We love Dr Sofa…..

As I mentioned in yesterdays blog, our sofa was delivered to restoration hardware yesterday and today Dr Sofa delivered the bits to our apartment.

It was quite disconcerting to see our sofa in 2 bits……

But I have to say I am now sitting here very comfortably in front of the telly.

Thank you very much to my Mum and Dad for buying these gorgeous sofas.  It is making the apartment feel so homely.  What with amazing bar stools - thank you David & Sarah - and now sofas it is starting to feel like our home.

Hippo also seems to have gotten over her fear of the stairs, at least going up that is and most mornings we find her camped outside our bedroom door.

I will see if I can rip the photos from Facebook to show you the new sofa.

What a New Yorker - central air, California Closets, Dr Sofa………….

Dr Sofa..... the saga continues

For those of you who read my blog last week you will be aware of the sofa troubles.....  So the last week has been back and forth with Restoration Hardware.  Finally accepted their offer of 15% discount as well as delivery fee reimbursement.

So now for the Dr Sofa - for those of you outside of Manhattan this is probably alien to you.  The Dr Sofa is known for disassembling and reassembling large pieces of furniture that won't fit in lifts or up the stairs - like our sofa.

Thankfully we purchased a slipcover sofa so there should be no need to cut the fabric (although they will do this for fabric and leather sofas).  Dr Sofa had the inspired idea that RH deliver our sofa to their warehouse in the Bronx so they could disassembler (cut up) my sofa in the comfort of the warehouse rather than on the pavement in Brooklyn Heights - just as well as I think it may rain today.

So this afternoon I will be the proud owner (hopefully for a short while) of 4 pieces of sofa!!!!  The base, back and 2 arms.  By this evening I will hopfully be the proud owner of a reassembled massively comfortable sofa.

Pictures to follow

Amazing what you can get done in Manhattan, here's hoping it works :)

Vermont photos

Gorgeous weekend up in Vermont, so thought I would post a couple of photos from our house.

Sofas…..

Hurrah, the phone call came from Restoration Hardware that our sofas were ready for delivery - it's only been 10 weeks since we ordered them.  I was expecting another 2-4 weeks wait time for when they could deliver, but literally I was offered 2 days later, which I couldn't do.

So Monday was the big day. RH had told us that we needed to have minimum 32" clearance to get the sofas in.  So lift option was out…..  The doors only open 26.5" - the price you pay for being in an old building.  So we knew up front that the sofas were going to have to be carried up the stairs.  We dutifully measured all flights of stairs and in all points we had 32" clearance.

As the days drew near to getting the sofas I suddenly had a bit of a panic, had we measured the corridor going down to the living room and den?????????  NO we had not.  The corridor was not a problem, but the last turn by the AV cupboard was - 29" only.  Hmmm, what to do lah.  We decided to wing it.

The pesky final corner

Our theory was to at least  get the sofas into the dining area and then work from there.

Monday arrives bright and breezy we have a 8-10 slot (not to bad for NYC) and it is likely to be a hot hot day…….  The guys call me at 8:00 and say will be with me in 15 mins.  I have to say I was impressed - we are not technically allowed to move furniture in until after 8:30 but hey ho - we will wing it again.

The guys were a little taken aback they had to take the sofas up the stairs - I had told RH that this would be the case.  And they were also a little concerned about the 7' deep sofa……  Give them their due they tried every which way to get that sofa up the stairs, but never made it up the first 5 steps on the ground floor.

How stupid really to only say you need 32" clearance when they know it is going upstairs - you obviously also need height clearance too otherwise a 7ft sofa just gets stuck as the stairwell on ground floor to 2nd floor is not high enough to enable the turn.  What to do……..  Well in good Brooklyn red neck style the sofa was left on the pavement, while the boys got the 6' sofa in - it was hot work so plied them with loads of water - was still a little nervous that they would get this one up 6 flights and still not get in the apartment door, but they did it.

6' sofa

So there we have it - one 6' sofa.  So what next.  Well RH gave me the following options - 1) replace the 7' sofa with a 6' sofa - fair enough, but I don't want a 6' sofa in the den……. 2) full refund of the 7' sofa (including the 50% deposit - wouldn't a full refund naturally include that?????) - don't want that either otherwise the 2 sofas won't match and they are going to be pretty close together!!! 3) 15% off and reimbursement of the delivery in order to pay for Dr Sofa…..  Yes for those of you who don't live in NYC there is a Dr Sofa……  He comes in (at a price) and cuts up your sofa into digestible pieces so that it can get from ground floor into your apartment and then he puts it all back together.  Everyone has told me not to watch this happening to your brand new sofa, but they also say he does an excellent job.

SO that is the next step, RH to redeliver, Dr Sofa to be on hand to chop 7' sofa into 3 pieces and then reassemble in the den.

The joys of NYC…….

Happy 4th July

It's been a while since we have updated our blog and sorry to say no photos.  Not really sure where the time has gone these days.  Actually maybe I will load some photos from the Bahamas.

When did we last check - ah yes our flat warming cocktail party that went on to 1:30am and not 10pm as invited :)  It was lovely having so many of our friends come over to see what we had been boring them about for over a year.  Think the party was a success.  Thank you all for coming and thank you for the flat warming gifts - proper thank you notes on their way.

After the dust had settled from the flat warming it was time for Jon to head to Houston for a few days and me to head to Brazil - which was a nice trip as always but 2 red eye 10 hour flights in 3 days not much fun.  Arrived back to NY to meet up with my Mum and Aunt June who had very kindly flown over to dog sit hippo - what a lucky/spoilt dog she is.  For those of you who saw earlier posts she is doing much better and the wound has nicely healed- she won't climb the stairs now because she had a bit of  fall with the cone on her head.  But the air con is rather cool downstairs so I don't hear her complaining too much.

Bahamas - interesting trip - very much beginner diving - think the deepest you could get if you burrowed your dive computer in the sand was about 20m.  It rained for 6 out of the 7 days - not too bad when most of the time you are underwater but did hinder visibility a little.  Also managed to drop the underwater housing on day one so no underwater photography for me - shame as I think it might have been a good opportunity to practice my pretty poor skills.  It was very relaxing though and I think Jon & I both felt better for it after the week was over.

Photos to follow…… struggling to get strong enough signal out on the deck - will need to head inside but it is just too nice.

2 weeks after Bahamas was a little "tense" at work as we had to make our first big presentation to the new big boss - went OK though, now just have to do that every quarter.

Finally last week we came back up to Vermont after not being up for 2 months - the weather may not have been good up here, but consequently it is super green everywhere - just gorgeous.

Shorty and I headed out and played 13 holes of golf (before the rain started again) - my drives were coming along quite nicely.  Even out drove Shorty on the 2 hole!!!!  Will never happen again so will revel in it while I can.

Then headed over for pre dinner drinks chez the Parson - so lovely to see them back in Vermont - feels like they never went away.  All the kids were over as well so we got to catch up with the whole crew over at their Vermont house.

We decided to celebrate our wedding anniversary a month early as it falls on a Monday this year and as tradition dictates headed to Solo where as usual Chloe and her team looked after us very well.

Last night we had the annual Leighton & Emma spectacular 4th July celebration, the company was great, food excellent, weather a little inclement, fireworks amazing!!!!!!  Thank you again Emma & Leighton for a wonderful evening.

Today started off well 40-16 to the Lions, hopefully the Brits can continue a winning weekend tomorrow with Murray at Wimbledon.

Signing off now to get some sunscreen and gee my husband up to go and play golf…….