43. refinish my grandmother's cedar chest

A few years back my sister gave me an assortment of furniture she had in her garage, including our grandmother's cedar chest. Driving it from her house to my apartment in LA made me feel like I was hauling my own coffin, but once I got it into my place I loved it. It's a very nice, very solid cedar chest that faithfully holds sweaters and blankies.
In our new place, Niall set it up in living room bay window nook and we popped a new cushion on top of it.

It looks great, and does not seem to need any actual tools or sanding, so I'm calling it done! (This is one of the benefits of having a Life Scavenger Hunt-- I don't feel hemmed in by the rules.)

Couch

The important part of this story is that we have a couch. I guess that means you can stop reading now. You’re welcome.

From the beginning: Niall (boyfriend) and I moved in together. Which is a big step! But it doesn’t so much feel like a Big Step because we like each other and he was already spending most nights at my place anyhow, and I was very very ready to not live in my too-close-to-baseball-traffic apartment anymore (side note: everyone told me that baseball traffic only matters during baseball season. DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG BASEBALL SEASON IS?).

Anyhow. We told my Catholic parents and then we told his Catholic parents and then we found a place and moved in together. I love our new apartment, for several reasons:

1.       We both live there.

2.       Bowie lives there, too.
3.       Two bedrooms (one is ours and one is spare, but Bowie seems to think one is his).

4.       Two bathrooms (one is ours and one is mine).
5.       Both sets of our Catholic parents are happy for us that both of us live there.
6.       It’s like a mini HOUSE. Well, technically it’s a townhouse. Bottom floor is a little garage, and then you go upstairs and there’s the kitchen and living area, and then you go upstairs again and there’s the bedrooms and bathrooms.
7.       The bay windows.
8.       It has a little patio. With a screen door so Bowie can sit and look out at it.

Or stand and look out at it.

9.       THIS SECURITY SYSTEM.

We're still getting settled, but we did make some grand strides this past weekend. Up until last week, this was how our living room looked: one million boxes of my crap everywhere, my old TV, and two chairs.

You'll notice that Niall had no problem claiming BOTH CHAIRS.

I sent the above photo to my family which had the beneficial effect of my sister piping up to offer us one or two of her spare couches, and then the not quite so beneficial effect of everyone else offering us the contents of their garages.

So on Sunday we reserved a Uhaul. Our rental started at 10AM, so naturally the Uhaul place didn’t even open until 10:30, and then when the place did open another couple cut in front of us but instead of saying anything I just passive aggressively tweeted about it. ANYHOW. We finally got on the road, and by that I mean that we stopped at my sister’s house to pick up the couch, and then back to my parents’ house to pick up some bookshelves (and Bowie)

and then stopped again in San Jose (storage) to pick up some chairs and a coffee table that was my grandmother's.

and then drove to our apartment in San Francisco. We carried the two bookshelves and the coffee table and the chairs upstairs. Then we yanked off the blocks from the couch to make it into a couch with no under before attempting to carry it up the stairs

and around the corner.

And we learned that no matter how much we tried, the couch would not PIVOT.

So we went to plan B which was to set it on fire heave the couch over the back fence and through the kitchen into the living room. We carried the couch back down the stairs, loaded it up into the Uhaul again, and drove around to the back of the house. (We had to drive to the back of the house because, as I mentioned, it is a little townhouse. It’s connected on both sides to our neighbors and ours is in middle of something like 20 townhouses in a row, each with their own little wee patio/yard but only access to said yards if you go THROUGH the houses. The yards all back up to the next street over, which is where we drove. Everybody with me?)

Okay, so. Then we unloaded the couch from the Uhaul and heaved it UP ONTO the fence. I held the couch balanced on the fence for a few very precarious minutes while Niall ran down the street, back around to our street and the front of the house, up the stairs and out through the kitchen into the garden, climbed up on a ladder, and pulled the couch over the fence and down to the other side.

This, by the way, is the fence:

Chair for scale.

Then I ran down the street, back around to our street to the front of the house, up the stairs and out through the kitchen into the garden, and picked up the other end of the couch and we brought it into the living room where it will now stay, presumably, forever.

This week Niall is full of energy and I’ve spontaneously burst into tears three times.

BUT WE HAVE A COUCH.