Step one in realizing our midlife adventure as empty nesters was to leave the burbs and move to the city.
This wasn't too hard. Boston, we were told, moves en-masse every June. Like lemmings and other clueless creatures, Boston's denizen of students habitually vacate and relocate after the end of spring semesters creating an ebb and flow of apartments up for lease.
Not too surprisingly, if one is willing to pay enough, one can find the perfect brownstone apartment in Boston's adorable Back Bay neighborhood across the street from Tom Brady from which to begin this adventure.
The trouble starts when one wants to fill the apartment.
As we painfully learned, a walk-up brownstone in Boston's Back Bay presents a host of "challenges".
For starters, there's the staircases. Beautiful as they are, they were not crafted for moving furniture.
For starters, there's the staircases. Beautiful as they are, they were not crafted for moving furniture.
And so, that's were our adventure stalled -- literally -- on the second landing of a 36" wide staircase. Much like G.O.T.'s valley of the Vale, the staircase was apparently built to halt all intruders, including our awesome Crate and Barrel storage bed.
After struggling for a half hour, the nice Crate and Barrel deliverymen gave us one choice: return the bed and get our money back.
Which is what we did, opting instead for a C&B bed that comes apart.
But, until the new bed is delivered, here we are..sleeping on a mattress on the floor -- like teenagers.
Lessons Learned:
(1) apartments are not houses -- don't assume all furniture will fit up stairs and through apartment doors (the Crate and Barrel saleswoman who is helping us find a new bed told us one of her clients had to have his table hoisted through a window...);
(2) furniture either comes delivered as one single piece, or many pieces that are put together after transporting - again, the nice Crate and Barrel saleswoman explained that few beds don't come apart -- we were just lucky enough to have chosen one of the few that don't;
(3) buy expensive items from established retailers - they will always treat the customer right!
(4) measure your staircases, doorways and landings when buying furniture for apartments - even if you're over 50 and think you've done this before, you can eyeball it :)
