The Week of Furniture

My return to New York will be followed by exciting furniture deliveries. In October, I wrote a letter to Room and Board cursing them for failing to have a sofa I ordered in August. Last week, the warehouse called me and said that they will not only deliver our couch to us on Nov. 18, but that it will include the sofa bed that we actually purchased. How exciting! I would love to credit my angry internet letter, but I know that it was Husband's phone call to the incompetent sales rep in which he said he'd cancel the whole thing that made it magically be processed in a timely fashion.

Even better, the new sofa bed will arrive in time for Steph's visit. She shall sleep on a cushiony bed fit for the princess she is. (No need for me to demonstrate her royally high standards by putting a pea under it.)

Only slightly less exciting because the purchase involved significantly less drama, my new nightstand, which CUSS readers helped me select (and which Macy's closed the deal on by having it on sale for 77% off), is scheduled to arrive on tomorrow.

Oh, the classiness! I almost can't live here any more. Almost.

The Nightstand Dilemma: What Would CUSS Readers Do?

In Ye Olden Dayes, when people had questions about situations they faced, they traveled miles and miles on foot and donkey to seek answers. The Oracle at Delphi was popular with the ancient Greeks, for example. How lucky we are today! I am extremely grateful that I don't need to schlepp to the top of a mountain to find help for my thorny dilemmas, but instead can turn to the visionaries of the internet for their advice. This not only saves time and money, but does not require me to change out of my pajamas.*

So here, Great Sages and Visionaries of the Blogosphere, is my pressing problem: my nightstand of nine years broke. Given that I purchased it from Ikea, it's run as my bedside companion is very impressive. The drawers went a little off track a few years ago, but two weeks ago, the plastic snapped, and now the middle drawer rests in the bottom drawer.
This will not do. It is time to invest in a new nightstand.

I initially purchased a similar three drawer model from Ikea for $40. However, Husband and I managed to fuck up putting it together in rather inventive ways, and he told me never to buy anything that required construction from Ikea again. I went back to the internets and found two alternatives:

Option A:


Option B:


Now, there is nothing wrong with Option A. I could totally be fine, even happy, with Option A. It might even match a dresser that Husband has, which would be exciting. However, Option B is gorgeous. How can I not desire its sleek design and shiny wood? O, Oracle, how I covet it!

The problem is that Option B costs three times as much as Option A. Husband told me that it's OK to spend some money on nicer furniture (nicer furniture that will of course match nothing else we own, another bonus in my trashy eyes), but I can't help but feel guilty at spending so much money on a freakin' nightstand, even if it is the best nightstand ever made.

What would you do?

*To be accurate, I'm wearing my gym clothes. But whatever. It would probably be disrespectful to consult the Oracle in smelly gym pants.

Dearest Room and Board

Dear Room and Board,

Remember me? I came to your store in SoHo with my husband on Aug. 8. After several salespeople ignored us, one woman finally deigned to take our order for a fancy new couch. This was only because she was incompetent and unable to properly enter it into the system. When I pointed out that the receipt did not reflect what we attempted to purchase, she consulted with the manager, who suggested that she add a note modifying the purchase order.

We were then informed that our fancy new couch would arrive at the Minneapolis warehouse in late September, and we would receive it by the end of October. I found this a bit odd, since the manufacturer is in North Carolina and Minneapolis seems a bit out of the way for a couch going to New York, but I accepted the verdict. At the time, I did not realize that there was also a warehouse in New Jersey.

The oddity of it all made me nervous, so in mid-September, I decided that I didn't care if I acted like a crazy paranoid lady, and called you to check on my order. Surprise, surprise. It was wrong. Adjustments were made, and you promised that the proper couch would arrive. An even bigger surprise was when your New Jersey warehouse called me two weeks later to schedule the delivery of said wrong item.

After much confusion, your staff told me that you would hold the couch in your warehouse until the proper sofa bed arrived and would be swapped for the wrong one. Since I was originally told that I would not have the couch until late October, this did not phase me much. I could wait.

However, when your warehouse again called to deliver the sofa this week, no one seemed sure what exactly I would get. One rep said a memory foam mattress would arrive sans sofa on Thursday (bad), and that a sofa with an air mattress would be delivered on Friday (bad). Another rep said I would get a sofa with an memory foam bed (good). A third said I would only get a sofa with an air mattress (bad.) Today your incompetent sales rep called to inform me that I would receive a sofa with an air mattress and that the mattress I actually ordered was on back order. One day in the future, that would be delivered to my home and the sofa bed swapping would ensue. She said you didn't want to delay my enjoyment of the couch.

