Doe who decided it would be funny to remove his dirty diaper and run away from Daddy by climbing on the couch and rubbing his bottom against the cushion! Seems like we might be getting our money's worth out of our warranty over the next few years.

Nonetheless, we are excited to have purchased our first pieces of real (didn't have to build it ourselves) furniture.