For most of my adult life, I was able to push it to the back burner. I feared it, I disdained it, I wished it would never come. But since last year when MJ and I got our own place together to live in, it reared its ugly head: furniture, or "kagu" in both Korean and Japanese. It literally means, "family tools." Up until last year, though, I never viewed furniture as tools, or much of anything really. I always arrived at a new location with the bare necessities needed, and usually to a place that had existing inhabitants with refrigerator already attached, almost in fear of fully moving in and getting attached, and also of the day that I had to move out and take all the stuff with me. For a few years, I operated on air mattresses, fold-up tables, bean bag chairs, and sleeper sofas. If anyone were to name the kind of "style" of furniture I had, it was "meager," or "near homeless," or "nomad."
Turns out, furniture can be fun and define the type of style you have! Or at least according to MJ. Our new apartment is not large, but we have a distinctive white, modern, clean style to go along with the walls, cabinets, and floors. Turns out, furniture should not be too colorful, unless it's a kids room or something. My parents' old home used to have blue carpet, an interesting but ultimately misguided idea (apparently the people we sold it to weren't too keen on it).
When buying new furniture, IKEA becomes your new best friend. I read an article online that said IKEA is great for 20-early 30-year-olds until you're 34, but I think that's nonsense. Every time I go there are whole families of people trying out their showrooms and filling out their checkout lines, kind of like the Chinese family checking out Tom and Summer in "500 Days of Summer." Everything seems nice, instructions are do-able depending on how detailed the pictures are, and every time I go I get the Swedish meatballs! MJ and I went today and remarked how our apartment is basically an IKEA showroom, except a little messier.
The tough part about furniture is MOVING all the furniture, and the nomad in me is always on the go, go, go. I used to move all my furniture myself, but it turns out a real bed is NOT the same as moving an air mattress. The pros are required, and they seemed to assemble and disassemble a bed really quickly, much faster than me cringing over all the instructions over a bed. Not having ever hired movers before, I was actually pretty impressed with how efficient everything went, taking all our items down into a truck and then putting them all back into the new apartment in 3 hours. Trolleys, lifts, rope, something called "wardrobe boxes" were all involved, but not too painful! MJ stresses out about a lot of things for days, not eating, sleeping, or drinking until the day finally comes, but even she had to admit it was pretty smooth. I didn't even see the dudes moving the awkwardly long sofa out the door, which I thought for sure was going to cause problems getting out the door and turning the corner (I am in genuine awe of pianos that have to be brought down not from the stairs or elevator but by a rope pulley system out the window. I've heard of those type of situations and they don't seem fun, safe, or particularly cheap, so I'm glad we didn't have to resort to that.
The underrated furniture-related tidbit? Cabinets and closets. Little did we realize how much stuff we've accumulated over the years, especially clothes, and it doesn't look much normally because it's all crammed into closets and cabinets where you can't see them, like a magic tool box or invisible cloak that makes all the messiness disappear. You can never have enough closet space, a walk-in closet is even better, especially for 2 people who are sharing a closet. Something called "his-and-her closets" are like a fantasyland with unicorns and rainbows, you can never have enough space in closets and cabinets.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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