New piece of furniture is a good reason to clean
- col-teri-stein
- May 13, 2021
- 803
I tried getting motivated about spring cleaning over the winter. I got a few things done but not nearly as much as is on my list. But all that changed recently with the purchase of a new recliner/office.
I got a lot of writing done on my old recliner. I kind of hated to see it go — the memories — but it was completely worn out. We had it for about 20 years at least, and it got a lot of use. One day last summer, I found a small piece of the mechanism that makes the chair move had broken off and landed on the floor. The recliner still worked, but I was always worried it would totally break and end up being stuck in one position. Thankfully, that never happened.
I did take a photo of the old recliner with my laptop showing the last story I completed on it. But that was just the start of the new recliner saga.
The real problem was pandemic clutter. It has been piling up, and with no one visiting, we kind of ignored it. We usually host a Christmas party for a few friends, and that is good motivation to get rid of clutter, but of course, the party did not happen last year.
Our new recliner could have been delivered the day after we picked it out, which would have been nice, but I needed more time to deal with a certain kind of clutter.
In fact, since the pandemic was so boring, I had left some Christmas decorations out to cheer us up. But now that it’s May, I was shutting the window blind early to keep outsiders from seeing the colorful lights that are on a timer and still popped on at 5 p.m. each night.
“Sorry, Rudolph,” I said as I carried the red-nosed wooden figure to the attic. “Christmas is over.”
It all worked out, though, because I had been wanting to take the tabletop tree and decorative plastic pine roping outside to clean with the air hose, and it was a nice enough day to do that. In January, when I usually take the decorations down, it is too cold and snowy to traipse out to the garage. First, I had to take the decorations off the tree, though. Normally, I just leave them on from year to year and cover the tree with a trash bag to save time at the holidays.
Even my husband, Joe, got in on the cleaning frenzy, helping me air hose the Christmas decorations and spot clean the carpet where my old chair was shedding something that left dark-colored marks. He even asked about getting rid of some other things around the house that could help us clear the pandemic clutter. Yay!
Of course, I did not get as much cleaning done as I wanted before my new chair arrived, but it is here. My to-do lists are never in touch with reality. I usually write up a to-do list for the day and then work on it the rest of the week and sometimes the following week.
Getting new furniture we picked out ourselves is still a big deal. For the first 20 or so years of married life, we happily took other’s furniture castoffs. There is a lot to keep in mind when you are picking out furniture for yourself.
One rule is furniture always looks smaller in the showroom than it does in your house.
“I hope you can get used to having a smaller chair,” Joe said. Then they delivered it, and well, there is only about a skosh of difference between the new one and the old one.
I grabbed my laptop to try out the new “office.” It’s working out OK, but I just need to get used to things being a little bit different, and this padding is totally cushy, not like my old, worn-out chair. Nap attacks are going to be difficult to resist.
Not that we are getting old, but the salesman suggested this new recliner sat up higher and would be easier to get in and out of.
My old recliner had a push button to open it up. That was very convenient (and a lot easier for old people), but that company went out of business, so getting a new one with a push button was out. The new recliner has a lever that you pull. It is kind of awkward after being accustomed to the push button.
Maybe we just should have gotten that electric chair that moves for you. Maybe I just need to build up some arm strength. (Time to rediscover the 5-pound hand weights in the basement.)
I haven’t placed the new chair in its final resting spot yet because supposedly I’m still going to clean more. But that lush, green, leafy view outside of the front door is pretty mesmerizing, and this new chair is a very comfortable place to be. And oh no, it’s sneaking up on me. Nap attack!