So-fa, so good. Or not
Wondering how much more furniture shopping is in my future
The last time we went furniture shopping, we replaced the well-loved sofa at the beach house. The new sofa featured the same L-shaped configuration as the original. It fit perfectly in front of the living room windows. It was basically the same color. It “sat” fairly similarly.
On appearance, it was pretty much the same as the old one. Or so we thought.
The original sofa featured three sections that reclined. The new one, only two. And the sections on the new one are slightly narrower, the cushions a bit firmer. And although we went with an upgraded fabric, knowing the wear-and-tear to which we subject our sofas (#aruba18 plus dogs plus assorted shore guests), we already have noticed areas of worn and torn that Bruce has superglued together. The first sofa lasted fourteen-plus seasons. I don’t think this one will make it through three.
I am not from the big shoppers. If I find something I like, I’m ready to be done. And if it was difficult to find something I liked, I am more than ready to be done.
Furniture shopping is something historically Bruce and I have always done together. Our first joint furniture purchase was our bedroom set, acquired at John Wanamaker’s department store using Bruce’s brother’s employee discount. Your classic, full-queen headboard, ladies’ triple dresser, mirror, man’s chest of drawers, and two night tables in a medium fruity wood with a cane and bamboo design. The bamboo matched our wedding rings. Bamboo was very “in” in the seventies. The set fit perfectly in the bedroom of our first house, a fact for which I was most grateful because I knew of several couples whose bedroom sets consumed their bedrooms and were difficult to navigate around.
Our first kitchen set came from Nate Ben’s Reliable, a Philly landmark for more than 40 years. The table was white Formica trimmed in chrome, and the chairs had yellow vinyl cushioned backs and seats. When we had company, we carried the set into the dining room and added its leaves for additional seating.
For almost six months, that was the extent of our furnishings. We used a folding card table as our everyday dining room “set.” The living room TV rested on a metal stand with wheels, the same as the TV in our bedroom. I don’t remember what we sat on. At that point in our lives, we didn’t spend much time in the living room. Bruce got home late from the store, I was teaching full time, and there was the house to otherwise fix up, keeping us pretty busy.
Then we found out about Sun Modern’s warehouse sales featuring no-name brands at discount prices. Without much ado, we bought a black-, white, and copper-striped tweedy sofa and love seat that matched our newly installed copper-colored carpet; two yellow fabric-and-chrome side chairs that matched nothing but I liked them; a chrome-and-glass corner table and a big black porcelain lamp; a white, free-standing metal pole lamp; and a white Formica-and-chrome shelving unit on which we would put our TV, wedding album, M&M dish, and spearmint leaves jar. Functional, not fancy.
I’d grown up in a house where the furniture came from specialty stores. Nelson’s on Roosevelt Boulevard. Dorothy Lerner on Rittenhouse Square. When they moved into bigger houses, my mother and mother-in-law hired designers to style their living and dining areas. I accessorized with artwork from ORT art auctions and eventually my own hook rug and needlepoint creations.
Our next furniture ventures were for the nursery and Missy’s big girl bedroom. All purchases were from Karl’s downtown. The crib (white, with three pastel circles in pink, yellow, and blue) and the white, chrome-trimmed chest of drawers with Lucite knobs were not delivered until Missy was, per Jewish superstition. We added a playpen to the living room and a wind-up swing to the dining room decor. The big girl bedroom set—double bed with a cream-colored wood headboard, chest of drawers, hutch, and nightstand—arrived just before Ali did to free up the crib. My mom accompanied me when I bought the nursery items. I’m trying to remember if I took Missy to choose her new furniture. Our favorite item was the hutch.
When Ali was big enough to sit with us for meals, the kitchen table was moved into the dining room and we started looking for a new house.
The kitchen in our new house opened/opens (we’ve lived here for almost 45 years) into a sizable addition where we had room for a table that would seat at least six. Upon recommendation, Bruce and I drove out to Harold’s Oak House near Lancaster and ordered a custom oak table and six cane chairs (plus three cane stools for the kitchen counter) to match the oak cabinets and the oak, bead board walls Bruce was installing in what we called our breakfast room. Years later, after several rounds of recane-ing, the chairs were replaced with solid oak spindle-back models. We completed the our decorating with a sunroom look—a big peacock chair and a rattan seating area.
