Why I Ditched My Couch

Furniture takes up a lot of space – not just physical space either.

I’ve been reading a few minimalist blogs recently, opening myself to some of the possibilities of how to incorporate less stuff into my life. One of the blogs I read had an entertaining article about how she and her husband chose not to buy a couch when they moved into an apartment.

This got me thinking. I have owned a couch for the past ten years. It’s a navy blue, full-size leather-and-vinyl couch. In fact, I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into buying one. Once I started embracing the minimalist life, I started looking at everything I wanted and everything I owned differently. One day, I was laying on my couch and thought to myself, “Why do I have this couch?”

Ten Years Ago

The best answer to this question occurred a decade ago. I was a recent graduate of college and heading off to my first job. I had money from a signing bonus and needed to furnish a 625-square-foot apartment. I did what everyone did at the time: go to furniture stores, shop around, and buy stuff. I thought it was normal thing to do. My family always owned a couch, and couches were always in houses. Thus, I bought a couch for the apartment as I didn’t want guests to stand the entire time.

In that apartment, the couch faced a 35-inch Sony Trinitron TV with a full stereo setup. I had the room for it all and I’d spend time watching sports after work when I wasn’t out and about.

Today’s Situation

Fast forward to today. I live in an apartment that is less than 450 square feet, and I’ve done so for almost seven years. I sold my TV five or six years ago. The couch faces a stereo cabinet that has a printer on it. I can’t move the couch to any other part of the living room since I would then have to rearrange everything else in there – the stereo cabinet, a desk and a recliner.

I spend most of my relaxing time in my recliner: a zero-gravity model that I picked up as a floor model a couple of years ago. I don’t entertain guests often – it gets crowded if there are more than four people in the apartment. When someone comes over and I want to sit with them on the couch, both of us have to sit either with my feet on the couch or be in a spinal twist for a while. Otherwise, we have a conversation with the aforementioned stereo cabinet instead of each other. Besides, if I want to sit on the couch with my feet on the floor, I have to put a pillow behind my back. Now I’m not Napoleon-sized, but I’m a little shorter than the average guy and I frequently have to do this while sitting on couches and chairs.

Most of the time that I’ve recently spent on the couch was by sleeping on it. It’s a very comfortable couch, so I don’t mind. But I have a bed for sleeping, and I shouldn’t be taking three-hour naps on the weekend on a regular basis. It was also the most comfortable spot in the living room since the couch was blocking half of the airflow from the fan in the window.

The tipping point for me, after reading more about minimalism, is when a friend needed a couch. She was moving to a new place with her partner and had ten bookcases, but nowhere to sit. I thought about it when she told me she was moving a couple of months ago and had mulled it over since then.

Today was the last day the couch was in my apartment.

Going Forward

A couple of people have asked me what I’m going to do for living room seating. In the short term, I have my desk chair and recliner, plus four kitchen chairs. Plus it turns out that I now have plenty of floor space in case people want that option. Right now I’m going to be with the space and see what comes of it.

In the long-term I have a few options:

• Two chairs. The “best” solution in a traditional sense is to grab two chairs. The Ikea Poang chairs look to be the best at the moment as they are easily available, even used on craigslist. This will set me back about US$200 if I buy them new.
• Zafu and zabuton. I used to have a zafu and zabuton for meditation but found it easier to meditate in the recliner. I seem to rock back and forth a lot if I’m on a zafu while in meditation. The nice thing about a zafu setup is that it’s really space-efficient and easy to take care of. Yet I’m not sure if my guests or I have the requisite core strength or back posture to keep up long conversations, and it would also require me to rethink a lot of the living room.
• Exercise balls. Inflatable exercise balls would be fun, but have almost the same problem as the zafu and zabuton. They do force less rework of the living room at the cost of not being easily stackable and storable while inflated.
• Futon. It’s more utilitarian than the couch with all of the same problems as the couch, so I probably won’t pursue this one.
• Nothing. I like the idea of just throwing a yoga mat in that space and maybe getting a little yoga in when I’m not at the studio.

There are probably other ideas as well, but I can’t think of them at the moment. Let me know if you have any and I’ll consider them. I want to do this sustainably and relatively cheap – I don’t want to spend lots of money on furniture!

Challenge Your Assumptions

Going couch-free is challenging an assumption about how I live my life. But it also raises an important question regarding how your life is designed. What assumptions have you inherited from others, and do you need to live with them? Identifying and releasing those assumptions and inherited expectations is an essential step in order to live the life you want.

For this week, identify a couple of assumptions and expectations you have and see what would happen if you didn’t abide by them. If the risks and potential consequences are minor or irrelevant (and you know intuitively if they are), try a little civil disobedience and let go of them. You may be surprised at the results and liberation you experience from deviating from “the societal norm”.