Well now, if you are me, it depends on the load of wash.  Yesterday I decided to give one of our sofas a well-needed cleanse.   Since it was the beginning of the New Year, and the tree and all things Christmas were stored away, it would be a good thing if I started spring cleaning a season earlier.

There are three sofas in the chateau. There is also a love seat in the sunroom.

My favorite spot in the house.  Those pillows are NOT Christmas pillows. I just love the color red.  I did save that little poinsettia. God knows how long it’ll last before I kill it in error!

All sofas are various shades of white and or cream.  One sofa, in particular was purchased almost ten years ago—when Bonaparte and I started to live in sinful pleasure.  We bought it at Ethan Allen, a high end, expensive, luxury, a “home furnishings” store that sells ridiculously overpriced furniture.  The thing is, I like sofas with removable cushions and slipcovers.  I also hate that micro-suede, micro-fiber or whatever-the-shit that fabric is that seems to be the latest and greatest in sofa and chair coverings for the past decade.

I also have this “thing” about “plopability”.  Plopability being that certain something that makes a piece of furniture incredibly comfortable.  If you can plop down on a sofa and chair and be engulfed in total coziness-the item is perfect.

The sofa cost a bit more than two grand at the time.  In addition, we I insisted on purchasing an extra set of slipcovers. Just in case.

Did I mention that this overpriced sofa is filled with duck and goose down?    Yeah.

Down may make a sofa plopable—but after a couple of years, said sofa looks mighty worn-in and rather unattractive.  If you are of the OCD personality—the sofa could appear to look a lot worse than it actually is.

In the years we’ve had this sofa, I’ve washed the lighter of the slipcover sets twice.  Both times, the slipcovers washed like a charm.   I’ll admit that I’ve gotten rather lazy in cleaning them because it is just Bonaparte and me.  I throw a blanket over the slipcovers when I know Chippy will be lazing on any of the sofas.

Anyway, as I inspected the sofa, I noticed a few stains from spills and I also noticed that this set of covers was fucking filthy a bit on the soiled side.  I decided to launder them.

Let me tell you this—I definitely got my exercise removing the slipcovers and the covers for the cushions and pillows.  I’m also grateful that I did not have tar nor did I have any sticky substances on my clothing or body as I removed these covers.  If I did, most of the feathers that escaped through the pillows and cushions would have covered my body and I would have looked like Big Bird’s mommy!

This is the mess I made after removing the slipcovers. A mountain of  pillows more saggy than the inside of my bra!

It was bad enough that less than 48 hours beforehand I was on all fours collecting needles from the Christmas tree.  Now I was back on all fours collecting feathers from my furniture.

This is just a tiny sampling of the feathers that escaped the pillows and cushions.  Most landed either on me or the floor….

And again, Chippy made a bee-line for me to prove his love canine lust for me!

Chippy. Settle down and stop looking at my fat ass!

I started this task at 10 in the morning.  By the time I moved the sofa to unzip the main slip cover, pushed the sofa back against the wall again, removed the pillow and cushion covers, picked up the feathers from the floor, and explained to my dog that I was NOT his four-legged girlfriend,  a good hour had passed.

The frame is still solid–but the cushions are beginning to really bother me!

But before I washed the set of slip covers, I went down to the garage, found the second set of slipcovers, and climbed back upstairs (exercise) to temporarily dress the sofa until the other set was cleaned.

The amount of exercise I got from removing slipcovers and putting temporary ones on was quiet the workout!

I zipped open the plastic case that the slipcovers were stored in and couldn’t believe my nose.  The covers smelled like Ruby, my yellow lab who passed away a few years back.  Ruby had been extremely ill and I’ll tell you right now—the scent wasn’t a pleasant one.  So now I’m thinking—Okay. I’m going to have to wash these covers too—but I can’t do that until the other covers are washed and dried. But I still can’t leave the sofa uncovered so I’ll have to put these stinky covers on temporarily. 

My poor Ruby. I still cry over losing her. She was an incredible little lady. We all miss her so much.

Back downstairs to get the lavender scented laundry spray and run upstairs with it to spray the other set of covers.  (More exercise).

