The Foundation For Unloved Furniture

Listen, sometimes things we once loved wind up by the side of the road. It happens. Take a walk in the SJG 'hood and you'll see abandoned upholstery everywhere. Chairs, desks, mattresses, and of course, sofas. Oh, the cruelty of it all. I've seen love seats heartbroken on the curb. I've seen sectionals weeping from disrepair. I've seen some things I can't unsee. Well, the madness stops today, my friends. Today, the SJG Foundation for Unloved Furniture launches its first official Mitzvah Project with an adoption that defines good karma. We can already feel the universe nodding its approval. Today we're giving the newlyweds' first sofa a second home upstairs in the Reinvention Room. Every house needs one room for wayward stuff. This is ours. Where there once was a bed and a drum set, then only a drum set, has become a depository for the married son's giant armoire -- purchased during his brief stint in San Francisco, a transitional time in his life when he slept in his closet and had nowhere to hang his clothes... and a narrow entry table from his West Hollywood apartment of yore.

And as of today, the Reinvention Room will offer refuge to the sofa he and his darling wife had high hopes for in the beginning... until they spent time on it and realized that this West Elm purchase, while pretty in a mid-century way, was... alas... truly and deeply uncomfy. This statement piece made a statement all right. And the statement was this: "I belong in a room where you can look and admire, but not sit for too long or your back will hurt. I'm set decoration. I'm window dressing. I'm not the sofa of your dreams." Such a wordy couch. That should've been the first red flag. So today, longtime hubby and I will acquire yet another piece of furniture that once spent quality time with the eldest. The Rescue Sofa will join the college dresser and the college desk and the aforementioned San Francisco armoire.

"We will treat your sofa as our own until you reclaim it," I told my daughter-in-law, in between texts re: "The Bachelorette Finale." "We know it will be in good hands," she texted back. "Does the sofa have any special needs or issues we should know about? " "The sofa likes to listen to Edith Piaf before going to sleep. Very loud." "Now you tell me." "I realize I should have mentioned it before." "That's what a considerate daughter-in-law would've done." "Does this mean the adoption is off?" "Well..." "But if you don't take it, what will become of it? It has nowhere else to go, as of tomorrow, when the truly comfy couch arrives." "Look, we'll foster the sofa and see how it goes." "Thank you." "Is it a well-behaved sofa?" "Most of the time." "Wonderful."