I’m a big fan of recycling, upcycling and reusing so when it came to choosing a new sofa, something that’s been on my agenda for a while, I searched on Facebook Marketplace.

Although I do love a bargain, it’s as much about the thrill of the chase and finding something different that may not be available elsewhere as about saving money. Similarly, I enjoy finding new ways of using what I have – whether it’s moving furniture around or giving a new lease of life to an item of clothing that’s been languishing in my wardrobe. A snippet in last weekend’s paper said that skinny scarves are back in; I knew it was worth hanging onto that quirky scarf my niece gave me years ago. So good to be on trend! But back to the sofa.

I’d been scouring Marketplace for sofas for some months trawling through Chesterfields, velvet pleated sofas, bog-standard IKEA offerings and even some sofa beds. Then a month ago I spotted a funky sage-green corduroy number, a 2-seater with no arms and deep storage underneath. I’ve been doing a lot of Life Laundry recently, sorting through old files, papers, newspaper cuttings, tax returns, diaries and journals. If I were famous biographers would have a field day. Who knows, I might mine my diaries for a book one day. Meanwhile, the under-sofa storage looked like a perfect repository for them.

The only drawback was that the sofa was in the Western suburbs of Melbourne, about a 24-km drive from where I live. I couldn’t face driving over there so I asked lots of questions instead. Having established that it was roughly the same height as my other sofa and that there were no dips, stains or squeaks (you’ll see later why I asked this), I bought it for the modest sum of $250 (it had been reduced from $400), and paid upfront to secure it.

Finding someone to collect and deliver the sofa took more scrolling and back and forth-ing on various apps. Hmm, I thought that buying something this way would be less of an effort than going to a physical store but now I’m not so sure. A friend recommended Airtasker, where I got offers ranging from $385 (ridiculous, at more than the cost of the sofa!) to $90. I chose a driver around the $100 mark. In readiness for the arrival of the new sofa, I shifted my old, more traditional sofa (rolled arms and pleated skirt) up against my study door.  I measured it and photographed it to advertise free on Marketplace and a few other sites. I’d had the sofa for 26 years, from when I lived in Oxford. It had been a good friend, and I loved its green, yellow and terracotta checks but it was very faded and it was time to pass it on. But despite over 1200 views and 19 saves on Facebook, I didn’t get any takers.  

The new sofa duly arrived – the base with the storage underneath came as one unit, the back cushions separately in a black bin liner. I reckon it had been in a shed or garage for a while. There were two steel rods to fix the back cushions into the base. I quickly realised – heart sinking – that there should be four rods, and so I asked the driver to search his van but no luck. There was a rod at each end but nothing anchoring the inner side of each back cushion. A sofa without arms was one thing but no proper back?!  I hadn’t signed up for an Ottoman.

I rang the vendors immediately – a mother and her daughter who were selling on behalf of the other daughter/sister. Later that night they texted that neither they nor the sister could find the rods, and didn’t even realise they were missing as: ‘the couch is functional without them’. I begged to differ. And, while I was at it, I mentioned there was a bit of a splotchy stain on one of the back cushions. To my amazement, they said they knew a steel engineer and they’d swing by at the weekend, pick up one of the rods and get two new ones made. Plus, they refunded me $50 for the stain. It seemed too good to be true – how many sellers on Facebook know a steel engineer and would go to those lengths to find a solution?

Meanwhile, I was stuck with old sofa as I had used up the second of my two annual Council-run ‘hard rubbish’ collections earlier in the year disposing of one of my other sight unseen Facebook purchases – a single bed base with drawers (I’ve got a thing about storage) for my twin-bedded spare room. Turns out it had an incurable, inconsolably whiny squeak. Thank Goodness, I tested it when I got new mattresses – I could barely breathe without the base creaking. It ended up as hard rubbish, and was devoured by the metal jaws of the Council truck. On sending photographic evidence to the seller, I did get a refund minus the delivery fee. But here I was going in again for a blind date with a second-hand sofa!

My lovely neighbour Jill about ten doors down offered me one of her hard rubbish collections. We wheeled  and wobbled my old sofa down the street on a trolley to the nature strip outside her house. And it was RIP to my dear old sofa purchased from the MFI Furniture Group in 1996. So far, so far good, pun intended.

