We have long had a master plan for how we wanted to reorganize the house. It made sense to hold off on at least some of it until after Edie girl graduated and moved into her own place, the idea being that she would take some of the furniture with her that we hoped to replace. With her graduating last May and moving into her new apartment last week, the time had come to execute.

The idea was that we’d get a sectional sofa for the den and put a full-size bed in her bedroom, creating a proper guest room. Our den has done double duty as both our tv room and our guest room for well over a decade, but with the futon that made this all possible  dying a few years ago, only to be replaced by a plain sofa, we haven’t had more than an air mattress to offer overnight guests these last few years.

A quick glance at my schedule made me realize I should go furniture shopping before she moved out so that I could arrange to have the new items delivered after she had left. In my head, this would make for a seamless transition, allowing me to prep the spaces the new furniture was going in the days between her moving and the delivery.  I happened to be under scheduled last week, so I decided to take a little field trip down to Greenfront Furniture in Farmville. For those of you unfamiliar with Greenfront, they have 13 warehouses full of furniture and accessories, often offering fantastic prices. My plan was to find a new sofa for the den, a new bed for Edie’s room, (aka, our new guest room) and have it delivered together. Two birds, one stone, etc.

I did a full floor plan with dimensions on everything in the den including the radiator, door widths and swing, window height and placement. I carried this with me to Farmville along with a tape measure. I sat down and fleshed out my budget, knowing exactly how much I wanted to spend and not one penny over. I was prepared.

I wandered through six buildings at Greenfront before I found it in the “Boneyard”, aka, Green Tag Clearance department.  The color and scale was perfect. I looked at the price tag and squealed out loud. I measured it. I measured it again. I double checked my floorplan. OMIGOD it would fit. The price was well within my budget, almost in line with what I had hoped to pay.  I snapped a photo and sent it to Pat, saying “FOUND IT”.

I grabbed a salesperson and proceeded to purchase it. I learned that their delivery schedule was a month out, but if I picked it up myself, I could save an extra 20% off that ticket price, in addition to the delivery fees. I really did not want to wait a month to hatch my master plan of reorganizing the house, so after fleshing out a plan over the phone with Pat, reserving a U-haul to execute said plan, I purchased the sofa. Feeling quite pleased with myself, I wandered back over to the bedding building to purchase a bed. This was where my plan started to show signs of falling apart. Greenfront doesn’t stock full size beds (which was the size frame we had in the attic), it would have to be ordered. It would be easier (and cheaper) to just find one around town, so I cut bait and drove home, delighted to have fulfilled the biggest and most challenging part of my master plan.

The next morning found me driving a U-haul cargo van back down to Farmville to pick up my sofa. When I showed up, the warehouse guys were leery the sofa would fit, but I assured them, I had measured and double measured. It would fit, they just had to play a little tetris to get it in over the wheel hubs. And so it did.

Back home, Pat, Edie & I unloaded the shorter section of the sofa into the house no problem. The longer section however, proved to be a different story. It was heavy. The straps that would have been helpful to have to attach it to our dolly were in my car, at the U-haul place near the Putt-Putt off Rio Road. We struggled to get it out of the van but finally had it on the street. As we stood there wondering how the hell were we going to get this thing into the house, I noticed our retired neighbor Dave come out and slowly wander up the street, knocking on doors as he did.

Turns out, he was trying to rustle up help for us. Because you know, that’s how this neighborhood is. He finally got Bill & Will from across the street to come lend a hand and the six of us (Dave, Bill, Will, Pat, Edie & myself) got the sofa into the front door and in the living room. There were questions as to how we would get it to it’s final destination, but I waved them off. It will fit, it’s all going to work I assured everyone. I measured! I confirmed my measurements! I have a plan! It’s going to work! Besides, we needed to move some other rooms around before we could get it into the den, so we had it from here.

The great house reorg had begun. Edie girl, in the midst of packing, kept asking why this couldn’t wait two days for her to move out. Uhm, because, this is when I had the time to do it. Also, remember the last time we did something like this was two days before I was scheduled to have stomach surgery, so clearly, this is what we do when facing a slightly life changing situation, we reorganize the house. This isn’t her going back to college where her mailing address for things like voting remains this house, this is her going out on her own in the world with a real job and her own health insurance. This is real empty nesting. We did it, we successfully raised and launched a fully functioning adult into the world. And this is how we wrap our heads around this new stage in life, by reorganizing the house.

