The Anaconda Sofa

Ah, free sofas!  Let me tell you a few things about free sofas, because I am, as you might expect, an expert! 

Sofas are the easiest thing to find free!  They are the one item most often put on the curb.  Because of their bulk, people tend not to want to move them or haul them off. 

No one should ever have to pay for a sofa unless they want to!  You may have to pay for a slipcover to get just the color you want (I find slip covers at the thrift stores all the time for $8-$15, just so you know!), but with patience, you can eventually find one that's good just as it is! I'm currently waiting patiently for a good sofa (or two!) for the Taylor living room!  Something will come along and I'll show you when it does!

Here's my best sofa trick:  if you find a good sofa on the curb (so good that you just know it will be snatched up immediately!) and you lack a truck at the moment -- take the cushions!  No one wants a sofa without cushions!  If you have the cushions in your possession, you've bought yourself a little bit of time in which to come back for the body. 

My second best sofa trick is this:  leave it out in the rain and then in the sun for a few days (but not so many that it starts to fade!) and it will be quite well deodorized!  For more serious cleaning, take it to the car wash and power wash it and then let it sun dry!  Really! 

I had a tan microsuede loveseat that I was about to take to the dump (and I had bought it new and paid $400 for it so you KNOW it must have been bad for me to be willing to toss it!).  As an experiment, I took it to the car wash on the way to the dump.  It came so clean that I now use it for staging!  It looks like new! Just be sure to let them dry completely in the sunlight! You can also take off any zippered cushion covers and machine wash them while you power wash the body (if needed).

The common assumption that free sofas are ugly is a myth!  Let me illustrate!

THIS is a FREE sofa!  Sage velvet.  Sells for $1500-$3000+ at places like Pottery Barn!

And THIS sofa, that looks very much like an anaconda from a distance, is NOT FREE!  My apologies (and sympathies) to any of you who grew up with a sofa that looked like this one!  If you have one currently, we need to have a very serious talk followed, possibly, by an intervention!

Here's a shot of the price tag to prove it!  Would YOU pay $89.95 for an anaconda sofa?

Even putting a beautiful man on an ugly sofa does not redeem this sofa from eternal ugliness!