I really wanted to ask WHAT THE FUCK THE COUCH WAS DOING IN YOUR WAREHOUSE FOR FOUR FUCKING WEEKS IF THE MATTRESS WAS ON BACK ORDER WITH NO DELIVERY DATE IN SIGHT, but I instead said OK and hung up the phone. Then I called my husband and suggested that he deal with you while I go to a job interview. We concluded that we don't really want your stupid fucking couch at this point.

Thank you,
Suzanne Reisman

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

I really love my neighborhood. Husband and I relocated to the Upper West Side from Greenwich Village begrudgingly upon graduating from NYU, but once we were here, we realized that we belonged. Not even our first apartment, an illegally sublet, 200 square foot former maid's quarters with no stove or oven, deterred us. We rented it because I wanted to live near Fordham Law School, which I was set to attend, and it was the best thing we could afford. (Seriously.) Law school lasted less than three days, but we stayed in the apartment for three years.

Once we decided to move on, we knew we wanted to live in the West 70s. Eventually the plan was to buy a place, and our residency on West 72nd above a photo studio (which decorated the basement garbage room with old wedding portraits - how hilarious is that, assuming you are not in the photo?), message parlor/day spa, and car service dispatching center lasted a little over two years. Not long after we moved in, we saw a news report about a cold case in our building. A dominatrix linked to Marv Alberthad been murdered there in 1997. (Her case is still unsolved, as far as I know.) I'm making it sound crappy, but it was a good place to live, although loud due to heavy traffic.

When it came time to buy a place, Husband's parameters were between W. 70th and W 75th Streets and Columbus and West End Avenues. This is a five block radius, which is absolutely ludicrous given our limited budget, but so it goes. When I made an appointment to see an apartment one block outside his guidelines, he spazzed a bit, but it was the best place we saw in our price range by far, and eventually we signed the mortgage papers and moved in. Now, almost seven years later, we still love our home and the neighborhood.

Here's why: There are lots of places to eat. My favorite restaurants include S'mac(a macaroni and cheese joint), Fred's, Harry's Burritos, Kefi, and Earthen Oven. Diners also abound. And three top bakeries: Crumbs, Magnolia, and Levain (greatest peanut butter chip chocolate cookie ever, butit has like a full day's worth of calories in it) are all within a few blocks, too.

There's culture. The JCC Manhattan has tons of free and cheap events for the public. The classic Beacon Theater was recently refurbished, and features everything from Bob Weir (who played last night, so the sidewalk was full of old hippies) to Tyler Perry productions. Right about the Beacon Theater is the Hotel Beacon, which recently underwent its own huge renovation. When my parents and bubbe came for my book party last August, I tried to get them a room there, but it was booked. (My sister and brother-in-law stayed with us, so there was no more room.) Chaos ensued. I think I also tried On the Ave and The Lucerne, but they were too expensive or booked or both. I can't remember, and I'm off the topic now. Sorry... My neighborhood also has two large movie theaters, and, oh - Lincoln Center.

There's shopping. Besides Fairway, the best grocery store ever, there are two Whole Foods stores within a mile of my apartment. A Trader Joe's is coming soon to a corner near me. And I am "treated" to an ever expanding array of retail chains, like Bed, Bath & Beyond and Loehman's, which is both a blessing and a curse.

Great public transportation. Many subway and bus lines. I can pretty much get anywhere I need to be conveniently and for $2.25, no driving required. Yay!

Anyway, I've rambled long enough. If you ever want to visit, I should one day, before hell freezes over, have my stupid new queen size sofa bed with memory foam mattress that we ordered in August. Don't forget - the BlogHer conference will be in NYC in August 2010! It's a great opportunity to hang with me in my neighborhood. I might even have the damn couch by then.

This is a TravelingMom dedicated post

Street Furniture

As I walked home from the library this afternoon, I passed a trash heap at the curb. This is a common sight in Manhattan, where we don't have alleys. The afternoon/evening before garbage pickup is scheduled, all of the buildings heave out ginormous black bags of trash, containing the waste of hundreds of denizens. It's smelly, but oddly fascinating, now that I'm thinking about it.

