For a time, Dave and I loved our living room furniture. We’ve had it for ten years and only started hating it recently. Both the couch and chair are oversized and overstuffed and aren’t the design statement they once were. Now they just look and feel ridiculous. It’s like crawling in and out of those big bouncer gyms you find in backyards at kids’ birthday parties. The older I get, the less ladylike I look getting on and off of them. Sorry old set, it’s time to move on.

We started shopping for new stuff Friday morning and didn’t finish until four days later. Here’s how it went down:

Our trek began in Whitehall, where the largest furniture stores are located. We figured it’d be a cinch to find something in the first big store we went to. Ha! We remember how excited we were on Friday. By Monday, we wanted to kill each other.

We thought we’d immediately find several things we liked and spend a few minutes sorting them out to make a final decision. Our goal was to find either a wrap-around couch, or a couch/chaise set. Over the next couple days, we moved from store to store. Some we visited twice in one day. But after not liking either of our target configurations, we moved on to Plan B, which was to get a regular couch and a recliner. This was a problem because we realized we had to return to stores we already visited to look at Plan B configurations, since we hadn’t even looked for that stuff on the first go-around.

So we ventured back to the same stores, and also stopped at new stores. I insisted on testing every single couch that had a snowball’s chance of being The One in every single store. Dave was soon getting sick of me planting myself on couch after couch, and I was starting to embarrass him because I test for the real world. This means I laid down on them, curled up on my side and pretended to have a remote control in my hand. I fake clicked, too.

On and on we went, in the brutal 90+ degree heat. In and out of a baking car that barely cooled up enough before we hit the next store. Even though we were fast losing steam and getting heavily on each other nerves, we were still on a mission and forged ahead. Over the four days, we visited La-Z-Boy six times, Thomasville Gallery four times, Raymour & Flanigan three times, and six other stores once each. We left every store in disgust over either not finding the right set, or finding one piece in one store and remembering another one we liked in a different store. We took measurements galore and tried to dodge as many sales people as possible until we were ready to ask a question. But once you open your mouth, they latch onto you like Super Glue and you can’t fling them off. Speak at your own risk.

We took swatch after swatch home and back again, because when we had a feeling we liked a certain piece, we allowed ourselves to test fabrics against our living room walls. On Sunday we thought we were ready to make a purchase at Thomasville, but it turns out the couch alone would have cost $2,300 with customized fabric. I just couldn’t part with that much money for a couch unless it had a built-in massager and talked dirty to me. We did, however, find the perfect recliner there and made a mental note of what it looked and felt like.

At one point, we borrowed swatches from Thomasville Gallery in plums and reds and brought them with us to another store to test. When we got to Raymour & Flanigan, we came upon the most disgusting purple couch and Dave exclaimed “Look, Kath, this is the same color as the plum we like! Look. See the comparison,” as he laid the swatch on the seat. “That’s plum??? Oh my God, we just dodged a huge bullet. We almost put that color on the couch at Thomasville!!!” If a guy had shown up to deliver me a plum couch I would have needed oxygen and defibrillation paddles because obviously the color plum on a swatch translates to “Barney purple” on a couch.

Redoubling our efforts in the Great Couch Search, we headed back to La-Z-Boy for the fourth time in as many days. Feeling they had the best overall selection, we figured our chances, no matter how slim, were at least better there than anywhere else we’d been. After walking the showroom in circles, I found myself repeatedly gravitating toward one couch called “The Woodrow.” Hint: If you find yourself going back to the same couch or chair more than once, BUY IT IMMEDIATELY. IT’S THE RIGHT ONE. I laid on The Woodrow for a good five minutes doing my fake remote control thing. I really didn’t care at this point if a sales person or another customer thought it was rude or poor form to be sprawled out all over the place. They don’t know what we’ve been through.

While I thought about whether I loved The Woodrow or not, Dave found a recliner similar to the one we found at Thomasville and dragged me over to see it. It took all of ten seconds to agree that we were going to buy this chair. Not only was it less expensive here, but it was a lot more comfortable. A wave of relief came over us both. We were finally making some progress.

Back at The Woodrow, I began to believe that this could be The One. Because we were so tired and unsure of ourselves, having looked at now hundreds of pieces, we thought it wise to sleep on it before giving our stamp of approval to the couch. Back home, we went online and used La-Z-Boy’s design tool to pick fabric types and colors, and lo and behold, were able to settle on two color groupings. A red/earthtone combination and a blue/floral combo.

When we awoke Monday, we announced with absolute conviction “This is it. We have to do this today.” So we piled back in the car bright and early. I swore I saw online that stores opened at 9AM, but because I can’t be trusted with the simplest things, we discovered stores opened at 10AM and we had to decide what to do for an hour. We killed some time at a Wal-Mart nearby and then headed over to return some borrowed swatches to Thomasville Gallery. To-date, we’d been there three times and bought nothing, so we worried the sales people would see us driving up and shout to each other “The Fredericks are back. RUN!” We watched and waited for someone to come unlock the doors at 10:00. As we approached the store from the side, we inched our car ever closer to the front door and then the hell of our experience reached a crescendo in the form of punch drunk silliness. Dave started to hum the theme from Jaws as he drew closer and closer to the entrance, all the while supposing that the employees are hiding behind really big furniture trying to avoid us. I laughed so hard I started to cry and then worried when the lady came out to let me in, she’d think I totally lost my mind. She would be right.

After returning the swatches to the nice woman who finally came to the door, we drove over to La-Z-Boy one last time with hope in our hearts. Please, God. Let us still like the couch and let these colors work. As soon as I walked in and sat on The Woodrow again, I realized I still liked it, loved it actually, and gave Dave the much-awaited thumbs up. Now all we had to do was pick colors, and thanks to Sharon, their wonderful sales assistant, we settled on floral for the chair and deep blue for the couch. She advised us on how to pattern the four couch pillows to match the chair, and then we were DONE! Thank God Almighty. Our ordeal is over.

We calculated we put in 14 hours of drive time and showroom walking in order to get this set. I’d like to say it wasn’t so bad, but it really was. When it comes time to replace this new set, believe me when I tell you – we’re hiring a designer and we don’t care what it costs. Our next goal is to get new coffee and end tables. We think this might be easier since we have the seating pieces accounted for. Really, how hard can it be?

UPDATE: The new furniture arrived on Sept 26. Check it out here.

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