Seriously, why don’t you have a couch?

Uttered by my loving sister, of course.

I can’t get exasperated with her, because she’s one of those loungers, and having a couch is her be-all and end-all.

Credit

That’s totally fine by me, but I finally replied back with my list of 10 reasons why we don’t own a couch:

1. It’s huge, heavy & bulky. Very difficult to move with, and we switch homes at least twice a year with our jobs
2. We live in studio-sized areas, so it would eat up all of our open space, and make me feel like we need a bigger place
3. BF cannot sit on anything too soft, or else his bad back goes out of alignment & he’s on his back for 3+ weeks
4. We use our Japanese sleeping futon as our “couch”, which sometimes makes my butt hurt, but I’ve learned tricks
5. We don’t have a TV. I’d be confused as to how to face the couch properly. Facing the bed? The printer? Window?
6. If I want to work on my laptop, I use the kitchen table (I prefer a hard flat surface anyway)
7. If I want to read a good book, I curl up on the futon amidst a mountain of stolen pillows & blankets
8. It’s one more thing to clean, and a difficult one at that (considering if I had one, it’d be a fabric couch)
9. It CAN be expensive, for what we DON’T use it for (cost per use comes in play here & it’ doesn’t fit “us”)
10. Most guests prefer having one, but guests don’t live here & if they get antsy for a couch, I take them out

There.

Some reasons are slightly superfluous, but I like round numbers. Like 10.

(I also ended with: “Do you remember the last time I helped you move, and you were about to throw out your couch altogether because it wouldn’t fit through your door? Remember that.”)

Note: I don’t have anything against anyone who owns a couch.

Heck, I’ll gladly lounge on your couch for free! 😉

But it just doesn’t fit with our lifestyle, and that’s okay if no one understands. 🙂

Minimalism to me, is not about rules like “don’t own a couch and give up everything you own except [insert number of items here]” — that’s just hogwash!

No one is saying that, because it’s one of those mindsets that can be interpreted in so many different ways, depending on who you are & what you value, and we just don’t want to own a couch.