My cousin, Calvin, has owned a furniture store, which he bought from his parents, for 15 years. For several years before that, he managed it for his parents. So, he's actually been IN the furniture business for 18 years. The last time Don and I visited Canada, we went by his store (I had been there before, during the years my Aunt and Uncle owned it) and looked it over. However, I was pregnant with Dane the last time I was in Canada, and he'll be 10 this June, so it's been awhile. I hadn't really thought much about Callie (as family calls him) being in the furniture business.
The night he arrived, I gave him a short tour of the house, mainly so he would know his way around in the morning or if he needed a drink or a bathroom during the night. He quietly moved from room to room, then announced,
"I hope you won't be offended, Cuz, but I'd like to do some re-decorating. Just promise me that you'll leave things the way I put them until after I'm gone, eh. Maybe you'll get used to them and decide to leave them like that."
It's nice to see you again, too, dear Cousin. From the living room, we moved into the kitchen and sat down at the table to catch up a little before bed.
"This is a nice piece," he said, fondly rubbing the table.
"It's pine," I responded, smiling. I LOVE my kitchen table. It was perfect for my kitchen and exactly what I wanted and, since buying it, we've spent many a happy hour around it.
"No, it's not pine," Calvin stated bluntly. "It's rubberwood, which is actually harder than pine. Your hutch over there" he said as he pointed to my pine hutch across the kitchen, "is pine, but it's Japanese pine, not Mexican pine. The Mexicans design these beautiful pieces of furniture that are solid and heavy. The Japanese try to knock them off, but can't quite seem to replicate the workmanship. Their pieces are always a little less sturdy and a little smaller than the Mexican originals."
As I said, I had forgotten he's been in the furniture business for 18 years. I was shocked. He knew more about furniture at a quick glance than I could ever hope to know in a hundred years.
And thus began our furniture saga.
The next day, we were headed to the Mall to pick up some things for the wedding. I was on a backroad when Calvin pointed out a store with a few pieces of used furniture sitting in front and announced,
"I want to go THERE."
"Okay," I answered, and kept driving, assuming he meant . . . sometime. I was wrong.
"I mean, NOW," he clarified. "I need to stop there NOW." I turned around and headed back to what appeared to be a real dive.
I parked and we walked inside. Turns out, the store was the remaining warehouse for a very upscale furniture store that was going out of business. I'm still not sure what the used pieces sitting out front were all about. The showroom, which had been in a very ritzy part of town, had already closed and the owner decided to sell the warehouse items directly out of their storage area so he wouldn't have any overhead. This was the first day of his final week of business and prices were slashed drastically. He was also willing to bargain, and the pieces were quite posh. Calvin was in his element.
As we walked through the warehouse, Calvin quickly scoped out the best deal in the store - a black mahogany enclosed bookshelf. Just two weeks before, I had commented to my friend, Laura, that I needed to buy an enclosed bookshelf to cut down on the dust on our books. She and I had discussed where to buy these and talked about trying to track down an attorney that was going out of business and buying his law bookshelf. And HERE one was, right now, right in front of me, and at prices too reasonable to deny.
I ended up putting a down payment on the bookshelf, then began trying to figure out how to get it from the warehouse into my living room. The owner explained that the piece weighed between 500 and 600 pounds and the four doors across the front were made up of small panes of glass.
Don suggested hiring some of the Senior boys from our school who are trying to earn money for their class trip. I worked on the arrangements, then Calvin and I made our way back to the store on Wednesday to pay the balance owed on the bookshelf and for Calvin to see what deals he could work to ship home and resell in his store. We walked away that afternoon having paid for the bookshelf AND having purchased a queen-sized platform bed for Deanna. When we first moved back into our refurbished home (6 years ago this October), I gave Deanna the largest of the 3 children's rooms. My plan was to, one day, buy her a full-size bed. Then that room would be used for company when we have visitors. Deanna could bunk with the boys or sleep in our room or the spare room. But somewhere in the house, we needed a double bed for couples, like Grandma and Grandpa Doughty, and Deanna's room was the only feasible option. However, beds are expensive. And it's not just the bed. You also have to consider the dust ruffle, sheets, comforter, extra pillows, etc. A larger bed for Deanna's room was put on the long-term furniture needs list and there it has sat - for almost six years . . . until Calvin came to visit! But the deal was impossible to pass up - a queen-size platform bed with innerspring mattress, futon cover, and four rolling drawers to go under it (Calvin says the drawers alone sell for $70 to $100 each) for a meer $150. I couldn't have even bought a decent mattress for that price.
That evening, I began moving books into my massive new bookshelf. I was about half done with the job when we had to leave to celebrate Daelyn's birthday. I came home from Chuck E. Cheese and choir practice later to discover that Calvin had taken everything out of my microwave stand.
"Oh, by the way, I hope you don't mind," he said, "but I traded your microwave cart and your bar stools to your sister for HER microwave."
Only an idiot or a blind man could have missed the shocked look on my face.
"You were telling me the other night that you didn't like the bar stools and that they don't work for your kitchen. Your sister desperately needed stools for her bar counter, which is taller than yours, and you needed her microwave cart which goes much better with your woodwork and kitchen furniture. So, I made a trade."
The next day, I began setting up my new, used microwave stand. The following day, we put together Deanna's platform bed, only to discover that we were missing one slat.
A week after Calvin's arrival, I surveyed the damage to the house. The kitchen looked like a tornado had swooped through, the contents of the microwave cart scattered everywhere, waiting for me to have 30 minutes to replace them in their new home. From there, I walked past the dining room and into the living room. Again, devastation surrounded the new bookshelf - all the books that wouldn't fit and the ones I was sorting through, trying to rid ourselves of quite so many dust collectors, were strewn all over the room. As I wandered down the hallway, the headboard of Deanna's old bed was poking out into the thoroughfare. Around the corner in the far end of the living room were the two small bookshelves that I'm reorganizing. The next hallway held the large bookshelf that we no longer need and I can't wait to "lose". Around the corner and Don's electric guitar, which used to be under Deanna's bed, is pushed against the back corner of the hallway. Deanna's room looks amazingly put together, although her comforter, which was made for a twin bed, doesn't quite cover her new queen. And, if you sit on it wrong, you fall through the missing slat.
The boy can really leave a mess in his wake. But he leaves on Thursday and I'm sure I'll spend this weekend trying to put the house back in order through my tears because I'll miss him so much.
Thankfully, I've loved everything he's done. And most of these projects were things that were desperately needed - he was the catalyst to get it done quicker.
I suppose I can suffer through a little reorganizing and temporary messiness for the greater good of a nicer home with more attractive, useful furniture. It's a small price to pay and has certainly made my 3 weeks with a much-loved cousin, my dear Calvin, memorable.
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