When we moved and Ali had outgrown the crib, we ordered her big girl furniture, relegating the nursery items plus the open shelving unit from the old living room to the fourth bedroom we hoped would soon become a nursery. Fast forward: sixteen plus years later, the nursery chest of drawers was moved into Ali’s college apartment.
The old sofa that was wearing after 7 years of use and the kitchen set that had become dated didn’t make the move.
What did? The antique piano circa 1903 acquired from an old synagogue in Logan we’d kept in the basement until our kids would take lessons. And the disassembled phone booth Bruce bought from the candy emporium near his store. The master bedroom set. The crib and dresser. Missy’s bedroom furniture made the move, but after a bit its little girlness lost its charm and we went with white wicker pieces.
The yellow living room chairs were reupholstered in beige to match the new, large brown and beige sectional sofa we’d purchased from Moore’s Furniture on Woodland Avenue for the den. That had to have been THE most comfortable couch we ever had. The one to which I retreated when Bruce’s snores kept me awake at night. The one Casey raced around when we cheered a Phils home run. We bought a big coffee table (with drawers!) that perfectly nestled in the L created by the sofa. The kids breakfasted at that table, their cereal bowls resting on magazine placemats to protect the table from spills. But spills happened—the table often was marked with pieces of stuck-on magazine covers. Of note: that table also made the college rounds when we redid the den.
The TV stayed on its metal stand until Bruce built a bookcase in the den as his Pregnancy Project Number Three—Projects One and Two (at the first house) were a garage and a cedar closet, respectively. The piano, reassembled phone booth, and playpen completed the den furnishings. An antique penny scale and brass cash register that sits on an aging table acquired at the Ardmart Antique Center were later additions. We repainted the circles on the crib to match the nursery wallpaper when Robert was on his way.
And that was the extent of our decorating for several years. Like many fellow Baby Boomer friends and family, we furnished rooms on an as-needed basis. As such, the living room, dining room, and partially finished basement remained void of furniture except for a rusting kitchen table left behind in the cellar by the former owners. Having no first floor furniture allowed for numerous intense rounds of Rooms, a game our daughters played with rules I have yet to understand. Eventually, we carpeted the basement; when they redecorated their den, my in-laws gifted us their yellow vinyl barrel chair and green Formica corner table to make our lowest level look somewhat inhabited.
Does a picnic table count as furniture? We bought one for the backyard from Gaudio’s? Channel’s? when we built the pool.
Then, in 1986, five years after we moved into the new house, I was on Wheel of Fortune and won an etagere, a brass-and-glass table, and two brass lamps. With the help of friend Toby, I located and purchased a matching etagere at a store on City Avenue whose name escapes me (not Van Sciver’s) and placed them on each side of the living room window. Which led to the purchase of a sofa and two chairs to give purpose to the coffee table. Which led to our buying a Parson’s table for the lamps to sit on. Wah-lah! We had living room furniture. Thankfully, the kids were outgrowing Rooms.
I was still pondering dining room furniture. Our dining room isn’t all that big. I didn’t want a large hutch/breakfront that would overwhelm the room. But that was what I knew. My parents’ dining room featured a large breakfront for displaying our decorative serving pieces, a long buffet to store china, a table that accommodated several leaves, and four regular and two captain (i.e, arm) chairs. [Sidebar: these same chairs appeared in the dining room in the TV show, Madame Secretary.]
I tempered my learned preferences. We ultimately chose an expandable (two-leaf), Asian motif table with six chairs upholstered to match the living room sofa in close proximity, and a small buffet. We later bought a mirror for above the buffet.
About 15 years after we bought the house, this affirmed lover of wall-to-wall carpets was bit by the hardwood bug. We pulled up the den carpet and had the floors refinished. (A few years later, we took the same plan to the living and dining rooms.) We ordered a large, custom-designed area rug in blues and greens and a softly neutral cream-colored sofa to replace the brown one that was showing its age. We also changed out the dated woven-wood window shades for a softer fabric Roman variety.
A light-colored sofa may not have been the best choice for a family that rescued big dogs and was still not quite empty nesting. When we decided to remove the seventies paneling and paint the den walls a buttercream, we changed out the sofa as well. That was an emotionless good bye. The rug not so much. Bruce really liked that rug. He said so again when I shared some of my thoughts writing this post.
