Reclaiming the space of a half-empty nest

Ben on the new couch. Note the pet cover.

Because I suspect you all could use a break from this stranger-than-fiction election, I thought I’d relate the story of our new couch.

Mark and I had just dropped our eldest son, Casey, off at Western Washington University. We were headed home when I saw my friend, Barb’s Facebook post. She was desperate to sell her couch, a beautiful plum-colored piece with graceful curves and cute matching pillows. She’d take any offer. The only catch: it had to be out of her Bothell townhouse that night.

Now normally I would see this, say, “Can’t do it,” and scroll on. But something wouldn’t let me pass up this opportunity. We pulled off at next rest stop and I showed Mark the photo.

“We desperately need to replace our couch,” I said, stating the obvious.

Let me take a moment to describe our old couch. Besides being beige, an automatic strike against it, the poor thing had been mauled by our pitbull-mix, Ben, in his efforts to protect us from the mailman, trick-or-treaters, door-to-door solicitors and pizza-delivery guys. Over the years, he’d managed to rip loose the attached back pillow on one side, eviscerate the left armrest and shred the upholstery on the seat cushions. The whole mess smelled distinctly of dog.

I just laughed when the guy at College Hunks Hauling Junk told us they donate still-usable furniture to Goodwill. This couch looked like something you would see on a street corner with a FREE sign, only worse. We should have replaced it years ago, but other things – braces, sports league fees, the dishwasher catching fire — always bumped it down the priority list.

Now, with one kid gone, I had this sudden urge to get rid of it and all our other worn, torn, oldie, moldy things and re-civilize our living space.

Mark and I took a detour by Barb’s place. The couch was even nicer than the picture – and BIG. There was no way we could move it ourselves. So we called our friend, Brian, who has a truck and a strong, football-playing son, Tad. Along with our football-playing son, Charlie, the three of them managed to solve the puzzle of getting Barb’s big couch out of her little townhouse. (Seriously, I’m not sure what came first, the townhouse or the couch. No wonder she left it behind.)

Brian loaded this behemoth onto his truck, drove with it making alarming kerchunk sounds in back, carried it to our house and helped us set it up in our living room.

We paid Tad $20, but the only payment Brian would accept was a bottle of wine. We saw them off, and the following morning, I started looking online for slipcovers. While I was at it, I ordered new sheets and a quilt for our bed (which Ben also shares).

Then, because I was on a roll, I cleaned out Casey’s bedroom and claimed his desk as my new work space. Unlike my basement office, which I rarely use, his room is bathed in light from an east-facing window that offers a partial glimpse of Mount Rainier.

Ben with Paulina in the background.

I hope people reading this don’t get the impression that I couldn’t wait for my son to leave so I could start making home improvements and take over his room. That’s simply not true. I miss him and want him to visit as often as possible.  I even changed the sheets on his bed and left all his sports posters up. Okay, I did take down the blown-up copy of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue featuring Paulina Porizkova “Shaping Up Down Under.”

Really, who needs to look at that when you’re working in your comfy pants and slippers?

There’s much more that I could clean out or replace around here, including some ratty towels that predate the 16-year-old who’s still with us. Charlie is a sophomore at Roosevelt High School and a jock. When he moves out in two years – not that I’m anxious or anything – I’ll finally be able to rid the house of those annoying rubber turf pellets he trails like bread crumbs.

Are you an empty-nester or close to it? What was the first thing you did after your eldest took flight?