Cha, Cha, Cha, Changes!!

Have you ever experienced an epiphany? You know, when you see, hear, or in any way learn of something new to you and it sets off this  reaction in you- that you know this is something that is good- something that you can get on board with or even just really want to try out for a while? Well I've had that happen to me a few times lately.

I've always loved going barefoot and sprawling on blankets and pillows, so I guess neither is a huge surprise. What are they? Well I'm sure you've guessed one. The first is wearing no shoes or only minimalistic shoes. The second is going without a couch. I'm going to only talk about the couch in this post but I'll get around to my barefoot desire later! These *are* intertwined, even though they were both born differently for me, but I think its best to stick with one “out there" topic for now! :)

So, no couch. Am I crazy? Perhaps! Or does it just seem so because everyone you know has a couch in their house? I'm going with the latter. I've thought before how I'd like to downsize our couch but I stumbled across this post the other day and I knew instantly this is something I wanted to do.

Going Furniture Free. That's a title that easily and quickly caught my eye so I decided to open it, seeing as we have minimized our furniture I thought it would be interesting to see what else was ditched or what made the furniture “list" for this family. What I learned from reading this post and Katy's blog just made so much sense to me! The benefits to our body is/was a driving factor in my decision, and one that I foresee bringing many changes to our lives. (But again, let's just talk about the going furniture free part for now, you can read about the why's and how's of it being beneficial in that post and her blog. I would also most likely butcher and confuse you if I tried to explain it!)

Our furniture, at this moment, is as follows.

Son's room: Floor bed, One 3 cube shelf, Tent and tunnel (not sure if that counts as furniture or not lol)

Our bedroom:
- Queen mattress and box spring, although we plan on selling the box spring along with the rest of the bedroom set that is sitting in our garage.

- 2 night stands, also going to be sold as part of the matching bedroom set.

- One 4 drawer dresser

- Rocking chair.

Living room:

- Desk and desk chair
-very small TV stand to block the cords so our son won't pull them out, and to hold our router, Wii and DVD player.

-6 cubed shelf for our sons toys

-Criib sized mattress for our son to play on along with 2 mirrors on the wall for him to enjoy his reflection in.

- Couch and ottoman

Kitchen:

Weaning table with bench for our little man.

- Dining table with chairs.

That's our furniture!

So not a whole lot, especially once we end up selling the bedroom set and finally move the night stands out of the room.

I feel like I should say that so far my husband has been onboard with all the changes I have made to the house and our way of living and he has even suggested some. He loves that we have floor beds and has said that all of our children should use floor beds too, for example.

Now when I sprung the no couch idea on him he was...well hesitant is not a strong enough word. ;) I mean really, who gets rid of a perfectly good couch, for...no couch? Apparently I do. Or would...will.

I have been looking around for more families who don't use a couch and have been suggesting ways that I think would make it seem better to him so he would be less resistant. He said that he would be willing to try it if we got a futon mattress but said that we would do that later on. Me being the jump right into something that I am, in these type of situations anyway, didn't like that answer. I mean, I wanted to try it now!

“We wouldn't have to sell our couch, just put it in the garage for a few weeks while we test this thing out," was my biggest pitch. We have the crib mattress already in the living room, lots of pillows and a mattress topper that we could move down that I thought would be a good, dip our toes in the water type of deal. My husband did not agree. He is more of the, if we're going to do it we're going to do it right type of person. So I have been trying to accept and curb my crazy *Iwanttodothisnowandseeifweloveit* feelings. But then I read another post, that didn't even have to do with going couch free, and then that led me to another post, which lead me to a minimalist family who...didn't have a couch. Oiy.

Long story short, my husband just ordered us a futon mattress to use downstairs, although the reviews are so great it might end up being switched with our sons since I sleep on that a lot and his is only 4' and this new one is 8'. :)

By the end of this week I will be able to have my own couch free living room! :) Am I going to love it? I think yes! Will my son? Yes! Will my husband? That is to be determined...but he's resisted some of my other “crazy" ideas before and then loved them after getting used to it, so I'm hoping it will be a yes for him too. :)

I have some great ideas for the space, yoga anyone? :) Some nice family stretching on our new floor “couch", mommy and son cuddles and reading sessions, and being wrapped in some blankets watching a show while drinking some tea sounds perfect on our “couchless" space!

Would you ever consider going couch-less? What would you do with the space?

I'll update once it gets here and as we decide whether or not we like it!

(Let me just add that I would be happy with some floor pillows but I think the futon will be good since we have hard wood floors... I also love sprawling so it should be great! *fingers crossed*)

~ Camille

* I must add that last night after I wrote this, as my husband and I were getting ready for bed, he told me that he is excited for the futon to get here. I think I'm converting him! Hehe! He really is a good sport! :) I'm so grateful he is a minimalist too! :)