Goodbye, ghetto

For almost a year now, we've been planning to get a new couch. Our old sofa—once contemporary, comfortable and beige, and the first piece of new, non-hand-me-down furniture Jim and I purchased after we were married—had been through almost thirteen years, two cats, and two kids, and for the last few years had been hiding under various throws to disguise its abject state of discoloration and disrepair. It was definitely time to trade up. We scoured the few furniture stores in Yakima, even checked around when we happened to be over in Seattle, but all the couches we liked were either too big for our living room or too expensive. So we waited.

We had pretty much given up and resigned ourselves to a few more years with the ghetto couch, and then on Black Friday, Jim and Jimmy went on a shopping excursion to a local store. Jim found an $800 couch on sale for $450—nothing fancy, but it fit both our living room and our budget, and the microfiber upholstery looked sturdy enough to stand up to both children and cats.

So now the old sofa is out in the back yard until Jim can take it to the dump next Saturday, and we're sinking into the lap of luxury on our new couch. It's nice and cushy, but best of all, it's brown. Which isn't necessarily my personal favorite color, but 9 out of 10 parents surveyed agree: brown furniture is best for hiding the countless spills, scuffs and stains certain to be inflicted by a growing family.

Not that I'm lifting the ban on drinking juice while sitting on the couch.