I had no idea: EVERYONE in America lives in a huge, palatial mansion!

[Zenlitened]

So I'm looking for some furniture for the (literally) empty rooms of my house. I don't want much -- a couch, a chair and a coffee table for the living room would be nice, instead of the old lawn-chair and up-ended cardboard box I've had in there for a year and a half now.

I thought it was a pretty big room. Bigger than any space I've ever lived in before, certainly. But judging by the scale of the furniture on display in the showrooms, I live in a tiny cramped little hovel. A sharecropper shack. Perhaps "a van down by the river."

Because everything out there is huge. I mean, bigger-than-the-car-I-drive HUGE. "Overstuffed," they call it. "Deeply cushioned." "Dramatically scaled."

Jeebus. :scared: I get claustrophobic just thinking about that stuff crowding the walls and gobbling up the floorspace of what I used to consider my big, new townhouse. I'm short of breath just imagining it. One week of living around some of those behemoths, and I'd be camping out on the lawn, staving off panic attacks.

And then -- in a daze, apparently -- on my way home I stop to look at some "home" exercise equipment, thinking maybe I'd be better able to handle life's stresses (such as furniture shopping) if I got my flabby old self into better shape.

Turns out everyone in America has a health club attached to their palatial mansions, too. At least I think so, though I'm not sure. They might have warehouses, for all I know, because I only looked at the "portable" "fold-and-stow" treadmills. None of which would fit in my car for the drive home, let alone fit in any room of my house without transforming it into "the treadmill room."

A treadmill, you would think it's a pretty simple concept. But it turns out no treadmill "experience" is complete without a built-in, internet-ready DVD player, with wide-screen TV, air conditioning, GPS, night-vision and a bidet, fer chrissake.

What a place, man. What a strange time we live in. Bigger is better and more more MORE! is best of all. If something comfortably proportioned is nice, then something massive and towering must be nicer still. Enough is too little, and more than you could ever use or need is just right.

Think I'll settle into my lawn-chair, set a drink down on a coaster on the card-board box, and watch some TV. All 500 channels of it.

:crazy:

[Left Is Write]

1. I saw the most beautiful thing at an antique show a few years ago.

It was a complete living room set from the 1940s. A dainty little couch, a lovely little easy chair, a coffee table, an end table, a lamp, and a darling little rug underneath it all.

The upholstery was beautiful. The pieces were definitely sized for the typical 1940s house.

For three grand, I should have bought the lot of it.

[Sabriel]

2. Have you checked out mattresses lately?

They're like something out of The Princess and the Pea. I mean, you have to buy special sheets just to fit them.

We have a small ranch house with a small living room, and you're right about the furniture. You can't beat good used stuff, from back when they didn't make couches the size of battleships.

[gmoney]

3. Isn't the Zen thing like just a straw mat and a bare bulb?

Actually, I'm hoping to get closer to that lifestyle, or at least what Canuck Amok has established...

[Zenlitened]

15. Well, I'd like to keep the "lite" in any zen enlightenment I might attain.

A little moderation in life, that's all I ask. Not bare-bones asceticism, but not drowning in silken baubles either. :D

[Wcross]

4. I had that sudden thought as I left Ashley-furniture...

I couldn't put one item I saw on the showroom floor in my home. It all seemed 1 1/4-1 1/2 bigger than it needed to be.

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. No, it's because Americans are artless, tasteless ignorant fucks

Who think that bigger is always better, and overstuffed is even better than merely big.

They'll fill their rooms with that oversized shit until there isn't any floor spcae left "Because floor space without anything on it is like a plate of food with spots you can see the plate through - a waste of space!"

These are also the people who will every sqaure fucking inch of their shelves with knick knacks and other doodads because, God forbid, there should be any empty space left.

Look at how the stupid fucks write their *(#&$(^$&% garage sale signs and other signs for sellling shit out of their home - for one thing, they write it big enough to see from 6 feet, but because they're jackoff fucknobs they don't write it large enough to be read from 50 feet away; secondly, they fill every &#^!@*(#^% bit of space on the sign with text because, as I mentioned, they're too fucking ignorant to realize that empty space is helpful in graphic design, too shitbrained to know that people can't read 8+ words while driving by, to say nothing of reading 20+, and too goddamned braindead to have ever bought anything that's worth a flying fuck anyway, and so their garage sale is gonna be filled with the useless moron-targeted jetsom they bought to fill up their shelves with in the first place but now need to unload because they bought a whole new generation of artless fuckoff geegaws that they have to proudly display, like the proudly displayed grin of a mullet-sporting gaptoothed slackjawed racist asshole.

[tigereye]

19. "go on girl!"

:thumbsup:

[LynzM]

6. Yikes....

Time to start shopping tag sales, Craig's list, and Freecycle for older stuff!

Welcome to America, the land of More Is Always Better, Regardless Of Whether More Is Actually Better In A Given Scenario :)

I hear ya on the furniture... when we moved into our last place, we had two lawn chairs, a card table, a bed, and we bought a lamp. I miss that, sometimes!

