Once upon a time...

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a boy and a girl. After spending every possible minute in each other's company for almost a year, the boy and girl found an apartment and moved into it together. This apartment was not overly large, but even so, the boy and girl needed some furniture to make into a home.

Being young and living in central Ottawa, they spent a lot of time in the Byward Market and regularly drooled over the offerings at Phillip Van Leeuwen furniture. It was there that they made their first major joint purchase - a very large, very comfortable camel coloured couch with massive striped throw cushions.


This story, of course, is about me and my hubby, and the very same couch that is still anchoring our family room, 11 years, 3 houses, 2 dogs and 2 kids later. It's been the scene of many hours of tv watching, afternoon naps, and family snuggles. In fact, hubby came home from his business trip last night to find the little guy and I asleep at opposite ends of the couch where we had been watching the hockey game. It's looking a little faded but otherwise is still in amazing condition after daily use.

We're actually shopping for some new furniture right now, for our living and dining rooms. When we made the decision last week to decorate these rooms, I got a little overexcited and went directly to UsedOttawa.com to post our perfectly good but not exactly stylish couch and coffee table for sale. I had over 20 replies to my ad in 5 hours, and the next day they were sold to the person who responded mere minutes after my ad was posted. Unfortunately, this leaves me with an empty front room (where the kids are currently enjoying the large expanse of free floor space).

We are hosting a holiday party in a few weeks and of course, custom order furniture takes much, much longer than that to arrive. Sigh. We I have been tempted to buy cheaper, in-stock furniture so that our guests will have a place to sit at the party, but that would mean compromising on both style and quality. I don't need something that's going to last forever - after all, I'm sure we'll want to update our decor again someday - but I also don't want something that's going to sag and pill after the first use. I want something that is going to give us many years of enjoyment, like our family room couch. I think we're going to wait for the right furniture, and I'm thinking of hanging a disco ball for the party and making the living room into a dance floor ;-)

Strangely, I was perusing the paper this morning and noticed an ad for Phillip Van Leeuwen's renovation sale, and then a few hours later I received a notification that @PVLFurniture was following me on Twitter. I think it's a sign!