Three weeks ago, Ami and I ordered a couch. Wait, let's go back a little farther. Six weeks ago, Ami and I moved in to our new apartment on West 1st. Our voices echoed off the bare walls as we walked from one empty room to the next. We had a bed, but little else. Considering we had just moved to Vancouver, Canada from Wellington, New Zealand, the lack of furniture of any kind should be understandable. Luckily, a friend of a friend gave us a futon and some dishes, or else we would have been eating take out on the carpet for weeks. So began our hunt for a couch.
Back in Welly, we had two gorgeous love seats. Ami's memory is a bit clouded, though, because she says "Meh, I didn't like them that much." She's lying; she loved them. Dark brown leather, classic square shape, hand-made in Wellington--just lovely. Needless to say finding something comparable in Vancouver was going to take more than a trip to Ikea (a place that, I've decided, is a portal to hell).
We shopped around for three weeks before finding exactly what we were looking for: dark gray upholstery, again the classic square body, hand-made in Vancouver, and with a chaise. I've never been so excited about a couch. I liked it so much I dreamed that the Jamie of 7 years ago suddenly appeared and kicked me square in the nuts. The store owner, Kareem, told me they would deliver it in three weeks.
Three weeks later (yesterday) I'm waiting outside the venerable Croatian Villa for the delivery van. What do you know, but he's right on time? Bang-on 5:00. Ben, a waifish boy of 23 years, springs out of the back of the graffiti-embellished van. Together, we begin to move the couch. First the cushions, and finally the 7-foot long base.
We soon learn a little something about the architects responsible for my apartment building, the Croatian Villa--they were all right-handed. How do we know this? Because they must have drawn the building plans with their left hands. Observe:
The back door only opens half way, meaning we must first move the couch into the hall, then shut the door to move it back through the hallway to the stairs (elevator? no such luck). At the door to the stairs we hit our first impasse: at no angle with the couch fit through. How did we get it through the back door but not this door? Because the door to the stairs is narrower. We flip, shuffle, lean, squirm, shove, curse, drop, lift, rotate, and curse some more. Nothing. Let's try the front entrance, I tell Ben. It means walking up one extra flight of stairs, but we don't have much of a choice.
I meet him at the front door. We get through the hallway to the stairs, tilt it perpendicular to the floor, pull the bottom through the door--so far so good--and I, on the inside of the hall to the stairs, begin to flip my side up so that it will stand. Impasse number 2: it won't stand. How did it stand in one hallway but not the other? Because the ceilings are different heights. Brilliant.
The couch never made it. In the end, we had to send it back to its maker. But not after trying to pull it up through the balcony door, three storeys off the ground. . . well, we considered it, anyway.
So, couch-less, we will host Molly (little sis) and JF for the next four days. The futon that once took pride of place in the lounge will become their bed. I foresee much time spend outside the apartment--hoping the weather holds out.
3 comments:
I think Libby and Molly would disagree with you about Ikea. Libby especially. She LOVES the store. Half of our baby's room is decorated with Ikea crap. Personally, I think it IS Hell, not just a portal, but I think that about any shopping establishment with more than three aisles.
Lessons Learned: I've found that when starting out in a new city, renting furniture worked well for Cathy & I. We'd move our clothes & our pots & pans only. That way when it was time to move on, you just call the rental place & they come take the beds, sofa, lamps, etc away & you're on your unencumbered way.
PS: Don't forget to get an escape clause written into your lease (both furniture & lodging). That way, if the job tanks, you're not strapped for breaking your lease.
Kent
We actually like Ikea but now think there must be some evil juju about the place due to our couch. We bought a couch from there. A big comfortable leather couch with a fancy name that totally escapes us. The delivery people managed to lose the feet to the couch and we didn't realize this until almost 6 months after the delivery when we moved it to sweep underneath. The treasures discovered beneath shall go unnamed as well. We went to Ikea to see if they had feet but they couldn't help us because we couldn't remember the name of our adopted couch. That is not the evil part. Now, about 10 years have passed and it comes time to put our now unnamed couch out of the apartment. Time has taken its toll on our once beautiful and comfortable friend as well as efforts by our well-meaning but generally harmless cat. We prepared for the big day by enlisting the help of some strong neighbors. We prepared the couch by removing cushions and removing the horrid folding mattress to reduce the carrying weight of the couch. We clear a path and open the apartment door nice and wide to allow passage of our old friend. Here's the horror part. Try as we may, by standing it up and tiling and twirling our Ikea couch every which way possible we find that in no way will it actually fit OUT through the door. Several repeated attempts all failed. I then took out the trusty tape measure to check the dimensions of the couch and compare them to the door. Every measurement we take shows the couch is larger than the door. We see that even if we were to remove the door from its hinges that the couch will still not fit through the door. None of us understand it since the Ikea delivery men brought the same couch in through the one and only door to the apartment. No cranes were used, no holes made in the side of the building smashed to permit the entry of our Ikea couch. The simple matter is now it has become too big to fit through the door. Did the couch grow while it stayed with us? Has it eaten something? We've got a cousin we haven't seen or heard from in a few years. We consider the possibilities but dismiss them as they simply make no sense. Do couches actually eat things or people? For now the couch stands on end in the corner like some great monolith. We eat blue jello pudding and contemplate this great mystery of the universe.
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