The Armoire Adventure

Sunday, 16 September 2007

Spent this past week cleaning and organizing the living room, searching Craigslist for furniture (and posting my own to sell), and cleaning and dusting and cleaning and dusting. Since I couldn't leave the house without a license and I was still itchy and loaded up with Caladryl lotion and Sarna to relieve my itchy shingles rash, I figured I had time to get things organized. In my quest to start babyproofing the house, I was extremely productive dusting and scrubbing the floors, the china, the moulding, etc. My ultimate task: To get an armoire for our TV and to get rid of all of our open shelving and glass furniture.

Chase has been sleeping 4-5 hours at night, so that has given me extra energy to be productive during the day. He is also smiling a lot more at people and looks at EVERYTHING. Plus, we got the new motor housing from Fisher Price for the swing (for free!), and we all love it because now he sleeps almost instantly and will stay asleep for a couple of hours just swinging away. Besides, he loves looking at the brightly colored fishes on the mobile above.

Yesterday, we went to look at an armoire that I was interested in buying, made the purchase and agreed to pick it up later with my brother's truck and help. But, overnight, I decided I didn't want to wait, and would rather get it done this weekend, so I sent Chris and his friend Jason to go pick it up.

It was quite an adventure. On the way home, Chris told me the armoire was insanely heavy and that it took them awhile just to get it into the truck. Uh oh. And it's got to come down 85 switchback stairs? Hmmm...I can see this is going to be a problem....

And a problem it was. To make a long story short, the armoire made it down to the house without anyone losing any limbs or falling down the mountain, but it got a few scratches and dings along the way and caused some bruising and battlescars on Chris and Jason. My brother came home to help halfway through the process, and with the help of carpet to drag the armoire down the stairs, another person to help guide it, and a lot of cursing, Shelly and I were less apt to close our eyes at the scary process.

I apologized profusely for it being so heavy. The guys admitted that they should have started the process with a better game plan and more help. Chris decided that next time we buy furniture, it needs to be in a box, and we need to assemble it ourselves inside the house.

The armoire looks really nice in our living room and adds a contemporary touch to our furnishings. Everything is put away, we have more space, and it even hides the shadows on the wall of the previous entertainment center that was going on 30 years. Well, we better be happy with it, because that thing is not ever moving back up the stairs. It will have to be chopped up and thrown over the lanai if we ever decide to get rid of it.

And the best thing that happened yesterday afternoon (besides everyone coming out of this situation in one piece): Chase slept in his swing through all the chaos.