Stage 1: Childhood
Furniture: Your Parents Own the Furniture
The earliest stage of life is pretty explanatory. While we are children, we don’t own our furniture. We live with adults, probably our parents, and we use their furniture.
Stage 2: First Apartment
Furniture: Mismatching Furniture You Got For Free
You’re moving into your first place on your own. Congratulations! Well, not all your own. You’re probably moving into a house with five other roommates, all of whom are broke. Nevertheless, it’s a Big Deal. You’re on your own, and you’re calling all the shots.
You decorated your place with mismatched furniture that you got for free. Depending on your circumstances, your extended family gave you this furniture, you snagged it on craigslist, or you picked it up by a campus-area dumpster before the garbage truck got it. The furniture may be nice, or it may not be, but it is always mismatching and always free. And, despite (or because of) being old, always comfortable.
Stage 3: Young Adulthood
Furniture: You Bought Your First Chair and End Table
This is the stage of life where you really begin to feel you have power.
You have a somewhat reliable source of income, and you’re starting to feel like big shit.
You exercise this power by going to Kittles. You’ve never had enough money for something as unnecessary as new furniture before. Yeah, you spend a lot of time in the clearance section, but it doesn’t matter because you’re doing the buying. You don’t have enough money for all new furniture, but even something as small as having an end table and couch that match is big.
Stage 4: Mature Adulthood
Furniture: You Bought It For Yourself - All of It
You’re definitely an adult now. You have a regular monthly income that is in the multiple thousands. You moved into a place that you own, two bedrooms, with new paint and new carpet all around. To christen your new apartment, you’ve decided to buy all new furniture.
You scour every furniture store in the nearest metropolitan area. You’ve sat on (what feels like) an infinite amount of couches, beds, and side chairs. You’ve color-matched every wood tone to your wall color. Finally, after weeks of deliberation, you hand over a big fat wad of cash and schedule a delivery date for your furniture with the salesman.
Once the furniture is in your house, unwrapped and placed, you feel terrific. This house looks like a commercial, and it’s yours.
You sit down on one of the chairs. Something is poking your butt uncomfortably. You say to yourself that you’ll call the salesman and ask about it - but you forget to. After a week or two, you don’t notice the spring in your butt anymore. (Until it bursts free a few years from now).
Stage 4: You’ve Been An Adult For A While And Are Over It Now
Furniture: Stuff You’ve Bought For Yourself Over The Last Few Years
Once you’ve been an adult for a while, it doesn’t seem so amazing anymore. Having a perfect apartment that you put together for yourself becomes less important to you. What’s important to you now is having a place that allows you to live your life comfortably.
When the spring burst out of that chair, you replaced it with this great comfy chair you found at a cute local consignment shop. It doesn’t quite match the rest of your furniture, but you got over it. The shelves filled up with tchotchkes you accumulated over the years, like the trophy from the marathon you ran and the electric candles your ex-girlfriend bought you.
Stage 5: You’ve Settled Down
Furniture: That Lovely Set from Value City That You Got… When Did You Get It? You Can’t Remember
You settled yourself into a pattern. Whether you’re married with kids or not, your life has reached the stable pattern it’s going to have for the next few decades.
Your furniture reflects this as well. There is a chair in the corner of your house that hasn’t moved in the last seven years. Dust collects around the picture frames on the back of the shelves. Sometimes when you go into the basement, you find entire boxes of things you’ve forgotten you own.
Stage 6: You Look In The Mirror And Think You Look Old
Furniture: Older Than Some College Students
Your furniture is several (dozen) years out of style. When interior decorating shows invite beautiful young blondes to redesign living rooms, they look like alien spaceships to you. Where are the prints you are used to? Where did plaid go? Everything the young folks do nowadays looks ridiculous to you. You know what, your furniture is just fine for you. It’s comfortable, and you love it.
When it wears thin, you offer it to your granddaughter. Young folks don’t need soft new couches the way you do, after all. And this way, it’ll stay in the family.
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