Up until now, the only couch I had in my adult life was an old, old, floral patterned couch that a roommate had bought when I first moved to Buffalo at 23 years old.  It was at least 10 – 20 years old then, and was already in bad shape.  But they had gotten a couch for $20.  Not bad.

Old Couch was comfortable.  Reg lived on it for almost the whole year we lived together.  It was a great napping couch.  But this last year really pushed the limit on its life span.  The cushions had started splitting, sheet I threw over it to keep it looking nice no longer made much of a difference.  You knew what was under there.  The couch had no legs, due to a screw snapping when I moved from Buffalo to Cleveland.

So it had to go.  It was the kind of furniture I had an attachment too after having it for twelve years and 6 different apartments.  For this period of my life, everywhere I went, this couch went too.  But it was time to part ways, and I knew what I wanted to replace it.

Three years ago when Sam and I moved in together we took a trip to Ikea.  I instantly fell in love with their Kivik sofa series.  I knew it was the couch for me, but we weren’t in a place to buy a couch then, and in all honesty I was still good with our set up.  We had a couch and a futon in our living room.  You think it would have been crowded, but it wasn’t.  They both had a wall to be against, and we had gotten to each having our own couch nightly to sprawl on while unwinding.

But I wanted the Kivik.  And this year I had, admit-tingly, gone on about wanting to buy the Kivik.  When Sam said yes lets do it, I was all in.  So Saturday we drove to the Canton, Michigan Ikea.  Checking stock at the Pittsburgh Ikea showed that they were out. It had been an ongoing dread of mine that they would cancel the Kivik series before I got one, thankfully that didn’t happen.

A quick trip to Ikea Canton (there is nothing quick about a 2.5 hour drive or a trip to Ikea, although we kept our visit to under 2 hours…. a personal Ikea record for us) and we were back home hauling 100 pound boxes up three flights of stairs to our apartment.

I had taken apart the futon couch the night before, and we were giving it to one of Sam’s friends.  And old couch had been upended to be moved to the dumpster afterwards.  It took the two of us about an hour and half to get both the Couch and Chaise together.  Ikea only sent us one defective part (not bad Ikea, not bad).  It was a part to attach the Chaise to the Couch as one unit, but we decided we like them separate for now and will most likely keep it that way when Ikea sends us the replacement part.

Angelo has instantly taken to loving both the chaise and the couch.  He moves back and forth between them every half hour or so.  He was extremely intimidated by the unpacking and the assembly process, but the soft cushions eventually won his love.  Yesterday was our first full day with them.  It was busy day…. cleaning, couch moving, recycling of copious amounts of cardboard, rearranging that comes with new furniture… all that jazz.  But at the end of the day, man the couch and chaise were comfortable and worth it.  First brand new couch of my adult life…. positive experience.