The Odyssey of the Couch

Our literate cat

The Amazing Bob and I live in a very small house. It’s not one of those fabulous tiny homes that are all the rage now but we’re petite compared to most properties in America today.

Starting in the ‘80s sometime, the country became overrun by McMansions. You know, those monster sized homes with a bathroom for every occupant, a giant eat in kitchen and a formal dining room, a living room AND a formal living room, a ‘home office,' bedrooms for everyone with the en suite Master bedroom having its very own living room. These are homes for families who never want to be in the same space together, I guess.

In any case, our house is, maybe 900 square feet (not including the basement) which totally works for us.

The Ocean Liner

Here’s the dealio on living in a home of this size though -- our furniture has to be smallish too. We’d bought a full size couch to replace our desperately uncomfortable Victorian love seat, beautiful though it was. I thought I’d just live on that new sofa. I’d curl up there and read, do the household accounts and even sketch while cozily ensconced in one little corner. Eh. No. It was definitely a comfy sofa but it just felt way too big -- like being on an ocean liner versus a nice, tidy sloop.

TAB on our new talking love seat

While passing a Pier 1, I saw the sweetest paisley patterned love seat. It promised to be a nicer, better fit and begged me to take it home.

So I did.

We now had to find a taker for our QE2 of a couch. It was a goes-with-anything neutral taupey/grey color and in reasonably good shape, with just a wee bit of cat scratching on one end.

None of our friends needed it so we tried myriad charities -- Boomerang’s, Father Bill’s Place, Goodwill, the Salvation Army and more -- no luck. I was getting pissed. I mean, for Kali’s sake, it’s a nice, comfy piece of furniture! Jen suggested that we put an ad on Craig’s List -- ‘Free to good home. Will be left on sidewalk at XX Address.’ She also said we could put it out front with a ‘Free’ sign on it and it’d be gone within a day. I didn’t have much faith in this but also didn’t want to just send the poor thing to the dump (anthropomorphic much, Donna?), so this is what we did. Happily, Jen was right and our poor sofa was gone in 24 hours.

Turns out, a neighbor just a few doors up snagged it for one of her adult children. Win/win.

Throughout this odyssey I was reminded, haunted even, by my photojournalist friend Erik’s images of orphaned sofas throughout the San Francisco area where he lives. Look through his Flickr collection -- you’ll see these as well as a wealth of other wonderful shots.