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The Great Furniture Swap
Oct. 1st, 2017 01:46 pmOooof. I did not do any heavy lifting. I did move a bunch of light stuff out of the cat-sitting room upstairs, move a large armchair out of the way, move canisters of cat food and a hummingbird feeder in a box and a couple of wastebaskest out of the way as well. Raphael had already moved the box fan and the tick bags (bags containing clothing we hiked in, to be sealed up until it can be washed separately in case any ticks are hiding in the clothing) into the library, and had broken down and taken out a lot of cardboard. On the upstairs landing I moved the bucket, two mops, a box that was sticking out sideways from an otherwise flat row of boxes, a strange cleaning implement I forgot the use of (carpet rake? weird squeegee?), and an anomalous empty box that once contained a mini-blind and still contained the extra slat they provide so you can conceal the apparently-ugly blind mechanism at the top.
From the next landing down I removed the cat tree. It's not very heavy, and in fact has had to be tied to the handle of the window with an old bathrobe cord, because Lady Jane, youngest and most boisterous of the cats, used to gallop up the lower part of the stairs and land on it with such vehemence that it would tip over and fall down the stairs. From the landing a step down from that I removed a container of litter-box cleaning supplies and a strange object called a Litter Genie that sequesters scooped litter til you have time to take it out. I left the litter-box alone. The last time I moved that, when we had to get a new dishwasher for the upstairs, I hurt my back.
I put the cat tree in the downstairs hallway, since no furniture was leaving or entering that area. Lady Jane was horrified when she saw me hauling her cat tree around, but later on Lydy told me she had ensconced herself on it.
David had removed the recycling can and a box of computer bits from the first-floor landing. I shoved a can intended for storing cat food, now replaced by plastic containers you can pour out of easily but still needed for the elderly cat to use as a step-stool, to the shelf under the window, to be under the shelving and moved a jug of litter to the shelf.
From the front hall I moved the ice chopper, the snow shovel, one empty, one partially-full, and one full container of ice melter, a jug of windshield washing solution, and a complimentary plunger provided by plumbers who once worked in the neighborhood, to the front staircase, where, again, no furniture would be coming or going. From behind the door into the living room I took a box of mail out for recycling and moved the actual recycling container, which is generally overflowing and too heavy for me to carry far, to the area in front of the coat closet. Lydy's shoes joined it. I also turned the paper shredder sideways so the door could be shoved back against the wall; later I moved the paper shredder about a quarter of an inch forward so that it could prevent the hats hung behind the door from pushing the door forward again.
David and I then moved the two smaller hutches and their associated shelves from the dining room to the sunroom, which I had previously cleared. David's plan for moving the heavier central hutch didn't seem good for my knees, so we left that and the table for the arrival of my brother and our friend Greg, who were kindly coming to assist us.
David's sister arrived with the U-Haul van around 3:30 and Greg came over not long after. My brother had said he'd be there at three, since there was furniture to be moved out before anything came in, but he hadn't arrived.
David described to Greg what needed to be done. Greg immediately helped David move the heavier hutch into the sunroom. Then he and I took the leaves out of the table, and he and David moved that into the sunroom as well. I'd cleared space in the sunroom earlier when we thought the furniture was arriving on Thursday.
Greg then had us move the gray sofa into the mostly empty dining room, turned it on its back, and started taking off the legs. We had done a lot of measuring and fussing to see if the sofa would actually fit through the swinging doors between dining room and kitchen both up- and downstairs, but it had not occurred to me, at least, to take anything apart.
Little did I know. Once the gray sofa was dealt with, we went upstairs, and Greg and Barbara flung the cushions from it at once. Then Greg started taking it apart. It was destined for the alley, being thirty years old and only moderately well built to begin with, and having been shredded by cats repeatedly. I still felt a little bad to see it ripped limb from limb. We got it because at the time there were seven Scribblies who needed comfortable seating and somewhere to spread out a manuscript, and I was also regularly hosting a play-reading group that could have as many as ten people in attendance. Also my white cat Sukey Tawdry preferred it to the gray sofa. But apart and out it went, the long back part still giving David, Greg, and Barbara some trouble as a mild revenge.
We'd intended to take the downstairs loveseat out as well, but it's in better condition and we'd hoped maybe somebody would take it away and use it; it just needs a new slipcover. It had started to rain, though, so we didn't want to take it out to get soggy. Minneapolis has such a large bedbug problem, though, that I am not sure people still take upholstered furniture out of alleys. In any case, we left the loveseat alone for the moment.