The latest but certainly not new den decor came together with several purchases from Macy’s. Yet another sectional sofa in (hopefully more durable) brown microsuede and two patterned reclining chairs where the reupholstered chrome-legged chairs once stood near the windows. An area rug that perfectly coordinates with a metal wall hanging from Crate and Barrel. So far, this sofa is wearing well, enduring much abuse and love from all six grandbabies. We also replaced our living room sofa, the sheets we covered it with to protect it from Casey and then Tonkie (as we did in the den) not doing that great a job. That led to reupholstering the matching barrel and and dining room chair cushions in coordinating fabrics.
There’ve been incidental purchases of a sofa and two storage units to facilitate entertaining in the basement. But the focal point down there is the 1951 shuffle bowling arcade game, a gift from cousin Jackie. And the old toys I need to purge.
Our most extensive, all-at-once furniture purchases were made 17 (!) years ago when we bought the beach house. For the first time in our furniture-shopping history, we took the Gen X approach and tried to fill all the rooms in the house at once to facilitate its full use by beach-going family and friends. Bruce found Klaussner’s on Baltimore Pike in Springfield. The store offered modestly priced contemporary furniture that fit our taste (i.e., something light and beachy). The three second-floor bedrooms feature white bureaus in various styles of the same design. The master bedroom bed has matching nightstands, a tall headboard, and tall foot posts; the other rooms are headboardless queen beds and Wayfair night tables to hold lamps and bedside essentials. The wooden furniture, as well as a few coffee and corner tables for the living room and den, all came from Klaussner’s.
The third floor bedrooms consisted of a nursery for all the incoming grandkids (furniture donated by friend Stefanie when her kids outgrew it), a bedroom with headboardless twin beds and items from my in-laws’ bedroom, and a bedroom with a headboardless queen bed and dresser. When Cam outgrew the crib, we replaced the baby stuff with a queen bed and another Wayfair night stand, my Wheel of Fortune rocking chair the one constant in the room. We eventually added trundle beds in two of the bedrooms to accommodate more guests.
The bedding came from Raymour & Flanagan. With a story. When we placed our order for six mattresses, our sales guy Ernie looked surprised. Ever the jokester, Bruce told him we were opening a bordello, that I was the madam, and that if we were afforded a quantity discount, Ernie could avail himself of our services for free. I forget if he laughed or even if he cut us a break. The beach house den and living room sofas also were Raymour & Flanigan purchases. No strings attached.
By far, the favorite piece of beach furniture remains the papasan chair from Pier One (I miss Pier One). The grands—sometimes four at a time—and several family dogs loved/love that chair. My favorite piece of furniture, owing to the wonderful moments and photos in which it appears, is the dining room table, ordered like the PA version at Harold’s Oak House. There is nothing better than taking a picture of the family sitting around it for a meal.
We have painted and freshened both properties. But most of the furniture remains unchanged. Like us, our bedroom set celebrated its fifty-second anniversary—the mattress and subsequently the queen headboard upsized to a brass king when we needed something bigger to accommodate a 105-lb Chesapeake Bay Retriever. And we also now have an adjustable model (that I hate. The movement of the mechanism reminds me of a dentist chair).
The kitchen table is 45 years old. The kids’ bedrooms are untouched, including all the crap in their drawers. Same basic living and dining rooms since the late eighties. Through the years, we’ve added pieces from my in-laws’ house —a corner curio, a hutch—that are even older. With the exception of the new living room couch and the nursery, nothing has changed at the beach house.
By far, the furniture we’ve replaced the most are the sofas. Part of it is kids. Jumping. Eating. Spilling. Pulling off/piling up pillows to make tents. Part is dogs. Jumping. Drooling. Shedding. Part is our contentedness with so many evenings spent watching TV or afternoons playing Scrabble or Rummikub, tray tables positioned so we can make our words or place our tiles in full view of our favorite shows.
Our sofas have been marked with life’s moments through the decades. The one where I nursed our first baby. The one most comfortable for my Barry Manilow naps. The cream-colored couch, outshone by a bold rug. And the current sofa on which I often compose this blog. Will there be another model—besides the one at the shore—on which to park my buns and fall asleep watching Law & Order reruns?
The fates will answer.
Such wonderful memories! Bruce smiling as always!