It Started When I Needed a New Sofa
Back in my twenties, when I bought my first home, I made a big mistake. I was working in fashion at the time but I always had an eye for interiors. And I knew that it was time to retire my five year old, unnaturally shiny Herculon couch and go shopping for a new, "eighties-looking" sofa. Yes, I know - sofa is just a nicer way to refer to a couch. And that’s what I needed – a nicer kind of couch. So I starting getting ideas.
I've always believed in giving business back to where I got business. It happened that one of my clients had a family-run furniture business, so I decided that I would buy my sofa from them. My client’s furniture store was in Houtzdale, Pennsylvania, some Podunk town I had only heard mentioned when big news happened there. Like maybe a bake sale.
I relished a road trip on my day off, so I hopped in the B'mer, rolled back the sunroof, turned on Talking Heads full blast, and I was off to Houtzdale. I had made an appointment, since, no matter where you are, an appointment gets you better service than “just showing up.” I arrived in this sleepy little town and, had I been in the Southwest, I might have seen some sagebrush tumbling by. Then, I saw the store and realized why people from all over the Commonwealth came there to buy their furniture. It was a big store. A HUGE store. I was met at the front door and introduced me to every employee within earshot. Made me feel so important. Then, Mrs. Ann Sahlaney escorted me to an old building elevator.
Upon arrival at the fourth floor, I witnessed what had to be the largest collection of sofas I had ever seen. There were probably a hundred or so and, like many of my clients today, I was overwhelmed by the task of selecting the RIGHT sofa for my new home.
Selecting the Right Sofa was Easy – NOT.
Keep in mind that I was a buyer and a selling manager in better men's and women's wear. If my job that day had been to buy $10,000 worth of men's suits in the best-selling sizes, colours and fabrics, I would have had no problem! But this was different. This was going to be my only sofa, and, being the trend-setting icon that I saw myself to be, I just couldn’t make a mistake. Those of you who know me well can probably already guess that I wasn't going to leave town without buying something or placing an order.
[side note: If you want to take two years to find the right couch for your home, think twice before you come to me for help. Make an appointment, come with a budget and rest assured - I'll order you that sofa within two hours.]
Halfway through the day, I went through the fabric samples on these big metal rings from the company whose sofa I liked and I narrowed my selection down to three choices (always a good idea). By this time, the salesman had stopped offering recommendations because, clearly, I could see, he understood my exemplary taste level. One of my fashionista mentors had used the word, "duck-cloth", so, when I came to the selection of duck-cloths, I knew that I was on the homestretch. My sofa (mine – not one of the "floor samples"), was going to be a classic, "tuxedo-style" sofa, with three back cushions over three seat cushions, and these two cute little "kidney-pillows." And it would be made in the most wonderful neutral-colour duck cloth that the mills had ever woven.
Mission Accomplished? Maybe not.
I was drunk with excitement. My dream had been fulfilled by a Drexel Heritage, name-brand sofa in a fabric that I alone had selected. I couldn't write the deposit check fast enough, seal the deal and drive home through the mountains to return to my soon-to-be-photographed house. After all, how could Architectural Digest resist?
Remember, this is a story about mistakes. So, what was the problem? Was the sofa too big? It could have been. You know, I NEVER thought about my award-winning sofa being too big for the room... and I lucked out in that it fit perfectly. Was it comfortable? Yes, it was. In fact, I still own it; it's in my library. Was the problem actually that beige duck cloth I had chosen so carefully to wear well and look fantastic?
Oh yes.
The Sahlaney truck arrived and the delivery men entered with my prized piece of furniture, wrapped like a mummy. I could hardly contain myself. The wait was over, and the men proceeded to carefully unwrap my treasure. I think I remember going to the kitchen to get the men a glass of cold water, and, when I returned, there it was… wait - my WHITE sofa?
I was speechless. What I had remembered as a cousin to khaki had evolved into an albino aberration of cushions and pillows. I didn't know whether to move to Hollywood or find out where my Grandpap got his bubble-wrap covers for his car seats on his '56 Nash, but I quickly signed the paper on the clipboard being held in front of me and crashed back to earth.
I drank back then, but even I knew that a Johnny Walker straight up (or two or three) wasn't going to change my dinosaur egg into the colour I should have ordered. At least I had bought a quality product, worthy of reupholstering. So, within a short year of napping, entertaining, and just plain-old TV watching, my seven-foot duck showed proof that I owned an Olde English sheepdog and I knew I had to call my best friend, Marlene, and hire her to slip-cover my Joan Crawford nightmare. It was time to move on with my life.
What did I Learn? A Lot.
So, what is the moral here? Never buy a white sofa? No, white is good for some rooms. It just wasn’t good for mine.
The lesson here is to know what you want and be willing to listen to someone who knows something you may not. Had I allowed myself to be warned about how a light fabric can appear up five times lighter when it actually appears on the furniture in a room, or had I thought to share that I had a dog, or had I at least been offered fabric protection, things might have turned out differently.
Thankfully, the wonderful business consultant and trainer, Iris Byers, taught me how to help my clients avoid my own earlier error: Let me listen to you, ask questions and work with you. You can rest assured that you’ll wind up with furniture that fits your home, your style and your budget.
So, how about you? In the great wide world of your home, what was your biggest mistake?
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