Even without its legs, the gray sofa gave some trouble going up the stairs. It has a fancy shape with curvy arms and back and they tried to catch on things. At last it was laid on its back in the cat-sitting room (intended as the upstairs dining room but never used as such by us) with its legs nearby. I looked at the legs and had a premonition. The people who had taken the legs off and then carried the thing around were not going to want to fiddle around with replacing the legs.
After that everybody took a well-earned break and I tried to call my brother. I got an automated message that said his cell phone number was unreachable. In addition to giving me a Kimmy Schmidt earworm, this worried me a little. I called my mother's landline. No answer and no message for voicemail, just a loud beep. We tried David's phone. Same message. I went upstairs and sent my mother an email, which is the usual way that we all communicate.
When I came down again, the blue sofa from David's parents' living room, the wooden chairs from the dining room, the very nice teak end tables, and the sofa cushions had been brought in; the upholstered chair with the bentwood arms had been put on the sidewalk at the foot of the porch steps; and everybody was taking another break before tackling the buffet and dining room table. My brother called. He had mistaken the date and had been planning to come on Sunday to help move things. He could not just jump in the car and come right out because he was in the process of replacing the air conditioner belt, which had been squeaking. "It's not rocket science," he said, "but it's tedious and fiddly." He also explained that his cellphone was dead, but he was using a very old one that still had minutes on it, so he gave me that number.
I consulted the furniture movers, who gamely said they could manage, so I texted my brother not to hurry with the car and not to worry about it. I checked my email, and my mom had answered to say that her own phone was also dead but a new one was arriving soon. Nobody had bothered to tell me either of these things because we don't use the phone as a rule.
Lydy got home about then. She volunteered to help out with the buffet, but in fact David, Greg, and Barbara got it out of the truck and onto the lawn, and then after some consultation, up the porch steps, through the front hall and living room, and into the dining room, where it looks really lovely with our 1916 woodwork. It's teak like the end tables and I'm a little awed by it. Greg and Barbara had an extended discussion about whether lemon oil or tung oil would be better for maintaining it.
The dining room table is much less fancy, but David wanted it because it has a formica top and can have hot stuff set on it without damage. Its legs had been removed for transport and the top more or less folds in half, so Greg fetched it in while everybody else was discussing it. Lydy and I brought the chair in from the cold, Lydy and Barbara brought various shelves and drawers from the buffet in, and that was that.
We had a nice chat with Greg before he had to leave. Also, David handed me the device full of Allen wrenches of several sizes that I'd need to put the legs back on the gray sofa.
I started doing this and discovered that Saffron had established herself under the seat padding of the sofa. I lured both cats out of the cat-sitting room with treats and then shut the door. I propped the sofa against the wall so I didn't have to hold it up while putting the legs back on. The front and back legs on each side were part of a single assembly that slid onto two bolts front and back. It was a little tricky to get the assembly placed, but I tightened the bolts, and then tightened them all again, then upended the sofa. Raphael and I sat on it and it seemed quite firm, but when we got up we saw that the leg assembly on the right side had slid forward; I had not sufficiently tightened some of the bolts over there and the whole thing had slid apart. I excused myself to eat something, saying I would deal with the legs after that, but by the time I'd bolted my leftover pizza, Raphael had propped the sofa up with a Mayo Clinic home health guide and put the legs back on, tightening the bolts several times over to be sure. The bolts on the other side were in fact about as tight as they could be, but obviously the right-hand legs had been my practice legs and I should have checked them again.
We sat on the sofa again and made sure all the legs remained where they should be.
Cassie has been quite suspicious of the new sofa. Saffron, having climbed as far inside it as its structure admitted when I first started putting the legs on, has ignored it.
It was much later that night that I went down and retrieved the cat tree. Lady Jane attached herself to it when I put it down in the kitchen to orient it for going through the door to the stairway, but fortunately leapt off again when I actually began to move the tree.
Later yet I restored the winter supplies and the plunger to their place in the front hall. I think the paper shredder is still holding the inner door open, and last I checked the legs were not yet on the table. But we did put the cushions on the couch and sit on it while talking to Greg.