Anyway, on the trash heap was a beautiful entertainment center. It was a blond wood, and solid. None of the Ikea shit that's usually chucked aside with gaping holes punched through the cardboard "wood." The cabinet had a glass door and three shelves. The TV space was small, but the overall height of the unit was not so tall that a person couldn't just plop her husband's stupid flat panel TV on top and it would require straining one's neck to view, like sitting in the first row at a movie theater. It also had a functional drawer. I loved it.

As I checked the piece for defects (i.e. - bugs), a woman approached the trash. She scavenged a wood tray, then hovered. "You gonna take that?" she finally asked me.

"Yeah, I think so. I just need to call my husband to help me because it is way too heavy to carry alone."

"It's a nice piece," she marveled. "You got lucky. If you don't take it, I'll come back later and fetch it. I live in this building."

I waited 30 minutes with my new furniture, debating the entire time whether or not I was insane. I just spent thousands of dollars renovating my apartment, and here I was giddy about a used piece of furniture that someone threw out. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Husband finally called me back. He had already returned the car to his parking garage, and had to be in our apartment for a conference call in 15 minutes. There was no way he'd make it, even if he ran down to inspect the piece and we stuffed it in an SUV cab. I wanted to cry. I seriously considered standing in the street with it until his call was over, but the digital clock on the bank down the street showed that the temperature was dropped a degree every five minutes, and I was already cold. Plus, it looked like it might rain. I reluctantly went home.

Farewell, my beautiful free street furniture. I hope you find a good home tonight.

ENTJ

The fifteen second Facebook Meyers-Briggs personality test classified me as an ENTJ. ENTJ stands for extraversion, intuition, thinking, and judgment. Normally I am skeptical about personality tests in general, and even more so about ones that take less than a minute to complete, but I've taken longer versions of Meyers-Briggs at leadership conferences, and I always come out an ENTJ.

What does it mean to be an ENTJ? The Facebook fifteen second explanation says:

You are frank, decisive, and assume leadership readily. You quickly see illogical and inefficient procedures and policies, and develop and implement comprehensive systems to solve organizational problems. You enjoy long-term planning and goal setting. You are usually well informed, well read, enjoy expanding your knowledge and passing it on to others. You are forceful in presenting your ideas

I agree that describes me well, particularly that last line, not the the title of this blog would illustrate that point or anything. There's a much longer explanation on the Personality Page (along with a longer quiz, I think). My favorite line from that is, "ENTJs want their home to be beautiful, well-furnished, and efficiently run." Ha ha ha! If "beautiful" and "well-furnished" means crammed with random used furniture, some of which was scavenged from trash, then certainly that is true, too. (Part of what freaks me out about the renovation that might one day finish if I am lucky is that it made the apartment too nice - I feel like I don't belong here.)

Anyway, an ENTJ is basically a pushy person with strong opinions who values planning and success, hates wastefulness, and tries to hide a sentimental streak as wide as the Mississippi River. (Not the Mississippi up north where it's narrow, either.) Yeah. How about youse?

Easter in the Embroidery Capital of the World

This afternoon, Husband and I joined some lovely friends from my writing program for Easter brunch at another friend's apartment in New Jersey. Everything was delicious, and of course, I ate too much. In particular, I loved the biscuits that one woman made.

"Hey Sara, how'd you get your biscuits to be so sweet?" I asked her, then laughed maniacally in my head because, thanks to my granny, I can't say the word biscuit with a straight face. Granny's euphemism for the vaginal area was butter biscuit. So, for example, when I was a wee lass and went to the bathroom, she'd ask me if I wiped my butter biscuit before I got off the toilet. Oy. (For the record, the brunch biscuits were made with honey butter. Mmmmm...)

We departed from the brunch festivities a bit early to go to Ikea. Our living room has been deprived of a couch since Tuesday, which is the only night residents in our building are allowed to dispose of furniture. For $150, Husband and I picked up a cute little couch that flips out into a bed for overnight guests. We had to fight the crowds of Southeast Asians, Asians, and Hasidic Jews to check out. (I swear I saw my super a few check out lanes over, but that's another story.) Now I know who shops at Ikea on Easter Sunday.

