About two weeks ago I  looked on Ikea.com and decided I wanted the Friheten couch.  My friend and I had planned on an Ikea trip in two days, so I would have the opportunity to mess around with it in person and make sure that I liked it.

I’m a fan of getting to Ikea before the store opens and getting breakfast for $1.  Eggs, sausage, potatoes, and coffee.  My friend and I treat it like a day trip.  We have fun exclaiming over all the set ups and mock apartments and find ideas to apply to our homes.  Many times we leave without purchasing anything and I knew I wasn’t going to leave with that couch – unless it was in “as-is” section for a crazy low price.  LOL!

I rarely buy anything new for a few reasons. One is of course, cost.  I can’t spend $600 on a couch (Plus 10% tax!).   In addition, most new products off-gas.  Some people just smell an off smell or don’t even notice, but it will trigger my asthma and it could last up to a year.  There was a really bad nearly two years when I was a kid because we moved into a new house.  I rarely buy anything new for this reason, and if I do, I try to assemble it outside if the weather allows it to air out there, or in my shed.  I’ll let it sit out there for as long as I can manage.  Finally, it really only requires one word: Dogs.  I’m not going to spend money on something that will be licked, sat, and peed on by dogs.

Anyhoo, back to manifesting my couch. I started watching Offerup, Facebook marketplace, and Craigslist.  I saw they were posting for $300 on average, and that’s more than I wanted to spend.  I kept watching, eventually coming across one without a price.  I messaged that I was sorry, but I could not seem to find a price and was this free?  And they come back with, “Oh, we’re asking like $50-$100, but if it doesn’t go maybe it’ll be free.”

HAHAHA!  You cannot mention an amount of money, and then say free, and expect a person to pay after they know you are willing to give it away.  Come on now!  I messaged back, ” I’d love to have it for free.  It would be a great windfall and I’d be so grateful.  I’m five minutes away, and I can be there anytime.  Thanks so much!”  I didn’t hear anything for two days and then on Saturday morning she asked if I could come by in the afternoon for it.  YES, ma’am!  Gratefully.  They had not broken it down at all and did most of the loading and it was heavy all together guys, so I felt really lame taking it for free.  I gave them all the cash I had in my wallet, which was only $11, but I told them thank you so much and that I really appreciated them.  It was dumped in my driveway and I worked on cleaning it out there.

It has some stains, but I knew from the reviews on Ikea’s website that the fabric was terrible.  That any stain only got worse when you tried to clean it.  That the water spots were out of control. I figured anything I brought into my house would last a couple years at most due to dogs, so it didn’t really matter.

I had to clean the whole thing and take it completely apart to get it in the house.  I cleaned it knowing that I might make it look worse by doing so.  And it does, but now I know it is clean.   Well you know that was really tough on my hands and arms with their nerves, so then I had to take a day off from doing much of anything.  And then I tried to put it together the following day and just ended up in tears on my living room floor.

I have this thing, and maybe it is my OCD, but this couch was in pieces in my living room and it’s like I was frozen.  I could not get anything else done.  I just sat there, locked in place by my inability to complete the couch.  This has been an issue for me my whole life.  It’s one of the reasons I always had to have a clean house before I could do school work.  I just could not think until everything was picked up.   Some people go, “How can you have OCD? You have DOGS, your house is a mess sometimes!”  I know, I wondered too.  In fact, I might have laughed out loud -possibly could be construed as a scoff – at the doctor, but apparently it’s simply the fixation that is an issue, not always cleanliness.  A need for something to be a certain way and then I freeze when it isn’t.  I get stuck.  It’s happened for a few weeks before.  My friends and family know this about me, and I have to tell you, it is really great when I say, “so this thing is happening,” And they know me and they get it and they come over for an hour and I’m UNSTUCK and can go about being productive.  I am much, much, much better at it than I used to be.  My coping skills and ability to logic myself out of things has vastly improved, but sometimes, I still get stuck.

The couch was simply too big for me to assemble without another person to hold pieces and my hands were still shot (dexterity due to nerve issues) and what not so I reached out for help.  With gratitude I received it and we had it up and together in 20 minutes.  It is so frustrating sometimes when something that you are unable to do because of disability is so easily accomplished by someone else.  It is also just-the-way-it-is.  It’s now a fleeting thought and I just accept it instead of sitting in it.

I HAVE A COUCH!  I haven’t had a real couch for a couple years, and I’m quite excited about the versatility of this one.  I had a twin bed in my living room that I used as a couch and my niece and nephew used for sleepovers and a new couch had to accommodate them.  This couch is really neat in its design for sleeping areas and will be good for me, the dogs, and the kiddos.  I love that I decided I wanted this, and manifested it for free (or $11 depending on if you attribute that to the couch or labor costs) into my home in under a week.  Put it out there folks – you never know what will happen!

* See me Hack this Friheten sofa here.