The couch, the chair, an armchair we got when Mary went into assisted living, and a Carleton chair we got at the same time, were all together in David's parents' living room for years, and now they are together again, along with our rather shabby gray leather armchairs and our nice, though not antique, mission-style coffee table. It will be nice to have real end tables; we were using a white wicker shelf table, a weird blue-painted stack of drawers that was once part of a larger assembly, and a kind of small three-legged stool for this function. Even with the extra loveseat and the tables still stacked up, the living room looks much fancier. I wasn't quite sure the furniture would like our old, old house -- John and Mary's house was built, I think, in the 1940's -- but the house seemed to welcome all the pieces.
Pamela
From the next landing down I removed the cat tree. It's not very heavy, and in fact has had to be tied to the handle of the window with an old bathrobe cord, because Lady Jane, youngest and most boisterous of the cats, used to gallop up the lower part of the stairs and land on it with such vehemence that it would tip over and fall down the stairs. From the landing a step down from that I removed a container of litter-box cleaning supplies and a strange object called a Litter Genie that sequesters scooped litter til you have time to take it out. I left the litter-box alone. The last time I moved that, when we had to get a new dishwasher for the upstairs, I hurt my back.
I put the cat tree in the downstairs hallway, since no furniture was leaving or entering that area. Lady Jane was horrified when she saw me hauling her cat tree around, but later on Lydy told me she had ensconced herself on it.
David had removed the recycling can and a box of computer bits from the first-floor landing. I shoved a can intended for storing cat food, now replaced by plastic containers you can pour out of easily but still needed for the elderly cat to use as a step-stool, to the shelf under the window, to be under the shelving and moved a jug of litter to the shelf.
From the front hall I moved the ice chopper, the snow shovel, one empty, one partially-full, and one full container of ice melter, a jug of windshield washing solution, and a complimentary plunger provided by plumbers who once worked in the neighborhood, to the front staircase, where, again, no furniture would be coming or going. From behind the door into the living room I took a box of mail out for recycling and moved the actual recycling container, which is generally overflowing and too heavy for me to carry far, to the area in front of the coat closet. Lydy's shoes joined it. I also turned the paper shredder sideways so the door could be shoved back against the wall; later I moved the paper shredder about a quarter of an inch forward so that it could prevent the hats hung behind the door from pushing the door forward again.
David and I then moved the two smaller hutches and their associated shelves from the dining room to the sunroom, which I had previously cleared. David's plan for moving the heavier central hutch didn't seem good for my knees, so we left that and the table for the arrival of my brother and our friend Greg, who were kindly coming to assist us.
David's sister arrived with the U-Haul van around 3:30 and Greg came over not long after. My brother had said he'd be there at three, since there was furniture to be moved out before anything came in, but he hadn't arrived.
David described to Greg what needed to be done. Greg immediately helped David move the heavier hutch into the sunroom. Then he and I took the leaves out of the table, and he and David moved that into the sunroom as well. I'd cleared space in the sunroom earlier when we thought the furniture was arriving on Thursday.
Greg then had us move the gray sofa into the mostly empty dining room, turned it on its back, and started taking off the legs. We had done a lot of measuring and fussing to see if the sofa would actually fit through the swinging doors between dining room and kitchen both up- and downstairs, but it had not occurred to me, at least, to take anything apart.
Little did I know. Once the gray sofa was dealt with, we went upstairs, and Greg and Barbara flung the cushions from it at once. Then Greg started taking it apart. It was destined for the alley, being thirty years old and only moderately well built to begin with, and having been shredded by cats repeatedly. I still felt a little bad to see it ripped limb from limb. We got it because at the time there were seven Scribblies who needed comfortable seating and somewhere to spread out a manuscript, and I was also regularly hosting a play-reading group that could have as many as ten people in attendance. Also my white cat Sukey Tawdry preferred it to the gray sofa. But apart and out it went, the long back part still giving David, Greg, and Barbara some trouble as a mild revenge.
We'd intended to take the downstairs loveseat out as well, but it's in better condition and we'd hoped maybe somebody would take it away and use it; it just needs a new slipcover. It had started to rain, though, so we didn't want to take it out to get soggy. Minneapolis has such a large bedbug problem, though, that I am not sure people still take upholstered furniture out of alleys. In any case, we left the loveseat alone for the moment.
Even without its legs, the gray sofa gave some trouble going up the stairs. It has a fancy shape with curvy arms and back and they tried to catch on things. At last it was laid on its back in the cat-sitting room (intended as the upstairs dining room but never used as such by us) with its legs nearby. I looked at the legs and had a premonition. The people who had taken the legs off and then carried the thing around were not going to want to fiddle around with replacing the legs.
