adventures with furniture

You know, in some ways I feel more like a college student now than I did when I was a college student.

Well, mainly in one way: apartment furnishings. BYU student housing for single students is essentially all furnished, so I never had to worry about things like beds, desks, and couches during my tenure as a student. However, now that I'm a "young professional" (that doesn't sound like me. Is that my description now?) I'm having a lot more interesting furniturial experiences. To start with, Melanie had the place partially furnished when I moved in- mostly with couches that were on loan from her cousin. By the end of the week, we had found an awesome two-tone table from Craigslist and placed it in our dining area. We went all out and decorated it with a table runner, bamboo placemats, and candles that I got in Thailand. Strictly speaking, it's more ornamental than practical- Melanie still eats most of her meals at the little kitchen bar balanced precariously on one of her IKEA barstools, and my preferred position is curled up on the couch, the plate balanced on the arm, with a fork in one and and a book in the other. I'm not really sure what Amy does, since I generally see her every fifth day or so.

For my own personal furnishings, my parents kindly lent me a mattress to sleep on, and the arrangement works well for all involved since there are lots of extra beds at my parents' house now. And I pulled out a plastic shelving unit I bought for a kitchen once and called it a dresser. Four and a half months later, the exact same setup still exists. My mattress on the floor with my plastic dresser next to it. If that doesn't make you feel like a college student, I don't know what will.

However, there was a further development this week that is once more making me feel very studentesque. Melanie got a call from her cousin on Saturday giving us 30 days' warning that she wanted her couches back. Since Mel is technically the one renting the apartment, she decided to just go ahead and purchase new couches, which was fine with me. However, when I arrived home from work last night, I found Mel and two boys from her ward sitting around (we attend different singles' wards- long story). Mel explained that her cousin changed her mind and wanted the couches posthaste, so the boys came over to help move the couches. They were waiting for the cousin to arrive with a moving van and a temporary replacement couch. Since Cousin was late, we ended up playing a rousing game of Boggle while we waited. Playing Boggle is about the only time I have ever seen Mel, one of the most mild-mannered people I know, get riled up. We both love the game and play to win, and we get in some intense, but good-natured debates about the validity of different words. Mel always has her dictionary handy.

When the cousin still didn't show after a while, I headed to my room to do some work on my computer. I heard them start moving couches around after a while, but I figured I would just be in the way, so I stayed put. Until I leaned against the wall and the world came crashing down around me.

Strictly speaking, it was the curtains that came crashing down. My bed is near the window, which happens to have long curtains. I guess I caught them just the wrong way and soon had reason to be grateful that the curtain rod was a light aluminum one, because that way it didn't really hurt as it beaned me on the head, just startled me.

I got up to examine the damage. The screw had been stripped out of the wall, so I went to find a pan to hammer the screw back in with, since my tool collection does not include a hammer yet. However, once I got into the living room, a new scenario met my eyes. The temporary replacement couch was sticking halfway through the door and a lot of people were standing around it looking confused. It was about two inches too long to fit through the door and around all the angles. Poor Melanie was very distressed and kept apologizing to me. I thought it was hilarious. Our neighbor across the hall, Daniel, stuck his head out and assessed the situation. He and I decided that we should just leave the couch in the hallway outside the door and turn the area into a commons area. In the end, the couch went back down the stairs.

So here I sit on my living room floor. It feels much more spacious without couches, it's true, but I think I'll get tired of it fast. On the plus side, it gives me a lot of floor space for things like practicing back walkovers and spreading out sewing projects, both of which I intend to do this evening.