Suzanna Danna

Let’s talk a little turkey. Or cow. Whatever. I just want to discuss my new furniture.

A few weeks ago (during the wait of indeterminate time of suck [read: waiting to get the damn keys to our new house]) Mister and I went on a little shopping trip. We had discussed this particular shopping trip for weeks, months… nay, even years.

We’ve been discussing getting new living room furniture since we realized that we were meant to be together forever and destined to intermingle all of our worldly possessions.

Here are two little hints if you are the new kid to this journal:
1) My husband is so Type A that he would have an aneurysm oh, say if I tied him to a chair and folded a map in front of him… and FOLDED IT WRONG! On Purpose.
2) Me = “la dee da… oh, look… something shiny.” [wanders off into a pasture… barefoot… with a messy ponytail and a piece of banana hanging from one hand that I had forgotten to either finish or throw away.]

And our furniture reflects our personalities.

Oh, and I’m only going to talk about living room furniture… because if we get into pre-marriage kitchen possessions it could get ugly.

His: Seven piece living room set. Matching three cushion couch, love seat and over stuffed chair in the muted tones of cream and taupe. Two ivory colored, glass topped end tables and a matching glass topped coffee table. End tables and coffee tables reflect the swirling patterns caught in the artful design of the fabric of the couch, love seat and chair. One Large Oriental area rug in tones of red to set off the olive, gold and russet pillows thrown on the couch, and finally one three panel silk pillow in matching tones for the chair.

Mine: Dark green 1994 sofa sectional with reclining ends, a coffee table that was basically brass loops with a glass top that my mother found for me at a garage sale for $15 and an end-table-standing-lamp combo (oooh, fancy a combo) table that had been sitting next to my father’s “relaxin’” chair since I could remember.

Hi, who wants to sit where?

In the rent house his stuff went downstairs in the living room. And my stuff? Upstairs, where it wouldn’t be seen except by those who already loved us and could not Indian-give their love because of the sins of one ugly couch. Well, except the loopy coffee table, that didn’t survive a move.

So when we went on this shopping trip a few weeks ago we pretty much already had in mind what we wanted. Large, dark brown, expensive looking, leather, man furniture.

Those were seriously the criteria: It has to be large… Mister is 6’5” and is tired of having his knees hit his chest when he sits on a sofa. Dark brown. I am sick (oh Lord, so very sick) of cream and taupe. I want something that says, “Come here, be comfy, do not be afraid to sit on me… I will not stain if you drop your crouton on me… like oh, cream and taupe maybe? Hmmmm” I want it to look very nice. I am not in the market for naugahyde* or pleather or chitlin covered furniture. I want it to be beautiful and look like we are grown ups. And finally I want it to look like man furniture, not some fairy little tea-cup Chippendale sofa with its dainty little legs. I want MAN furniture. Something that a gaggle of my girlfriends and I could curl up on and plot the coup of the Sephora at the Galleria. Something that would be perfectly at home in a new living room where we could entertain and serve many gin and tonics… good lookin stuff.

So we went on a search. We looked at Haverty’s, Bassett, La-Z-Boy and many other places that had been suggested to us. We spent all day one rainy Saturday afternoon running in and out of furniture stores and sitting on all of their sofas; sectionals, group sofas, three-cushion, four-cushion, chair and a half(s) with storage ottomans. Sweet Judas Priest in a tutu, I have never seen so many pieces of furniture.

I thought Mister was going to cry when we left the last store. In every single place we would walk in and sit on the first thing that appealed to us. A salivating salesperson would saunter over and ask if we were looking for anything in particular. I go so tired of being led all over the store(s) all for naught that I started just asking Mister, “Baby, would you mind standing?” And when he would stand up, I would gesture to him and reply to the sales person, “I want something that would fit [points] him.” The salesperson would usually say something like, “Oh, we have some very tall couches right… over… here” as they were walking away quickly to show us the most extravagant furniture they had.

We found a few things we liked, but everything was too short for Mister. His knees would be all pointy as opposed to nice relaxed knees and the sales person would brightly offer, “Put bricks under it! That would make it taller!!!” while nodding enthusiastically.

Gah.

I asked each (of the fifty frillion) stores if they could customize furniture. “Oh, yes… of course!” Each one of them replied. And when I asked about couch leg height as opposed to just fabric, they got this ‘I smell something akin to Limburger’ look on their face and denied me. “So, you are just offering fabric choices, really not customization, correct?” I asked one sales person. She said, “Well… uh, right. The average person…” And that is where I stopped her because I felt this… heat behind me that told my spidey senses that Mister was about to lose his shit completely and roar, “Do I look average to you lady? Huh?! DO I!?”

Finally soaked with rain and very frustrated, we headed home.

The next day I started looking online for the furniture stores I knew to be out there, the ones that would make furniture to my specifications, without requiring a kidney donation and maybe a sacrifice of the hoopty. I put together a spreadsheet (oh, don’t look at me like that. I can be Type A too… just sometimes, maybe… when the weather is right… and my hair is perfect.) of all of the stores that we needed to go see next.

At the top of my list was a little place over here behind my building in the decorating district called The Leather Sofa Company. On their website I noticed that they had several selections for stitching, nailheads and most importantly, legs. All different sizes of legs. So I called Mister and asked him to come to my office after he got off of work. We drove over and walked in. It smelled wonderful and a nice guy named Marc came over and asked if we needed any help. I pointed to Mister and said, “Have anything to fit him?” He said, “Sure do.” And wasn’t lying.

We looked all over and I fell in love with a sofa on the floor. It was already pretty tall with little one-bun (little round wooden sofa legs that look like – well, buns) legs on it and I asked if they could change the legs to the three-bun. “Sure.” I was so happy I may have made out with him a little.

But the best part was yet to come. I asked him if he had a chair to fit the couch, he did but he didn’t think it would be large enough to be comfortable for Mister. Mister went over, sat in it and asked, “Could we make this a chair and a half?” “Yes sir.” “Bring it up about three inches?” “Sure could.” “Make the cushion about three inches deeper?” “We could, yes.” “And put those three-bun legs on it? And even make the back cushion a little firmer?” “Yep.” And Mister was so happy he may have made out with Marc a little bit too.

So, we found my dream sofa… it really is awesome ya’ll. And a chair, made for a king. I am so excited. It is all being delivered on Saturday. I may make out with the delivery guy too.

I will definitely take pictures. I have a piece of the leather in my tote. It is called casino mink. And no, I don’t make out with the piece of leather. That would just be sick.

PS. Shout out to Sil and her husband and all of their beautiful leather furniture… for they made me a leather convert. That stuff can stand up to nuclear fall out** ya’ll.

*“Took a bunch of little naugas to make that couch.” Name that quote. Heh.
**(a toddler)