Having recently taken a new job, Pat finally admitted that the sunroom is in fact, his office after using it as such since early 2020. The glider set in there that I bought when we bought this house, the one I reupholstered twice (!), was just not cutting it in terms of comfortable day long seating as his office. Part of the reorg was selling the glider set (it’s in a good home, with a lovely young couple expecting their first baby!) and putting the sofa currently in the den in the sunroom. With the new sectional in the house, we started executing the plan, cleaning as we went, moving the large items around, while leaving end tables and lamps scattered here and there. Before we could move the sectional into the den, we had to lay out a new rug Pat had picked up for free on Facebook marketplace. To be perfectly honest, we weren’t entirely sure the rug would fit until we rolled it out into the room. Some careful placement of it and hooray! It fit! It’s quite nice too, so double score!

Rug down, it was time to move the sectional into place. The shorter, lighter portion of the new sofa was easily moved. However, once again, the longer section proved to be more challenging.

Turns out it was 3 inches too long to stand on end and slide down the hallway. Short of taking a chain saw to it, we could not for the life of us figure out how to get it out of the living room and into the den. At some point, Pat got the idea that it could come in through a window, but seeing how the den windows at the back of the house are on the second floor (because our house is built on a hill), we would need to rent equipment in order to lift it. Oi. I ran across the street and asked Charles if he could come take a look and offer some problem solving. He confirmed the window option was the best idea, but why did it have to be a den window, when Edie’s bedroom window was right there at ground level? We could slide it through her window, across the hall and boom.

Genius. We had a plan.

It was at this point Edie loudly said once again, “CAN THIS NOT WAIT TWO DAYS FOR ME TO MOVE OUT?”

We realized she had a point. And we needed to round up some proper help to move the sofa back out the front door, in through her window and to its final destination. She would be taking the furniture in front of her window, so if we just waited, all we would have to do is take the window out.  We agreed to hit pause, leaving the longer end of the sectional in the living room for the duration. After sleeping on it, I woke up the next morning realizing I should just hire movers to get it done. I made some calls and had someone lined up by 9 am that day for the following Monday. That gave us time to move Edie out, carry out our weekend travel plans and then be ready to put the house back together the beginning of the week.

The movers arrived as scheduled Monday afternoon. It took them no more than 10 minutes to pull the sofa out, shove it through the window and to its proper place. I would like to point out that paying for the U-haul AND the movers was still less than what I would have paid for the sofa had I waited for them to deliver. And I still would have had the same issue of figuring out how to get it in the den, so no regrets on that decision. Besides, it gave the neighbors something to do on an otherwise quiet Wednesday afternoon.

The new sofa fits nicely in the room. The new bed for Edie’s room was delivered Tuesday morning, so I have all the new furniture in place. I’m not touching anything else in that room for the time being – the new bed is so she has someplace to sleep when she comes home, while also having a place for guests. I still need to sort out the end table and lamp situation which is going to be a full reorg of the entire inventory. I also still haven’t rehung artwork after painting the living room this spring, so I’ve got that on my list too. I don’t love the new pillows that came with the sofa, so I plan on making new covers for them. I also need to make some sort of mat for Daisy to go on the new sofa so she doesn’t leave her mud stains and fur all over it. I do not know how that dog can get a grooming and still off gas large amounts of dust but it’s a fact of my life.  And I’m still on the hunt for the right bookcase to go in the corner of the living room where I want to take out a desk out to hold my cookbook collection.

We started the year with a new roof in January, which then allowed us to repair the damage to the living room ceiling so we could paint it. Along the way, I had the old blue wingback chair in there reupholstered, which now has me itching to do the same to a few other pieces around the house. The house hasn’t been fully together since early January in-between all these projects, but I think I see the light at the end of the house refresh/reorg tunnel.  Then again, when you’ve lived in an old house for a long time, it’s always something. But at long last, we have a proper guestroom, our first ever brand new piece of furniture that’s not a mattress and it’s starting to look like actual grown ups live here. Who’d have thunk it?