Can a Couch Change Your Relationship?

We all know the nightly family routine. Dinner. Bath. Bedtime. 

Finally, after the work is done and the kids are down you look up only to realize your husband {who you haven't seen all day} is in a different room reading/internet-ing while you browse the latest night time tv with laptop on lap…alone. And we blamed it on our couch.

There must be a better way. This precious time together without children must be valued more. I have built my career on the statement – change your home, change your life. And it was time to change ours.

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

Yes, we had a couch before but it was one we didn’t love. Too deep. Not enough support. Mostly, wrong set up for the room. Despite knowing this, we endured the discomfort for far too long.

While the couch definitely did not "spark joy", it also created an unnecessary sense of disconnect.  The more I found myself telling my clients to remove or replace things that weren’t serving them, the more I realized we needed to make a change in our own home.

And so the ultimate couch hunt was on.

PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS

Let me preface this with the fact that I do not believe changing your home has to cost a fortune. I do, however, believe that in the really important things, you should make an investment.

And so we invested (time and money) in our new couch.

After mapping out the room, I knew a sectional would provide enough cozy spots for our tall family of four for years to come. My husband and I went to Room and Board and sat on every couch they had. The York sectional in their dark grey weave fabric (super durable) was the big winner. I also added inexpensive accents to the room to make it feel more complete - these pillows, this lamp and this blanket.

EVERYONE WINS

I got this text the other day: “I think that new couch is one of the best investments we have made. Sitting there together relaxing is important for our relationship.”

And I got that text from my husband. I mean, deep thoughts from the hubby but boy is he right on target. We used to retreat to our different spaces after dinner…hubby to the kitchen counter to work and me to the office….because we didn’t want to be on that couch.

Now, we are racing to our favorite nooks on our new couch and we sit there together, often watching tv but more often, doing our own things but in the same space feeling connected.

And that’s how a new couch changed our marriage. How changing our home changed our life.

We all have the power to take control of our own situation - be it too much clutter or a bedroom that is not our haven - we can make changes.