The following Friday I got a text from the sofa sellers to say the mother had sent the newly made steel rods by Express Post. My excitement mounting, I asked for a copy or screenshot of the tracking slip only to learn that the mother had split tea all over it. What? Seriously?! This did not inspire confidence but I resolved not to cry over spilt tea… They reassured me, however, that the rods had been sent, that they would arrive, and I would need to sign for them. I never truly doubted the honesty of the vendors but the rods looked like they’d be tricky to copy and what if they didn’t fit or didn’t match? It all felt so unlikely. I was worried I’d bought a dud and would need yet another hard rubbish collection.

Express Post takes one or two business days maximum so I was ready and waiting, bright-eyed and breezy, on the Monday. Apart from my dog walk, I didn’t leave the house.  There followed an agonising week of waiting that looked like this:

Monday: My neighbour was having a new kitchen installed so vans were going up and down the drive all day long but none of them were delivery vans with my steel rods.

Tuesday: a parcel landed on my doorstep – aha, here it is I thought, holding my breath but, no, it was two boxes of my favourite granola bars from Marks and Spencer, a gorgeous treat from a colleague who went back to Blighty in July. Lovely but NOT the rods.

Wednesday: a van drew up and a delivery guy came to the door (YESSSS I thought in another adrenal rush), but this time it was a pet seat cover for my new (second-hand) car. My last car got very ‘dogged up’ with sand and slobber so I am determined to keep my new alloy-wheeled beauty in pristine condition.

Thursday: a van drove up and a box of environmentally-friendly laundry detergent refills (only available online) arrived on the doorstep (all this is so ironic as I am not a big online shopper – I’ve never even done an Uber eats for example). Then, later that morning, the Body Corporate Gardeners knocked at the door to ask what needed doing in the garden. Each time, there was van and door knock activity, I got my hopes up.

Thursday evening: I feared the rods must have got lost in the post and sent a somewhat desperate-sounding text to the sellers. Could they not go back to the Post Office where they sent it, show a bank receipt (amount and time) and generate a tracking slip – surely the system would have the technological know-how? It transpired that the mother was not sure whether they had been sent Express or Registered.  Registered Post is only for documents so I thought it had probably been sent standard parcel post but required a mandatory signature. That would explain the delay.  It transpired that they had sent it from a small PO counter in a larger retail shop and it wasn’t possible – so they said – to track retrospectively. OK, I replied. I don’t doubt you’ve sent them.  I’ll sit tight. Tight being the word…

Friday:  my neighbour Jill (she of the trolley) texted to say she’d been walking past my house and seen something bulky sticking out of my mail box.  The vendors had explicitly said the package would need a signature so it was unlikely to be the rods, but you never know. I dashed out to check. It wasn’t…It was the Government’s National Bowel Cancer screening test. Argh, the disappointment.

I continued to sit tensely but, not of course, on the new sofa.

Then miracle of miracles, the following Monday the daughter texted with the tracking number and to say the parcel had been returned to my local mail delivery centre the previous Monday!  It turns out that the parcel (it had been sent Express), had been returned as they hadn’t been able to find Unit 2 at my address. My address is interchangeably Unit B or 2 but there is no 2 marked on the house, only B. Had the vendors not tracked down the tracking number, the rods would have never found their way to me. The vendors didn’t put their address on the package, and Australia Post were under the impression that my address didn’t exist….

Once home, I am very happy to report that the new rods were a good match, and a good fit. I could hardly believe it. The vendors were profusely apologetic for all the toing and froing, and confusion. But, with the rods fixed in and the sofa sporting a firm back, I was only too happy to forgive and forget. After 56 texts, three weeks of faffing (from purchase to picking up the parcel) and a week of false starts, the situation was resolved. I was sincerely grateful to them for all they had done which, let’s face it, is above and beyond what one would expect from a seller on Facebook Marketplace.

And, the first individual to test the sofa was my canine nephew, Rupert, who is staying with me and Bertie. Rupert gave it his seal of approval and adopted it as his look-out post. There are several morals to this tale:  patience is a virtue, there are good people out there, and always hold onto a tracking slip! Amen.