home furnishings – Cindy Hval

When our youngest son moved to Texas almost four years ago, we didn’t fall into the empty-nester stereotype and convert his room into a home gym.

After all, he returns home a couple of times a year for long visits.

The room across from ours also remained untouched – unless you count everything from our bedroom closet that we placed there “temporarily” while Derek began building a walk-in closet.

He got sidetracked by other projects, and the room that was once occupied by all four of our sons became the “junk room.”

Then on Thanksgiving, Sam got engaged. Not only would he come home in May, but he’d be bringing the beautiful Susan with him!

Just like that, we had motivation for renovation.

First, Derek needed to finish the walk-in closet so we could clear out the junk room. That became the most labor-intensive part of our home makeover. We had everything from seasonal clothes to photo albums to boxes of china in there. And tools. Lots of tools that he wanted to keep nearby.

We agreed that the room would become a guest room/home office for Derek and that Sam’s old room would be transformed into a guest room with updated paint, lighting and furnishings.

The only glitch in our grand plans was that Derek wanted to do all of the work himself. With the spring visit looming, I balked at the idea that he could finish a closet and two bedrooms before Sam and Susan arrived. (There was also the matter of the unfinished shower in the downstairs bathroom.)

You don’t stay married for 40 years without learning the art of compromise.

My husband agreed to gut and redo the upstairs room, while I took charge of the downstairs room. This was great because I’d already hired a contractor to paint it.

When Sam moved, the sticky tack he’d used to hang scores of posters had left gouges and removed the paint in many places. The cobalt colored walls were scarred and stapled.

He’d attempted to paint his closet doorknobs red, cats had bent the blinds, and the ceiling light was dated. Only the lovely wood floor that Derek installed when he built the room still looked good.

I chose a soft, powder blue paint. In two days, the contractor painted the room and refreshed the molding and the closet. The result? A dark, outdated room transformed into a bright and airy space.

Derek installed new blinds and lighting, and then the real fun began –decorating.

The only new furniture I bought was a bed, an end table and lamps – everything else I sourced from our home.

A white shoe shelf from our old closet fit perfectly in a corner and holds books, games, movies and a few teacups.

My mom’s antique washstand became a TV stand. An easy chair from my office, draped with a soft white blanket, made for a cozy reading spot. I repurposed wall art from other rooms and bought a large white-framed mirror. A throw rug and blue-and-white bedding completed the transformation.

Meanwhile, Derek wasn’t having quite as much fun (or at least not what I consider fun). He’d removed the aging gold carpet in preparation for new laminate flooring, but a pesky squeak in the floorboards drove him crazy.

That squeak woke the babies who once slept there every time I’d tiptoed in to peek at them.

Derek wasn’t having it. He ripped up part of the subflooring, and after much YouTubeing, many nails and some creative language, he vanquished the squeak.

Before he could lay the new floor and paint the dingy white room light gray, there were holes to fill and texturing and priming to do.

Oh yeah, he also removed the horrible popcorn ceiling that adorned many houses built in the ’60s and ’70s.

After days and days of dust, he emerged and said, “Yeah. I’m not doing that again.”

Finally, he got to have fun. He brought up Sam’s bed and desk, and together we figured out how to haul our old pine TV armoire upstairs. The addition of my mom’s bookcase means Derek finally has a place to display his collection of shot and beer glasses.

The aging white ceiling fan/light was tossed, and he found a cool low-profile industrial-looking version online.

The day before the kids arrived, Derek installed the shower door.

Whew! Our empty nest transition is complete.

No home gym. No craft room. No shrine to childhoods long past. Just inviting rooms ready to welcome visiting kids and grandkids.

It was worth the wait.

Three seconds.

That’s about how long it takes me to tell if a couch is comfortable.

My husband and I have spent the past two weekends sitting around. It wasn’t laziness that caused this loafing; it was the need for new furniture.

When our son, Zachary, told us he’d found an apartment and was moving out in early October, we offered him our living room set. It’s at least 10 years old, and despite rigorous use by us and our four sons, it’s held up pretty well.

Zach was pleased to take it, and we were pleased at the thought of updating our living room. That pleasure faded about five furniture stores into our search.

Turns out sofa-shopping isn’t nearly as much fun as couch-surfing, and I’m here to tell you that there are more than 50 shades of gray. A lot more.

We shopped everywhere, from big chains to small, locally owned stores. We knew what we didn’t want. No leather, no large overstuffed pieces and, ultimately, no gray. That was the easy part. Finding what we did want proved more challenging.

But first a word about pillows. If you want folks to purchase a spendy sofa why, oh why, do you cover it with pillows the size of Oregon, making it impossible to actually sit on?

I hope throw pillows are actually meant to be thrown, because I tossed more this weekend than a 10-year-old during a pillow fight at a sleepover.

Our customer service experience varied widely from overbearing to nonexistent to the Goldilocks happy medium of just right.

At two stores no one greeted us at all. At one store, a nice young woman followed us from couch to couch, taking surreptitious notes about our preferences. I finally had to tell her we’d like to discuss our purchase in private. Still, she was a fountain of information when we did have questions.

Knowing we’d quickly lose track of where we’d seen the furniture we liked, we photographed the most promising sets, noting the price and location.

I became the designated sitter, because after 33 years of marriage I know my husband’s comfort needs. If I felt the couch warranted a second opinion, Derek plopped down beside me and we evaluated the firmness of the support, the quality of the fabric, and the ease by which we could extricate ourselves.

By far the most interesting place we visited was Consign Furniture and Jewelry in Liberty Lake. If you’re in the market for dead animals to decorate your den, this is the place for you. They had everything from a ginormous elephant head to a taxidermic mountain lion pouncing on an unsuspecting Big Horn sheep.

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Desks, dining sets, beds and bookcases mingled with artwork, lamps and end tables. They also had lots of couches, but I was quickly distracted by a solid wood phone booth (phone included) and an amazing Wurtlitzer jukebox that came with a box of 45s.

Finally on Sunday, I put out a call on social media asking friends where they’d purchased their last living room set. Lo and behold, there were actually two stores we’d missed during our citywide search.

Within minutes of entering the first store, we discovered the sofas we’d been looking for. The helpful sales associate found we could get a better deal by ordering from the company online, and quickly placed the order for us. The delicious complimentary cookies offered at the entryway only sweetened the deal.

Our new furniture should arrive at the end of the month. Soon we’ll be able to sit around all weekend in our own home.