How To Embrace Ugly Furniture and Make It Your Own

My husband and I are currently embroiled in a full-scale furniture war. It started about the time my son carved a 14-inch gash through the arm of our couch and ended right about the time several vertebrae in my spine exploded. After much nagging, I finally convinced my husband that we didn't need groceries if I didn't have somewhere to park my growing arse while eating them and so, he bought a new couch.

A couch so ugly, I refuse to show you this monstrosity. Because it's ugly. (I will show you. Just not yet. Promise.) It's an over-sized, over-stuffed leather sectional that my husband and my kids adore and it makes my girly heart weep every time I see it. Ask the deliverymen. They'll tell you. I cried. Real tears like a real baby.

However, it's just a couch. And it serves as a reminder of the tactical error I made: I let my husband have the couch of his dreams. For the dozen times a year he'll sit on it.

I'm a good wife. Sitting on an ugly (albeit comfortable) couch.

Since acquiring my Godzilla-like new couch, I've since picked up a few new pieces of furniture along the way. Because if I have to live with an ugly sectional you can bet your bottom dollar I'm going to have other furniture to distract from the fugly I now sit on. My husband figures there is better ways to spend the money he works so hard to earn.

I figure it's cheaper than divorce. A divorce in which I will keep this ugly arse couch only so that I can cut it up into sizable pieces with a chain saw.

Luckily, my husband sees the value in compromise and so he didn't argue much when I said I needed a new chair to match the hideous new couch.

But what kind of chair goes with an oddly coloured brown leather sectional that sucks the life out of the too small room it hunkers in?

It was a quandary. I searched for months. I refused to settle. I wanted a chair that would not only make my heart sing every time I sat in it, but one that would make my husband cringe the same way I do when I see his couch. I will admit to being small and petty that way. We've been married a long time, people. I've learned to find the fun in life where I can.

It wasn't easy but I found my chair.

And soon, my living room (and kitchen since I don't believe in doing things half-arsed) will be repainted, curtains will be hung and my living space will be transformed. Maybe. Transformed is a strong word. I'm aiming for "I will stop weeping every time I walk into my living room". I'll settle for "I only slightly tear up when I see that couch."

My husband hasn't seen my chair yet. But my father did. He grimaced and then rolled his eyes.  And the clerks in the warehouse who checked it out and loaded it into my daddy's truck last week may have giggled and made a wise crack about needing sunglasses when looking at it. But they are men. Who clearly don't understand that if I can't beat the fugly in my house, I will happily join it. Even if it means bringing back the 70's one piece of furniture at a time.

My husband won the couch battle. But I'm about to win the decorating war.

Come home soon Boo. There's something I need to show you.

I promise you, it will all look great when I'm done. Or you'll be too busy laughing to notice otherwise.