I tend to be the kind of person who uses stuff until it falls apart, and makes do with approximate solutions instead of buying the ideal, but every once in a while I quit looking with alarm at my dwindling retirement funds and do something big for myself, and this week is witnessing one of those decisions.

My sofa is ancient, but I have been reluctant to replace it, both from inertia and because I loved it so much when I bought it that it’s sad to acknowledge it’s time for it to retire. I loved the style of it—rolled arms the same height as the tall back, sitting up on six-inch wooden legs—and the upholstery, a muted gold with a sort of celadon background, was patterned in the same acanthus leaves that are echoed in the stencil that runs around my dining room (above). In short, it was ideal. But, it didn’t stand up well to the claws of three scratching cats (since deceased, but the damage was done), and the cushions look (and feel) like sad pancakes at this point. Most significant, now, is that it’s low enough to make it a constant challenge for my knees to lift me off of it into a standing position.

Time, therefore, to shop for something new to sit on. Taking the requirements of lymphedema into consideration, I decided it was time for a recliner, so that I could get my lower legs up to a horizontal position while watching TV—but I was determined not to buy a Dad chair with the headrest and arm pads and the ugly synthetic plaid upholstery with the little skirt to conceal the mechanics. So I went online and started looking.

My first instinct was to buy a small sofa with a lounge chair extension out the front, but I soon realized that hauling my legs up a couple of feet onto its surface would be even harder than getting into bed every night. But recliners come in more than just single units these days; now you can get a loveseat or an entire reclining sofa, or have half the sofa recline and half not, or almost any variation of which you can conceive. I started browsing on the Living Spaces website, and found just such a loveseat, in an absolutely divine color—a slate blue leather that perfectly matches one of the colors in my stenciling. I pictured it with a deep gold throw over part of it, and decided this was the one.

Being my own personal practical voice of caution, Kirsten soon sounded warnings in my ear: You can’t order a piece of furniture online! What if it’s too tall, too short, not well made, doesn’t recline properly, doesn’t fit in the space? (But that IS a beautiful color…) So she has been bugging me, for almost a year now, to go shopping. We have planned a couple of trips that fell through for various reasons, but finally, this past week, she said “What are you doing on Thursday?” and when I answered “The same nothing I do most days,” she said “We’re going to Living Spaces—I’ll pick you up at 11:00.” She took a trip to Trader Joe’s on my behalf while I was busy washing up and getting dressed, which now takes me hours instead of minutes, then brought the groceries over and put them away while I did my hair and struggled into a pair of shoes. And then we drove to the biggest Living Spaces store in California, right here in Panorama City.

It’s the kind of place that, if I still had my mobility, I would wander through for hours, probably spending too much money on ill-thought-out selections. (Instead, I made several rest-stops between the parking lot and the front section of the store, sitting on my walker to catch my breath. It’s the AFib.) The store is also, unfortunately, a reflection of the current trend of home decor, which is the most bland ever known to peoplekind. Not the styles or shapes, but the colors, or lack of same. Every single item in the store, whether wood, upholstery, or lampshade, is either white, one of six shades of gray, one of three shades of beige/brown, or black. Every. Single. Item. I’d never seen anything like it. As a color fanatic who paints portraits some deem too chaotic to hang on their walls, I was appalled. The brightest thing in the place was, yes, my slate blue loveseat, to which we made a beeline, only to discover that Kirsten was right: It wasn’t going to work.

The color was, as noted, perfection, but despite being up on legs like my sofa at home, it was so low to the ground that I couldn’t boost myself out of it without assistance. The reclining part was button-operated (there’s no way I can cope with one of those manual handles you jerk), but operated with a sort of lurch when you deployed it, and it wasn’t particularly comfortable, once you were in place. I was so disappointed.

Then our salesman, a diffident young man named Edward, came to our rescue. “I can show you some other recliners,” he said. I specified taller, wider, more comfortable, with a better foot/leg rest, and he said “Come with me; I’ll introduce you to the Cadillac of reclining units!” And
so he did.

It came in the form of a multiple-unit sofa, with every possible permutation, but to form a loveseat you just take the left-hand side and the right-hand side and bolt them together and there it is. (They put a console in between, but I didn’t want that—too much like movie chairs.) Although it sits right on the ground (no visible legs), it’s much higher than the one I had been looking at, and I can get into and out of it easily. The leg rest is a copious size and is button-operated, and the whole loveseat opens out to an almost flat position, if you wish. There is a lumbar support that pushes into your lower back with a satisfying nudge at the touch of another button, and the headrest likewise tilts to the perfect angle to complement whatever degree in which you find yourself. In short, it was the most comfortable piece of furniture I have ever experienced in my 68 years.

There was only one downside: It came in leather, in two colors, gray and brown. The gray was not a pretty light blue-gray, but a somber brown-gray that so favored the brown end of the spectrum that I would have called it brown had it not been sitting next to the true brown and given itself away. It was the ugliest gray I had ever seen, and I couldn’t imagine it in my yellow-blue-and-white-themed living room (or in anyone’s house, for that matter) without shuddering.

Actually, there was another downside; it cost almost twice what the planned loveseat was going to set me back. Add in the $99 delivery fee, the insurance for the moving parts, and the giant battery to operate the hydraulics without plugging it into the wall (always a problem in my 1948 bungalow) and we were talking big money.

After dithering for a while about looking at other options but continually returning to the absolutely sybaritic comfort and health benefits of this one, I decided to get it in chocolate brown. It’s not milk chocolate, it’s dark chocolate, and although it won’t clash with anything in my house (I have a lot of wood furniture and hardwood floors), it won’t exactly “go,” either. But—the aforementioned throws! The evening after our outing, I went online to Wayfair and ordered one in a print, with acanthus leaves and flowers in shades of blue, gold, brown, and red, and another knitted one in dull gold with fringe. Between the two, the chocolate color should be sufficiently obscured, plus I’ll be warm and cozy when my new sofa throws my legs up towards the ceiling, cradles my lower back, and tilts my neck at the perfect angle to drink tea and watch Bosch.

In short, the lack of mobility has justified me in purchasing something I badly need and turning it into a pleasurable choice. So…it’s not all bad.

(It’s being delivered in about half an hour…and my throws arrive today as well!)