What is the best way to get a sleeper sofa into a condo?
This may seem like a straight-forward question, but it is, in fact, highly complicated, as we discover for ourselves this afternoon.
First, the sleeper sofa must come out of one house and make its way to a small box truck. This seems to be a simple task, except that while the sofa is being moved, the sleeper part begins to open, complicating an otherwise seamless relocation. The sofa gets wedged halfway through the doorway, and the metal sleeper section gouges the hardwood floor.
Following this damage is the task of getting the couch down a set of stairs that turns 180 degrees in the middle. The key turns out to be a combination of carrying the sofa and tilting it up on to its side. Eventually the piece of furniture makes its way to the truck, and all is right with the world. Except for that nasty gouge.
When we arrive at the condo, we immediately note two things: the door doesn't open all of the way, and its a very tight angular turn to get into the condo itself. The last thing we want to do is gouge another hardwood floor today, as if we had wanted to do so the first time.
The sofa is unloaded from the truck, and a large bungee cord is wrapped to contain the sleeper bed's metallic frame We don't need any more accidents today. Then the couch makes its way to the porch, where it sits, left arm down, awaiting its fate. Will it or won't it make it through the doors with enough swing room to go forward and become furniture that does not get wedged into a door jamb.
So, now we ask ourselves,"What is the best way to get a sleeper sofa into a condo?"
The answer to this conundrum is surprisingly simple: Ask two math geeks.Luckily, we have two math geeks with us -- my two sons. Using their forearms for measurements, and rivaling the infamous MIT Smooth theory, they look and calculate surface area and various geometric solutions. They wonder if the pins will have to come out of the front door, if removing the entire door itself will help. (I nix this. Those pins have not been removed for decades judging from the layers of paint on the metal pins.)
Somehow, and with incredible precision, they manage to finagle the sofa's positions until the couch miraculously slides (still on its side) through the front door, around the sharp hallway corner, and into the living room, all the while without so much as a millimeter to spare. Success! No gouges. Life is good.
Of course, the other, more correct answer to the essential question may also be: "Hire someone to do it for you," but really -- Where's the fun and challenge in that?