I spray clothing that needs to be ironed with this.  Since I had no Febreeze, I figured this would work as well….

Again, I moved the sofa away from the wall to put the other slipcover on. Then a push back to the wall to place the sofa back into position.  Shoving those down cushions and pillows into their covers was far more of a challenge than removing them.  More feathers fell on the carpeting.   I not only got to exercise my body but I also got to exercise my vocal chords as a grunted and cursed the living shit out of Ethan Allen.  WTF is Ethan Allen anyway??

When the “good” slipcovers are dried, I’ll start the task all over again. I think I’ll also do some research on re-stuffing the cushions.  The sofa looks like shit. Expensive shit. VERY expensive shit–but at least it’s comfortable!

I was also getting hungry and since I made a vow to myself to eat and drink “clean”, the only refreshment I could find was my saliva.  No. I’m not kidding either.  Other than frozen vegetables, frozen shrimp and frozen chicken thighs, my spit was the healthiest snack I could find.

I DID manage to make shrimp and spinach in a nice ginger/chicken broth for dinner.  And no, Bonaparte wouldn’t even dream of eating this. I made a huge pot of chili for him. He’s having leftovers tonight!

It was now close to noon.  I grabbed the dirty slipcovers and carried them downstairs to the laundry room.   Since this was a load of behemoth proportions, this would have to be divided into two separate loads.  I “Shout”ed the small stains out, loaded the detergent into the washer, shoved the slipcovers into the front and set the dial to “heavy duty”.  The timing of this load was one hour and twenty minutes.

Being OCD, I feared that the load being so large and bulky may do damage to my washer.  I decided to stay downstairs while the load was washing.  Luckily, we have a family room downstairs that is next to the laundry room.  I turned on the TV, did some serious channel surfing to exercise my fingers and noticed that the movie “Funny Girl” was about to begin.

“Funny Girl” started at 12:15 and ended at a little after 3 PM. I spent that entire viewing time doing the laundry. Look to the right–I had to get creative with the drying racks..

And that is how I spent my afternoon yesterday.  I had to maneuver the drying racks to support the large and heavy slipcover.  I’m heavily into air drying.  And when the set is dried—which should be sometime Tuesday afternoon, I’ll iron out the wrinkles and then I will start the process all over again to clean the other set of slipcovers. The set that smells like Ruby when she was sick.

The slipcover strewn over two drying racks.  I was almost tempted to play “tent”!

Some of the cushion covers are drying in the laundry room and others in the bathroom. 

Last night as we were having our aperitif on the sofa, (I gave myself one “treat” per week on my new healthy eating program.  That treat is one aperitif on Saturday evening and one aperitif on Sunday evening. Don’t judge!) I started sniffing.  Bonaparte was quite concerned and our conversation went a bit like this:

Bonaparte:  “I don lek zis col-eur of zis zleep-cou-v-airz” (I don’t like this color of these slipcovers)

Me:  “Well, I HAD to put them on because I couldn’t leave the sofa bare while the other covers are drying”  *sniff-sniff*

Bonaparte:  “Why do ou sneef lek a douge”(Why do you sniff like a dog?)

Me: “The slipcovers smell like Ruby when she was sick” “I sprayed them but they still smell”. “I have to wash zem—I mean, I have to wash them”

Bonaparte: “Ou are eemazh-een-ing sings”.  “I don smell eny-sing” (You are imagining things. I don’t smell anything)

Me: “Really?” “They don’t smell?” “Do you think I have a brain tumor then?”

Bonaparte just looked at me and didn’t even answer.

Oh…and to answer my question.  It took me most of the day to complete those two loads of wash. 

Bonaparte is not going to be thrilled when I start this task all over again. He’s also not going to be thrilled when I tell him that I want to paint the living room walls. By myself!

Michel Delpech, one of my favorite French singers passed away two days ago. I’m really sad about this and have been listening to many of his songs today.  I wanted to share a very nice one “Les Divorces”. Oh, he was so good looking and his voice was so rich and clear. Enjoy this gift of music that Monsieur Delpech leaves us! XOXOXOXO!!