Couches, Dishwashers, and other assorted things

 So the other day we were outside talking to another couple about motorhomes and fifth-wheels. Shirley was telling us about replacing the recliners in their unit and trying to find one that fits her needs, since she's kinda short, and Bob is kinda tall, so they can't just buy 2 identical recliners.

I told her about our last motorhome...that I couldn't stand the washer/dryer unit that came with it, so one day Dale came home and I was dismantling the cabinet it was in and dragging it out. I had to get a neighbor to come help get it out the door because it was too heavy and lunky (is that a word? It is now!) for us to maneuver. I told Dale I either wanted shelves or, if I could find one that fit, a dishwasher. We measured the cabinet and I did find a dishwasher that fit the hole! So together we installed it and it was great!!

Then we moved back to Montana and were parked at Dale's sister's house, and we were looking at the recliner in our motorhome...it was ratty and the bottom skirting had been chewed off by our first Papillon, Spirit. And sometime in the near past, our second Papillon, Ember, had chewed a hole in the center of the cushion...(I told Dale that she had been trying to smell his farts and got carried away...lol!)

Anyway, we decided to take it out, but since it was still a comfy chair, we gave it to his sister...she used it for a while and then passed it on to someone else.

Dale and I had talked a little bit about taking out the couch and getting 2 recliners instead, but he just wouldn't commit...so...one day he had to go to town...and...when he came home, I was in the process of unbolting the couch from the floor! (Never leave a determined woman at home alone...you never know what she'll come up with!) He was a little unsettled by the thought of taking out the couch, but I said that if we don't take out the couch, we'd never get recliners! So I proceeded to take the couch apart (it was in 18 pieces by the time I was done...it was way too big to go thru the door whole)

So then we had no recliner and no couch in the motorhome....I brought in our folding recliner chairs from the patio to use until we found what we wanted...it took a few weeks, but we ended up getting a 9 foot long, double recliner couch called the Transformer...it was nice and comfy!!! When the delivery guys brought it in, it almost didn't fit thru the door...yikes! They assembled it for us, and we were in recliner heaven! The only issue we had with it was that it was electric and the buttons were on the top of the armrest, around the cup holders...yes, my couch had cup holders!!

But back to the button issue...the issue was that the cats learned to push the buttons...so you'd be sitting there, all relaxed, watching tv...and all of a sudden...you were not so comfy any more because the chair was going back to a sitting position...or you'd be eating dinner, and all of a sudden, you were laying down!!! And you can't tell me that they didn't know EXACTLY what they were doing, because they'd be looking right at me with a great big kitty smirk on their face!

Anyway, Dale was concerned that the selling value of the motorhome would decrease because we had swapped out the washer for a dishwasher, and the recliner was gone, and the couch wasn't original...but as it turned out, the couch and dishwasher were the main selling points for the people who bought it when we traded it in!! Yay!!

But enough of the back story...we have this new motorhome (well, new to us, anyway...it's 6 years old but still really nice) and it has an L-shaped couch...when we bought it we were told that there were recliners in the couch, but it turned out that it only had foot rests that only lift our feet a few inches off the floor and it's really uncomfortable...as a matter of fact, I haven't really liked the couch since we got the motorhome...and we don't have a recliner at all (when Dale is having bad pains, it really helps him to sleep in a recliner)

So Shirley was telling us about their quest for new recliners for their place, and I told her about our old motorhome...and I told her that our couch wasn't very comfortable for me and that I needed Dale to leave town for a day (lol...actually, it only takes a couple of hours to dismantle a couch, so he wouldn't have to go too far away)...and we left it at that...just a couple of neighbors swapping stories....

A couple of days later, Dale comes to me and says "you know, maybe getting recliners and replacing the couch wouldn't be such a bad idea" (HA!! My plan is working!!) He agreed that replacing the couch in the old motorhome had not affected its sell-ability (also now a word!!) and that while this couch was also a sofa-bed, this is our home for the next 20 years or so, and we need to make it comfortable for the 2 of us and not accommodate people who may or may not ever need a place to sleep...and also, when the bed part is pulled out, it actually touches the passenger seat, so we can't even get out of the motorhome without climbing over the bed!! (stupidist (new word!) thing ever!!) (I've always said that I want to meet the people who design these thing and just slap them silly!!!)

So long story short...well, it's way too late for that...so long story just a little bit longer...

We're now looking at what it will take to get the couch out (and see if anybody wants to buy it) and get a couple of nice recliners...It's gonna be a while because we have to replenish our savings after all the stuff we added to the boat...and we still have some work to get done on the motorhome this summer...but when we do, I want a recliner with a cup holder, and butt-heat...yeah...I want butt-heat in mine! And now that we don't have cats, buttons on the top won't be an issue...