Comfort!

Today we finally ordered a new settee. The one we've ordered is similar to the one above though its a 3-seater.

It has taken us MONTHS, no YEARS, to decide on what we wanted.

The one on the right is the MFI version of one we'd been considering before Christmas (though in a lighter colour like the cushions). You can get it from John Lewis, which is where we'd first seen it, for £895. During the January sales MFI had it for sale at under £700. Now its currently on there at over £1100 (I think) - I questioned this since I could see it was exactly the same as the one John Lewis still has on for around £900 and she confessed that right now they are in a "price establishment" phase. And quite honestly do not expect to sell anything for the next two weeks or so until their prices come down again as "reduced" or "sale" or something like that... she also agreed that it was exactly the same as the John Lewis one, even if its not called the same thing. Its a sofabed and the mechanism is amazingly simple. But we don't need a sofabed, that would have just been a potentially useful extra. It wasn't a reason to buy it.

And when it came down to it, as a settee, the one at the top was just SO much more comfortable. Jim liked it straight away too. The ends have recliners built-in and he loves them! (So do I!) We saw it last week and went back and ordered it today.

In our sitting room we've had an extraordinarily uncomfortable seat for ages - its a futon and far too hard despite all the extra cushions I've made for it. I've been feeling desperate to get something more comfortable for years. We've even had the money earmarked for it for over two years... now we've just got 12 more weeks to wait as, unfortunately, that's the lead time on the one we've chosen. Its funny how I've been quite patient really, not buying one that wasn't right, but now we've committed I wish it was being delivered tomorrow!

What I've learnt from all this is that I now know that when we are struggling to persuade each other to buy something it means don't buy it! Wait until we see something that really is what we both want.

I've also learnt that one should never, ever buy anything from one of the big furniture places unless it is on sale. The rest of the time its in "price establishment" and no-one is expected to buy anything during that time.