Sofa safely tucked into the hatchback of Fred the Red, our PT Cruiser, Husband and I headed back home from Jersey via the Lincoln Tunnel. As we passed under a bridge, I saw one of my favorite signs: "Welcome to North New Jersey, Embroidery Capital of the World Since 1872." Something to brag about, indeed.

Hope that everyone is having a Happy Resurrection Day!

I Want to Wake Up in a City that Never Sleeps

While I very much loved my trip and all the fabulous people that I saw that I want to see more often, I am glad to be home. The (free) luxury hotels (and yurt)were nice, but sinking my head into my deformed pillow when I arrived at my apartment this morning was like snuggling up with an old friend. Plus, speaking of old friends, sleeping with Theo (my teddy bear) only reminded me how merely adequate my well intentioned travel stuffed dog companion is.

Still, being home is not all rainbows and butterflies. I brought back an unintentional souvenir of a cold. There is a long line of gutted tile running along my bathroom wall, and everything that was in the bathroom is now cluttering the dining room. The shower is supposed to work, but doesn't. The workmen are coming back to patch things up tomorrow, and thankfully Rebecca will be here to remind them that they didn't really fix the shower.

Where will I be tomorrow? Downtown, starting my new job. I'm scared shitless. At least the toilet flushes better than it has in years.

Master of the Stairs

The rain in Spain may fall mainly on the plain, but yesterday morning, the sky opened up in New York City and it rained on the Upper West Side like a mad motherfucker. And it was chilly. I looked outside and thought, "Nah."

Still, I needed to get some sort of exercise, so I suited up and hit the stairs. My building has 15 floors. When I reached 15, panting, shaking, and sweating, I heard the rain falling harder than ever. Looking up, I saw a skylight and another flight of stairs that led to the roof. I climbed to the top, triumphant.

On the way down, my left knee reminded me that climbing real stairs is a lot harder on the joints and knobs than the StairMaster. "Shut the fuck up, you whiner," I told it. "We have work to do." It somewhat complied with my demand, and we tromped back up 16 flights once we hit the bottom.

Other than learning what a fabulous workout I can get for free in my building,* I discovered that people use the landings to store a lot of stuff. On the 3rd floor, there is a broken trampoline with a paper taped to it, reading: "This belongs to #3G." Other landings offered bikes for children of various ages, construction materials, and a map of the world (still depicting the USSR) mounted on posterboard. It is nice to know that there are other hoarders in this building.

*I can't move my calves this morning.

Redecorating at the Ranch

The clutter at Chateau Husband-Reisman is more scattered than ever. On Monday, Husband sent me an email suggesting that we host a Deep Dish for Democracy party for Obama's historic speech at the Democratic Convention. First launched as a fundraiser for Kerry in the 2004 election, Deep Dish for Democracy is so named because Husband will whip up his delectable deep dish pizzas.

This, of course, led to the mess in the living room because Husband insisted a new flat panel TV is imperative to the event's success. (Our current TV was purchased in 2000 so that Husband could assemble a group of people to watch the Mets defeat the Yankees in the World Series. This did not end well.) The new TV thus requires a non-obtrusive TV stand. I figured that we would look around this weekend and pick something up. Instead, Husband came home from work last night with a new TV, which is currently taking up an enormous amount of space in the dining room.

Still, being naive, I left the apartment yesterday evening for a meeting and assumed that it would be in one piece when I returned. When I arrived home to find him removing objects d'arte (at least that's what I consider them), I was again confused. Husband cheerfully informed me that a new TV stand would be arriving tomorrow, and I should consider what new "literature storage system" (i.e. - bookcase) I would like. As of this writing, I think we'll be bookcase shopping this weekend, but clearly I have proved to be an idiot when it comes to these matters, so my guess is that some sort of furniture will make it here on Friday.

The clutter, however, will probably be here until next year.

Welcome to the Insect Graveyard

Since we live on the ground floor of our building and our windows look directly out onto the sidewalk, Husband and I never open our curtains. While I would prefer to allow the sun to shine in every once in a while, I also am not cool with people inspecting our fine home as they bop down the street. Two halogen lamps keep our living room brightly illuminated to make up for the lack of natural light and chase away some of the cave shadows that seem to form.

The halogen lamps work very well for us in more than one way. In addition to giving us light, they also appear to annihilate large numbers of winged insects. Recently, as I looked at the lamp while turning it on, I noticed that dozens of insect carcasses filled up the clear plastic piece at the bottom of the light.

