The 'hood provides for all needs

The weekend couch olympics

Sunday, N. and I were bestowed with a hand-me-down couch from her sister. Since our evil puppy believes he owns most of the furniture in the house, and identifies things as his own by chewing holes in them, this was a welcome upgrade. And, I can say it now, because N. and I have finally gotten this out in the open: her old couch just wasn't that comfortable. It looked nice enough, but it was just a little too short to stretch out on comfortably, and not quite deep enough for proper laziness, especially when shared with another human being and/or one or more dogs.

So we picked up the couch and and the shuffle began. First, I had to remove another old couch that had been taking up space in the basement for a couple years to make room for one of the pieces of the new set that we weren't going to use right away. I remembered that it had been almost impossible to get in there in the first place, and I was dreading going through that exercise in reverse. So instead I destroyed it. With nothing more than a hammer and a box-cutter, I had that thing reduced to a pile of sticks and rags in an hour.

Next, in a complex dance necessitated due to limited space and dogs, we had to temporarily move the old couch to the dining room, move dogs around and close doors, and get the new one in. By some miracle the new couch fit easily through the door and it was in the house in no time.

Out with the Older

I should have converted the old couch into a Tailgate Couch^®

But now, the old couch: what to do with it? It was actually in OK shape, and only a few years old. The major downside was single dog-chew hole in one of the integrated back cushions, but it was hardly visible and could probably be repaired by someone so inclined. We figured one of our friends might be interested in inheriting it, so we didn't just want to toss it. But nor did we want to spend a lot of effort finding a home for it. So the plan was to take it around to the backyard and cover it, hopefully finding a taker before the elements or wildlife got to it.

But the fates solved that problem, and in record time. Our neighbors two doors down have been having an ongoing moving sale for the last couple weeks. Basically, their front yard and sidewalk have been a turkish bazaar. And a remarkably popular one -- their stuff was actually better than a lot of the weekend yardsales we've been to around town. It seemed like people were around their house all day long.

So we threw the old couch on the truck and let them know that if any of their customers were interested, they could have it. We struck paydirt almost immediately: one of their friends inspected the wares and it was removed from the truck within the hour.

You gotta love the 'hood.

Now I just have to deal with the mountain of rubble in the backyard from the old couch and a long-overdue yard cleanup...