Apartment Therapy, Part 2

(September 16, 2008)

Hey guys! I'm still at work and a little coffee-torqued for 6:30pm, but my brain has pretty much been set to "loaf" all day long, so might as well use up the last twenty minutes by writing about my new red sofa!

Yep, I bought a red sofa from Bob's Discount Furniture. Even better? I saw it in a COMMERCIAL.

A side note for those who aren't local to Boston. Bob seems to make his own commercials. We think he makes them himself because we can't imagine any ad agency letting this kind of thing happen. They're so obnoxious that I know a few people who won't consider stepping one toe into the store for fear of lost street cred, based purely on the ads. I have no street cred, so I drove to Stoughton and checked up to see if the ad was too good to be true. That means by default I am ENCOURAGING BOB. Sorry, everyone. I just wanted a comfortable red sofa that I could afford.

Having a cool sofa has been on my list for years. Let's see, the first sofa I ever had, my first apartment, was a wooden futon with some slipcovers. I am pretty sure my roommate and I found it on the street, as one does in college. When I moved in with Hub, we were given a couch by a local church -- this thing was a piece of work. It was pretty much petrified (as in, hardened to a rock-like state) poly-foam covered in a stiff brown corduroy of some kind. We were thrilled beyond belief to toss that monstrosity into the nearest dumpster when my parents gave us their Italian leather set. It was enormous. It was also pink, try decorating around THAT. It was old, they'd had for a good fifteen years, so it came with all of the smells and cat scratches and what-have-you, but it was still nice to sit on, at least, though much too large for the average city dwelling.

My heart's desire was always to live some place with dark wood trim and red walls and high arched paned windows, a place with window nooks and reading alcoves where furniture like this would look right at home:

Of course the problem there becomes, if one could ever afford such an abode, how can one then afford such furniture? You'd have to make way more money than I do, and then you're probably not home enough to enjoy it.

Besides being COOL, the other quality I've always wanted in a sofa was an L-shape. Didn't even need to be a sectional, per se. The coolest set up I have ever seen was in the house of Laura Something-or-other in Woodbury, CT. OK, first of all, the house was shaped like an octagon, all exposed wood and glass, and it had a center skylight where the ceiling went up to a point so high that a full size tree grew there in a giant stone setting. The spiral staircase down to the bedroom suite actually spiraled around the tree. The sofa? Pretty much a connecting set of chaise lounges and gigantic loveseats arranged in a graceful U shape.

I'd live there.

A cool sofa, to me, is one with a cool shape to it that you don't see all the time. Now, living in a small Allston apartment, one must be realistic.

I've hunted and searched for the perfect "apartment sized" sofa, with chaise, in red.

This is what I found.

It's surprisingly comfortable. The back is high enough (other "apartment sized" sofas seem to be armless with low backs). It's not too leggy (I hate stick-like sofa legs). And it's just the right size! And it's red, and it's only $549.

Just in case it sucks, I sprung for the "Goof Proof" service which allows a return to be possible for five years.

In five years I hope this Bob's thing becomes the sofa in Joe's basement studio, in our house, that we own, while in the living room there's a bigger, better gorgeous sectional that would look great next to a full-sized tree growing up to a skylight...