Sofa Drama

Three years ago we bought a sofa at JCPenney. It was lovely. You've probably seen it in multiple pictures on this blog. It was blue plaid. It was cheery. It was not boring. I loved it.

But alas, the fabric was already worn completely through on the edges. Luckily, we bought the warranty. So getting a new sofa was as easy as going to JCPenney and choosing a new one.

Or so they said.

Here's where I do a little "aside" rant about the problem with sofa's - I'll try to be brief. The problem with sofa's is that they're all just variations of the same drab sofa. Beige. I hate beige. And the problem with me having these strong feelings about sofa's is that it makes choosing a sofa rather difficult. OK, rant done.

So we went to JCP on a Saturday - me, Richard, and all four of our crazy children. We chose a sofa that we thought maybe we could live with, but then changed our mind and got a leather recliner instead. Then we went to another store and, after much negotiating - between Richard and I about sofa's and between the children and I about their behavior staying decent for a few more minutes - chose a dark blue sofa.

The next Saturday the recliner and sofa were delivered. Funny story - one store told me they'd deliver between 8 and 10 am. The other store told me they'd deliver between 12 and 2 pm. Then both trucks showed up at the same time - 11:15am. The recliner is fabulous. Richard is thrilled to have a leather recliner, it saves space in the room to have a recliner instead of an ottoman, and I don't hate it. The sofa, however, was a black hole in the family room. It was WAY too dark. I tried to like it, I really did. I thought maybe orange accents would help cheer it up. They didn't.
Seriously - look at that picture that I took in the store (above) and then compare it to this one (below). It looks so much darker in my family room. It looks practically black!
I just couldn't make myself like it.

So back to the store I went. It took some patience and some repetition of my carefully planned flirty whining, but in the end they let me return the sofa for only a "restocking fee".

But then I still had to choose a NEW new sofa. *sigh* I finally chose a much lighter blue sofa that I thought would be great. But I was questioning myself so much, plus having that dark blue sofa that was technically not ours anymore sitting there a few feet away from our kitchen table, that it really was a stressful few days for me until it was delivered.
Fortunately, when the NEW new sofa arrived, I feel deeply in love (and deeply asleep on it's comfy, wide cushions!). I'm calling the color "aqua". I adore it. It's everything I wanted - cheery and bright and cozy and casual without looking dumpy. It just needed a few new pillows to un-generic-asize it a bit. I know orange is a trendy accent color right now - but that's the fun part about accents (homemade, cheap ones especially), I can afford to throw a little trend in! When orange is "so five minutes ago", I'll just make new ones!
Happy Mama.