New to Us

I mentioned in a recent post that Dan and I were going to be picking up a pair of couches that we found on Craigslist. To recap, when we came back from a conference in Orlando, we realized that one of our cats decided that our green loveseat was the perfect place to relieve themselves. Since cat urine is a pain to get out of fabric anything and we hated the loveseat anyways, we decided to get rid of the loveseat and start looking for a couch to replace it. And of course Craigslist is the first place I looked.

In the "Nearby Areas" results was a listing for a Tidafor sofa and loveseat. The seller was asking $300 for the pair. Considering they sell retail for just under $1000, the price couldn't be beat. They looked a little worn in, but that was okay with us. And even the fact that the sellers had cats didn't bother us considering our cats were going to be laying all over the sofas too.

But, there were some logistical things we had to figure out. Like the fact that the sellers lived an hour and half away. And the fact that we didn't have a truck to move the furniture. Plus, we weren't sure that Dan and I could get the sofas upstairs by ourselves. And, we can't forget about the fact that these suckers are huge and we weren't quite sure how they would fit in our living room.

Luckily, the sellers were willing to hold onto the furniture until the next weekend when Dan had a couple days off. We thought about renting a moving truck to get the sofas home, but the seller recommended looking into the trucks at Home Depot since their rates are much cheaper. Brilliant! And, between the husband of the seller offering to help Dan move/lift the sofas into the truck and Dan bribing a friend of his with free lunch if he'd come help him lift the sofas upstairs, we didn't have to worry about whether I was strong enough to lift the furniture upstairs.

So, Saturday night we drove over to our local Home Depot and picked up a rental truck.

The next morning we woke up early and headed south to pick up the sofas. We had bought a tarp and some tie downs to keep the sofas in place. Luckily, the bed of the truck was wide enough for both sofas to fit side by side, so we didn't have to worry about stacking them. We did have to pull over three times to re-secure the tarp, but otherwise, the trip back was pretty uneventful.

After moving the green loveseat out onto the landing, the boys got both of the sofas upstairs and in place. Since our living room is a little tiny, we had to angle the couches to get them to fit.

Let me just say, these are the most comfortable couches I have ever sat on. They are deep enough to curl up into the corners and enjoy a good book. And, they are long enough to stretch out on and take a nap (which I've done a couple times already this week).

I am so glad we found the room in our budget to pick these guys up. Here's a rundown of our final cost:

Sofa & Loveseat:   $300

Rental Truck:   $74

Tarp:   $0 (originally $20, but returned it because it had massive holes in it after an hour of use - ridiculous!)

Tie-Downs:   $25

Tank of Gas:   $50

Pizza for Lunch:   $16 (with coupon code)

TOTAL:     $465

That's still less than the cost of the loveseat brand new!

We are so happy with our new-to-us sofa and loveseat!