While I am glad that my lamp kills flies, the unfortunate part is that the graveyard is below a large metal plate, and hence not possible for me to empty into the trash. Now every time I turn on the lamp, I am forced to look at this grotesque scene and contemplate about mortality. Oh, the conundrum!

File Under "Accomplished" - A Photo Story

(Incidentally, this little photo story will give a fair tour of the mess that is my living room. I only mocked my parents' house in the past because I could completely relate to it.)

My writing desk was my dining table for years. Then we got a new one, but instead of throwing this table out, I moved it into the living room to use as my writing table. Initially, this was very good. Then my writing table became my dumping table. (FYI - My friend Dianne painted that portrait of the CUSS logo for me. Isn't she awesome?) Not much writing is done at my writing desk as a result. After months of writing at the fancy new dining room table, thinking if I could just put my files somewhere, I could use the writing table as a table instead of storage unit, it occurred to me that I could buy a filing cabinet. Two weeks later, I ordered one from Staples.

It arrived yesterday in a tidy box. I committed to building the filing cabinet on Friday morning. Here I am hard at work in the middle of my living room. Husband was working from home, and he was so amused he decided to take a picture. (Note the hideous purple leather chairs that he insisted on buying from Craig's List. The blue sofa came from a thrift store. Our temporary second rabbit, Jacques, chewed a whole on the corner of the puffy top which is covered by Husband's green blanket that he got for college in 1994. At the front of the room, behind the gate, is Tycho the Giant Rabbit's apartment.)

About an hour and one minorly major fuck up (I forgot to put in the bottom on one of the drawers before I attached all the sides - oops), the file cabinet stands complete. What a jolly laugh I shall have if it is not large enough.

Buona Sera (Damn, I'm Tired)

For a variety of reasons, I didn't really sleep on the plane last night. Unfortunately, staring blankly into space for hours at a time does not seem to be as restful as an actual night of sleep. Still, Husband and I arrived in Italy safely and ready to do some sightseeing.

First, we checked into our mad plush hotel. There are many reasons why I love accompanying Husband on his business trips. Here are four:Our main room.
Husband hanging his fancy schmancy suits up in the enormous closet in the floyer/changing area off the main room.The over-the-top hallway staircase. The whole hotel is super old world fancy. It sort of cracks me up. And yet I am slightly annoyed that we were not given a room with a view of the Arno River. Whatever.

After we unpacked, we headed over to the stunning Florentine synogogue. It is an elaborate Moorish style structure, but no pictures were allowed. Next up was gelato, of course. I led Husband to the gelateria I liked best when I was here last year with Dr. P and Dr. H. It's called Vivoli and it is not far from the synagogue. I had orange peel & chocolate; Husband had hazelnut and chocolate.

By then, we were both fading fast. We wandered around a bit more and by luck (meaning: I got lost looking for it), I found the delightful wood toy shop that I loved last year. We bought our godson a birthday present. He'll be 1 on the 21st. Yea!

More meandering for a while, then back to the hotel to clean up. There's a reception tonight hosted by the Ferragamo family that Husband and I will be attending tonight as part of his conference. Yes, this utterly cracks me up. I was not pleased that I had to pack a nice dress (actually, two nice dresses because there is another reception on Friday at the Uffizi Gallery, which I am mad excited about because we will get to go into the Coorido Vassari, which is this private passage that links Palazzo Pitti to the Uffizi so that the Medici family could go back and forth without having to mingle with the riff raff on the street, and it is not usually open to the public) and classy shoes , but whatever. I just hope I don't fall asleep tonight and/or embarrass myself. I think the reception is actually at the Museo Ferragamo, so that will be fun. There's lots of shoes on display there. Hopefully, I'll get some good pics.

Losin' It

Losin' It was on of Tom Cruises' first hit movies, or something like that, wedged right between The Outsiders and Risky Business. To me, though, "losin' it" is a near daily occurrence, although the "it" that gets lost varies tremendously.

