You must be this smart to buy furniture

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

and you're nowhere close, sugar.

Lately we've been running some new-ish special on some of our living room furniture from time to time: A certain couch, a matching chair, a certain coffee table, and two matching end tables for one set price. We had one of those specials going last week.

So some woman comes in and buys the entire set--couch, chair, coffee table, matching end tables. Plus Zip delivery on the whole shebang. Ginormous sale! Wheee! Cue the angelical choir!

Last Friday the Zip guy picked up all the furniture to deliver it to the customer. Later that afternoon, after I had left for the weekend, he brought it all back.

It seems there was a bit of a problem trying to get all the furniture in the house. Specifically, the couch. According to the manager on duty, the woman's house is such that after you enter the front door, you have to immediately turn to get into the living room unless you'd like to just faceplant into the wall. Apparently, they couldn't make the turn with the sofa, so the derpa derp just decided, fuck it, I'm returning the sofa."

And then she figured, hells bells, what good are the chair and tables if I don't have the sofa to go with them, I'll just return everything for a refund. So back it all came, and it was left to sit in the backroom over the weekend, until I came in this morning and had to schlep it all back to the proper places in backstock.

Seriously woman? This is a couch. A long, large, bulky piece of furniture designed for sitting or lying on. You know, a couch. A couch that is on display in the store, so you know how big it is. And still you couldn't figure out there might be a problem getting it in the house?

I swear if it weren't for stupid customers, I'd have no customers at all.

[Crossbow]

Two potential issues here:
1: Your customer really was too stupid to know that they couldn't get it into the house. After reading your posts, I'm willing to bet this was the case.
2: The delivery guy was either too narrow-focused or too lazy to figure out how to get the couch into the house when the front door didn't work. I had a mover swear there was absolutely no way to get a bookcase downstairs and into the truck. It took myself and a friend a grand total of 5 minutes to get it down with no damage to the bookcase or any part of the house.

I'm still betting on the first one, though.

[Andara Bledin]

I, too, have used slightly creative measures to get furniture from outside to inside and vice versa.

I must ask: Does the lady's house have no other doors?

^-.-^

[bhskittykatt]

At my parents old house, bulky furniture did not go in the front door, which opened onto a split-level landing. It was carried uphill around to the back door (if it was going on the second floor) or through the garage (if it was going on the first floor). It wasn't rocket science to figure out the alternative routes.

[Thatgirl71]

I hate to say it but the delivery guys should have tried some alternative ways to get the furniture in the house.

When I moved into my apartment, my brother in law and nephew had a helluva time trying to get my couch through the door, they ended up having to take one of the front windows out and sliding it through that way. Very creative I must say.

[the lawsmeister]

The delivery guy was either too narrow-focused or too lazy to figure out how to get the couch into the house when the front door didn't work. I had a mover swear there was absolutely no way to get a bookcase downstairs and into the truck. It took myself and a friend a grand total of 5 minutes to get it down with no damage to the bookcase or any part of the house.
.

LOL, I had almost the opposite experience. It took us 10-15 minutes to get my couch in the door when I moved into a place.
The removalists that I hired to move us out the next year took 10-15 seconds.

[MoonCat]

When the guy next door to me moved in--upstairs--he and a couple friends hauled his sofa up from the front lawn to the upstairs porch and took it inside from there. Probably easier than manuvering it around the stairwell.

The other neighbors have removed their door so often to bring stuff in that it doesn't fit properly anymore. They have to slam it to get it to shut. Guess what they do about 232,888 times a day?

[bhskittykatt]

LOL, I had almost the opposite experience. It took us 10-15 minutes to get my couch in the door when I moved into a place.
The removalists that I hired to move us out the next year took 10-15 seconds.

I loved watching the professional movers when they swapped out Mom's mattress. I think they were in and out in a minute flat. At work when we have to move a mattress from a room, it takes us five minutes just to get it out the door.

[Sonoma]

I personally subscribe to the theory that furniture grows when it's on the delivery truck. My first couch was just an inch too big to fit through the awkward dog-leg in my old apartment. Taking it over the balcony wasn't an option either, since the railing would never hold that much weight.

They took it back, and I wound up buying a slightly smaller one. It fit great.

My condo has much better access....and if something won't fit in the entryway for some reason, there's always through the back yard & patio, in through the sliding door.

Man, I love my condo.

[shadowpanda]

In my mum and dads house, due to the layout since it has had work done on it, the only way to get either of the 2 sofas out of the living room, is to remove the window in the room that leads on to the garden. This is a big window so the furniture would fit. However, the garden would get ruined, removal would have to be carefully timed so old sofas went out and new sofas go in, in the shortest time possible, and hopefully not break the expensive double glazed glass in the process...

[Chromatix]

I have heard of people building a boat (from a kit) in their front room, and then removing the window in order to get it outside. I think these boats are about 12 feet long, 6 feet wide and 3 feet deep.

[Food Lady]

"Pivot! Pivot! Pivot!"--Ross Gellar

[CaptainThrifty]

Early on in the "life" of the store I am assigned to, we would pick up furniture and occasionally deliver it was well. I've worked those real tight turns with the low head doors. One simply puts the couch on end, get it to the doorway, maybe rotate as needed and then push the BOTTOM out the door first. Taking it in is just the opposite. I've never encountered a place yet that I could not do that save one.

It was a condo and I had to remove all the furniture out of it (and yes it was quite a bit; 4 rooms full). It took me 2 hours to do it. The first hour was everything except one piece, the second hour was that one piece. It was part of a sectional entertainment center that was about 1 inch too tall for the elevator (the elevator itself and not just the door, else I could have use the above technique). It also was about 1/2 inch shorter than the stairwell ceiling. which made it harder as we (me and the two teen girls there to sign for the removal) had to send it down along it's side and then maneuver it around the landings. We did it but barely and with much struggling.

[Chromatix]

This is a big advantage of IKEA furniture. Most of the time, you can take apart the major components to make it much easier to manhandle and fit through spaces.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

This is a big advantage of IKEA furniture. Most of the time, you can take apart the major components to make it much easier to manhandle and fit through spaces.

But in the states, IKEA is only located in the biggest metro areas and not really accessible to a podunk area such as the one I live in.

Although at one point they had bought land near Milwaukee for a possible store some years back.

*switches on hypno-ray and chants "IKEA, you will build in SE Wisconsin" Why yes, I went to an IKEA recently. I spent altogether too much money there but have new sheets and kitchen things to show for it. And I enjoyed every minute of it