We have a couch!

Today we went looking for a couch for the living room. Our backs and butts hurt from sitting on the family room floor with the baby, even though it has a thick pad its on cement slab. We had a few things on our wishlists:

1. Long enough to fill the 136" back wall against the kitchen.
2. Leather, for durability, preferably in a brown tone.
3. (Mike) Arm chair with a recliner, a "media chair" with arm rests on both sides that could face the TV. Although I was opposed to arms on both sides in the middle of the couch.
4. (Bree) Either a sectional or chaise that would extend seating into the family room. Although Mike was opposed to a chaise.

We visited one place, didn't really see what we were looking for since it was a "take it as it is" kind of place. Of course, we went next door to Video Only to price out flat screens. We currently have a 35" old tube TV that we inherited sometime in college. It and the monster entertainment center it sits on that is 10+ years old need to go. Video Only is having a big sale for Labor Day so we will probably go back and get a $60" Panasonic plasma for <$2000.

After that we headed to Bassett furniture, which is where we got our dining room set 6 years ago. We weren't really expecting to see much since they're a design studio, too. We started looking around and got approached by a sales person. She directed us to the sectionals in leather and pointed out a floor model. It was dark brown leather and huge but it was a possibility. We ended up learning more about sectionals while we were there which was helpful. There are different "pieces" to sectionals that you can piece together, like at the right. There are armless chairs, left and right end chairs that can recline, corner pieces that are square or wedge shaped, and consoles with cupholders and arm rests. Some even have "oversized" pieces that are 1.5 or 2 times larger than normal ones.

This particular piece has a right manual recliner armchair, one console, two armless armchairs, one corner wedge and a right hand powered recliner armchair. It was a floor model that was on a massive mark down because the line was being discontinued. Its replacement line was also available and we looked at that, too. We took measurements and went home to feed the baby, get her down for a nap and said we would return later. Once we took more measurements at home we thought it could work! We were so optimistic we dropped off the baby at Mike's parents' house and traded our car for their van.

When we went back and looked at the piece, we were able to get it marked down even more, for a total of 60% off! The sales rep had done her homework in our absence. She had priced out each individual piece both with and without the sale price, written the size specs down for each and worked out a total. She did the same for the replacement line in case we decided to create our own new one rather than going with the old one. The new line was available in leather but only a dark dark brown that was almost black so that nixed that idea. While we were sitting on the sofa, to really make sure we were ready to take it home, we started looking at the arm chair that matched it. Mike decided he really liked it and asked to add it to our purchase.

So we ended up with a 6 piece leather sectional sofa (two reclining armchairs, one powered, one console, two armless chairs and a corner wedge) plus a separate reclining armchair for less than half the original price of the sectional. Even with tax it was all <$4,300! We love that place and highly recommend it.

The only tricky part of our great score was getting it out of there. Since Bassett is a design store, they don't usually have people walk out the door with their furniture. Usually you custom order furniture and it is made in their warehouse, then delivered to your house. Since they didn't have any "warehouse guys," only sales people, they had no one that would help us move it. Apparently every cripple in the place was working that day. The manager came over to assure us that even though we saw a man working there, he was a grandpa and had tendinitis so he shouldn't help. And our sales person apparently visits the chiropractor weekly. They lent us two dolleys and let us move the van up close to the door. Since it broke down into pieces, all less than 3' across, it wasn't too hard to move. Even though the sales people all said they couldn't, two of them helped us get it on dolleys and they all helped with the doors. They were all really nice about it, you could just tell they weren't used to manual labor. Makes you wonder how they rearranged the floor designs all the time?

We managed to get the whole sectional in the van but just. We had to leave the armchair to come back for tomorrow. It was a very packed van. We drove back to our house and on the way we realized that when we left our car at his parents with the keys, we left our house keys. Luckily his parents had a key to our side gate on their key ring for getting the dog. We unloaded everything and with manuevering, we got it into the patio. We figured it would be fine until we came back from dinner at my folks.

When we got back, Mike managed to get each piece in the house by himself while I put the baby down. We played with a few arrangements but had some sticking points. We don't want the couch to go into the space in front of the stairs into the family room. We don't want to cover the floor register that is in front of the back door to the patio. We don't want to block the door to the patio. We found one arrangement that will probably work. Right now it feels a little cramped but we're used to a completely empty room. We plan to live with it until we are both off again this weekend to see what we think long term. We may opt to take out the wedge and have it all against the wall. I would just have to find somewhere to put the wedge. I think it looks great and we are currently both relaxing on it; which is so much more comfortable than the floor.