After that everybody took a well-earned break and I tried to call my brother. I got an automated message that said his cell phone number was unreachable. In addition to giving me a Kimmy Schmidt earworm, this worried me a little. I called my mother's landline. No answer and no message for voicemail, just a loud beep. We tried David's phone. Same message. I went upstairs and sent my mother an email, which is the usual way that we all communicate.
When I came down again, the blue sofa from David's parents' living room, the wooden chairs from the dining room, the very nice teak end tables, and the sofa cushions had been brought in; the upholstered chair with the bentwood arms had been put on the sidewalk at the foot of the porch steps; and everybody was taking another break before tackling the buffet and dining room table. My brother called. He had mistaken the date and had been planning to come on Sunday to help move things. He could not just jump in the car and come right out because he was in the process of replacing the air conditioner belt, which had been squeaking. "It's not rocket science," he said, "but it's tedious and fiddly." He also explained that his cellphone was dead, but he was using a very old one that still had minutes on it, so he gave me that number.
I consulted the furniture movers, who gamely said they could manage, so I texted my brother not to hurry with the car and not to worry about it. I checked my email, and my mom had answered to say that her own phone was also dead but a new one was arriving soon. Nobody had bothered to tell me either of these things because we don't use the phone as a rule.
Lydy got home about then. She volunteered to help out with the buffet, but in fact David, Greg, and Barbara got it out of the truck and onto the lawn, and then after some consultation, up the porch steps, through the front hall and living room, and into the dining room, where it looks really lovely with our 1916 woodwork. It's teak like the end tables and I'm a little awed by it. Greg and Barbara had an extended discussion about whether lemon oil or tung oil would be better for maintaining it.
The dining room table is much less fancy, but David wanted it because it has a formica top and can have hot stuff set on it without damage. Its legs had been removed for transport and the top more or less folds in half, so Greg fetched it in while everybody else was discussing it. Lydy and I brought the chair in from the cold, Lydy and Barbara brought various shelves and drawers from the buffet in, and that was that.
We had a nice chat with Greg before he had to leave. Also, David handed me the device full of Allen wrenches of several sizes that I'd need to put the legs back on the gray sofa.
I started doing this and discovered that Saffron had established herself under the seat padding of the sofa. I lured both cats out of the cat-sitting room with treats and then shut the door. I propped the sofa against the wall so I didn't have to hold it up while putting the legs back on. The front and back legs on each side were part of a single assembly that slid onto two bolts front and back. It was a little tricky to get the assembly placed, but I tightened the bolts, and then tightened them all again, then upended the sofa. Raphael and I sat on it and it seemed quite firm, but when we got up we saw that the leg assembly on the right side had slid forward; I had not sufficiently tightened some of the bolts over there and the whole thing had slid apart. I excused myself to eat something, saying I would deal with the legs after that, but by the time I'd bolted my leftover pizza, Raphael had propped the sofa up with a Mayo Clinic home health guide and put the legs back on, tightening the bolts several times over to be sure. The bolts on the other side were in fact about as tight as they could be, but obviously the right-hand legs had been my practice legs and I should have checked them again.
We sat on the sofa again and made sure all the legs remained where they should be.
Cassie has been quite suspicious of the new sofa. Saffron, having climbed as far inside it as its structure admitted when I first started putting the legs on, has ignored it.
It was much later that night that I went down and retrieved the cat tree. Lady Jane attached herself to it when I put it down in the kitchen to orient it for going through the door to the stairway, but fortunately leapt off again when I actually began to move the tree.
Later yet I restored the winter supplies and the plunger to their place in the front hall. I think the paper shredder is still holding the inner door open, and last I checked the legs were not yet on the table. But we did put the cushions on the couch and sit on it while talking to Greg.
The couch, the chair, an armchair we got when Mary went into assisted living, and a Carleton chair we got at the same time, were all together in David's parents' living room for years, and now they are together again, along with our rather shabby gray leather armchairs and our nice, though not antique, mission-style coffee table. It will be nice to have real end tables; we were using a white wicker shelf table, a weird blue-painted stack of drawers that was once part of a larger assembly, and a kind of small three-legged stool for this function. Even with the extra loveseat and the tables still stacked up, the living room looks much fancier. I wasn't quite sure the furniture would like our old, old house -- John and Mary's house was built, I think, in the 1940's -- but the house seemed to welcome all the pieces.
Pamela
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