Roadblock

This lovely piece of furniture has been stuck in our basement for 5 years.

When we bought our house in 2010, we were surprised to discover this love seat hanging out in the basement as we moved in. "Free furniture? Cool!" At the time, we did not realize that the reason the love seat was left behind was that they remodeled the basement around it and it was literally stuck down there because it was too big to fit through the renovated doorways. 

So for the past five years, we've been shuffling it around the basement room where it was trapped. It's not an uncomfortable piece of furniture. The kids enjoyed building forts with the cushions and jumping on it like a trampoline. It was a little irritating that it was stuck there, but not a big deal.

Then one of the cats peed on it.

Then the other cat peed on it.

Needless to say, it was time for the love seat to go.  Not to mention, the kids (and their ever-growing multitude of possessions) were outgrowing their shared room and play/school room. We needed to better utilize the basement. 

I sprayed the heck out of it with a variety of chemicals and sprinkled essential oils on it (one cat in particular can't stand the smell of oils) and we tried to come up with a plan for evicting our uninvited upholstered guest. We talked about taking a chainsaw to it and just removing the pieces, but we don't have a chainsaw. 

Tim started moving it toward the doorway to try squeezing it through one last time and discovered that the feet came off! With a bit of shoving, the removal of the railings on the staircase, and a little lost paint, he and I were able to squeeze the love seat out of the house and onto the curb. Victory!

Totally worth it.

We quickly listed it on Facebook and craigslist (for free, mind you) and hoped someone would take it off our hands. It got a little rained on but I honestly think that helped because when someone finally came to take it away and Tim helped them load it up, he said the smell was gone. 

It's funny. The love seat has been in our home since the beginning but it was not until it was finally gone that I realized how much of a burden it had been. It was a relief to see it go. With it gone, we were able to move our school stuff to the basement and split the girls into their own rooms. Just getting one piece of furniture out of the house inspired us to purge a bunch of other stuff that was cluttering up the garage as well as the kids' bedrooms. I honestly feel like we've gained a ton of space, which is a big deal when you're living in a small house with growing children.

Lexi's room. I think more purging is in order ;)

Lydia's room

Our new school area

It kind of made me wonder what other baggage or burdens I need to purge my life of, physically and metaphorically speaking. Sometimes there are roadblocks in your life and you don't even realize it until they are gone. Hmm.