Often times "it" is my temper or tenuous grip on sanity. Other days it is an object, like a water bottle I'm carrying with me, which I put down for a second to look at something, then wander away and 15 minutes later, realize that I lost it somewhere. Today, "it" was the last week's edition of New York Magazine, which had a very interesting feature on books, writing, and MFA programs. I read it on the train back to New York from New Haven, and after I read the main feature, I realized that I enjoyed the rest of the magazine immensely, too. Unfortunately, I lost it after I debarked in Harlem, sweated buckets on the walk to the subway, and noticed a Dunkin' Donuts. At DD, I bought a mango pineapple smoothie. Sometime between slurping down the icy beverage and entering the subway station and refilling my MetroCard, I dropped the magazine. I didn't notice until I was getting on the subway and it occurred to me that I wanted to finish reading some article.

What was I doing on the train from New Haven in the first place? Well, that is the main thing that I lost today. I helped Dr. P pack up her UHaul for Stage 1 of her moving process, which involves dropping her shit off at her parents' house in Connecticut. (Long story.) Despite being ridden with cold germs, I asked her if she wanted company on her drive north before we embark on a much longer drive south in two weeks. She dropped me off at the train station to go back to NYC, which is where I then lost my magazine. But of course, I had already lost something much more important today when one of my closest friends - someone I think of as a sister - moved away.

Getting Lucky

Friday night was packed with excitement. I went to a burlesque show/fundraiser for Planned Parenthood New York and Haven Coalition. I am an increasingly shitty leader of Haven these days, both literally and figuratively, as my digestive tract is continuing its revolt against me and I keep forgetting to do important things for Haven, such as bring printed information about our work to fundraising events. That's another story, though.

Anyway, at the event, which was oodles of fun, I bought four tickets to the raffle. I am very pleased to say that Lady Luck gave me a big, wet, sloppy kiss, and I won a ginormous squishy dildo! How cool is that?Although given its girth, does it not kinda of scare you? I admit that it intimidates me. I'm wussy that way, though.

Husband was unable to attend the event because he went to a casino with a few co-workers. I eagerly awaited his return home so I could show him my loot.

"Hi!" I said as he walked in the door. "How was the casino? Did you win anything?"

He looked sad. "No."

"Oh well," I pretended to sympathize for a second, then shifted gears. "Look what I won in a raffle!" I blurted out as I shoved the dildo in his face.

"Great," he replied without much enthusiasm.

"I'm going to show it to your parents when they come over for dinner tomorrow," I teased.

"Yeah, can you please not do that?" he said, blushing. (As a redhead, he is a great blusher.)

"I'll think about it." I put it down on the bookcase next to the computer.

On Saturday, I helped Dr. H pick up a desk and dresser that she had in storage in Long Island. Dr. P also came along, and we had a lovely day together. When I returned to my apartment, I nearly collapsed with laughter."I felt like it was staring at me while I did our taxes," Husband explained. "Then I realized that it couldn't stare at me because it had no eyes, so I rectified the situation."

"Where'd you get the googlie eyes?" I asked, wiping the tears of mirth from my eyes.

"From your box marked 'googlie eyes,'" he said, as if everyone has a box of googlie eyes just lying around. (I love googlie eyes, and you never know when they will come in handy, as Husband proved.) "Now it's really a trouser snake!"
See how lucky I am? Not only does Husband take me on exciting trips around the globe, but he also tapes googlie eyes onto dildos and makes funny jokes. I am the luckiest girl ever.

Happy Presidents Day

Last night Husband and I journeyed out to Queens to have dinner with some friends who just bought a new house. The 7 train was not running, so we took trusty old Fred the Red, our PT Cruiser that we bought in August when Husband took a job in Connecticut. It turned out to be very fortuitous that we had Fred with us because our friends were getting rid of some furniture they didn't want to bring to the new place. You know how much I love free furniture, and I have wanted a buffet with a hutch for our dining room for a long time, so it was perfect!

Husband put the back seat down and the buffet slid in perfectly. The hutch, however, was a bit too big for the trunk to close. Given that it was freezing out, I was a bit hesitant to drive into Manhattan with the trunk open, but it actually worked out fine. (My digestive system cranked out some extra gas to heat up the car, which was thoughtful of it but also extremely smelly.) It was tying the trunk down that almost caused Husband and I to lose our hands to frostbite.

Long story short, it arrived safely as did our appendages. The hutch is white and looks fantastic in the dining room. For once we are also actually throwing away the old furniture that the new furniture is meant to replace, so we have a net gain of space. All very cool.