[Ilsa]

7. Some of that furniture is built to fit the Americans

that you don't want to seat on that dainty sofa. There is a special industry for the really super-large of us, but even regular furniture is Big.

I also prefer the smaller stuff. I don't like overstuffed. I don't like the loose pillows. I don't like the deep width sofas because you have to put your feet up in them. There is no way to sit comfortably with your feet on the ground on those.

I don't even like the way houses have been built over the last 20+ years. I don't like split bedrooms. I don't like the "executive" design dining room/waste of space. Cramped bathrooms where your back is up against the toilet when you bath the kiddos. They don't seem family friendly.

[babylonsister]

8. That is a great rant!

:toast:

[Zenlitened]

14. Thanks. I'm trying to learn from the true masters.

*subtly motions toward Rabrr post, upthread* :)

[politicat]

9. Futons?

That's how we handled it. The futon was far smaller than anything else we could buy. (It's also more comfortable and lets me play amateur designer when I get bored with the cover for a small price, and is easy on the allergies.) A double sized is about 5.5 feet long and 2.5 feet wide when configured as seating.

Cost Plus carries smaller scaled furniture, too.

I guess you could alternately go very Zen, get a tatami and some mirrors, and turn the room into a yoga room. Fitness and decor in one....

[yellowdogintexas]

10. Pier One carries smaller scaled stuff too.

By Cost Plus, you mean "World Market", I guess? They have some neat stuff there.

Bombay has some nice stuff, not huge as well.

I found some sofas and chairs that were better proportioned to my short frame in a regular department store's furniture section. Foley's and Dillard's are the stores here that have furniture. I found two or three that suited my short legs. I guess the furniture folks think everyone is the size of an NBA player, with xtra long thigh bones.

[Zenlitened]

11. That's the scary part. I'm (ahem) 5-foot-13...

... and long past the days when I was considered "willowy."

And even to me, the furniture out there today seems ridiculously over-sized. :(

[politicat]

26. Yes, CP = WM

I think their technical name is Cost Plus World Market or some such nonsense. (not that I'm about to go look it up..... )

I don't know anything about Pier 1; I gave up on them a few years ago and the fact that they're red just confirms that they don't get my dough.

No shit, Yellowdog.... I'm 5'2" and ended up getting a laptop stand instead of a desk because the desks were all too tall for me and ditching the dining room table, too because it was too tall. I hate trying to work with my elbows near my ears....

Why am I seeing a business in this....

[2Design]

12. try consignment stores that carry furniture n/t

[VOX]

13. Zenlitened, that is one *perfectly* written rant!

Right down to the perfect ending.

You're absolutely right, too -- too many choices! :thumbsdown:

[Zenlitened]

17. Thanks. Lately, it's hard to know when to press the "end rant" button.

Whole world gone crazy. :(

[Rabrrrrrr]

18. I have to agree, that is a brilliant rant

and the "all 500 channels of it" ending is priceless!

[Zenlitened]

21. Shucks, now I'm all blushin' an stuff.

:blush:

[The Flaming Red Head]

16. End of semester in a college town

All the furniture, knick knacks, even stereos out on the curb. All of it is apartment, condo size, too. The foreign students, just leave it all behind, the land lords put it on the street and all you need is a pick up truck and a couple of friends to lift it. You could furnish your whole house. If you don't have a pick up handy, just grab one cushion off the sofa and it'll still be there later. I even got an almost new washer and dryer set like that, in perfect shape.

[Zenlitened]

20. Really? Even dumpster-diving has gone upscale now?

:D

[Skittles]

22. they're building houses across the street from my apt

I kid you not Zen, they are the size of small hotels. It is just unbelievable. Have you noticed everything in America got bigger? The vehicles, the houses, THE PEOPLE.

[wovenpaint]

23. Excellent rant! I couldn't agree more!

And please allow me add another thing... I had a training session today at work on how to use my new phone. 45 minutes long, and a handout of 10+ pages :wtf:
Every call goes thru "the network" and there are codes and combinations galore for all the features....I can access my voice mail from anywhere, have my calls forwarded to anywhere, can redial, hide my ID, change my "away message", change extensions,ad nauseum........WHO CARES?!?!? I certainly don't want to accessible 24/7. What the HELL happened to "ring, ring" (pick up phone).....hello?...bla bla bla,.... goodbye! (hang up phone) If I don't answer...guess what? I'm not there-call me back!!
Houses WAY too big, furniture too big, cars too big, prices too big, stores and malls are yard sales waiting to happen....we're getting too big - but our paychecks are getting smaller and our jobs are disappearing.
My mother never told me there'd be days like these!
Your rant has hit the nail on the head!

:toast: :wtf: :shrug: :grr: :hi:

[deadparrot]

24. Went through the same thing

when shopping for a new living room set a few months ago.

The counch is still on the big side, but it's the best we could do.

[hfojvt]

25. I cannot believe you are using cardboard instead of milk crates

didn't you goto college?

Treadmills are kinda funny - status symbols proving that our neighborhoods are not safe for walking.