Why a classic always works
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Moving furniture around, painting walls or even swapping entire rooms was one of my greatest passions until recently. I deliberately say "was" because this urge for constant change has subsided somewhat in the last few months. In the past, I could hardly wait to replace a piece of furniture as soon as I found another one that I thought suited my apartment much better. Do you know that feeling? Or how I like to remember how I swapped my living room and dining room on a whim. Today, I prefer to enjoy coming home every day and my apartment and the furniture that goes with it always put a big smile on my face. One reason for this could be that I feel like I've finally found my own style (it only took a few years).
Or maybe it's just the 30s. Since I've had the number 3 in front of my name, I've been much more conscious about what I buy than I was in my 20s. Back then, I just wanted things to be nice and cheap. I loved strolling through flea markets looking for new treasures. I still like doing that nowadays, of course. But it's I'm now generally prepared to spend more money to invest in furniture that will last a lifetime, ideally. Accordingly, I'm increasingly looking for classic furniture that I'll still find appealing in years to come. That sounds easier than it sometimes is. Believe me, I'm speaking from my own experience!
Do you remember how I was desperately looking for a new coffee table last year? To be honest, the search drove me crazy at times. I had an image of a glass table with a chrome base in my head, but I couldn't find it exactly like that anywhere. I had seen this type of table on Instagram at some point and fell madly in love with it. Unfortunately, the image at the time didn't include any information about who the table's manufacturer was. Great, how could it be otherwise?
So I turned the World Wide Web upside down and finally found what I was looking for at USM. A brand that I honestly wouldn't have associated with a table like this at first, as I remembered them more as a manufacturer of cabinet modules. Incidentally, I'm only too happy to throw out the exact words of a dear friend when I told her where I found a table like this: "I thought they only made cabinets that you always see in lawyers' or doctors' homes, right?" Hmm... Good question - is that so? With that question in mind, I paid a visit to the USM showroom on Jungfernstieg last winter. I'll just tell you this: it wasn't just a coffee table. But more on that later...
The visit on site made my interior design heart do somersaults! Anyone who knows me knows that I prefer clean looks and the traditional Swiss brand that stands for exactly that is a perfect fit for me. Did you know, for example, that you can put the furniture together as you wish using a planning tool? I honestly don't! And then there are the many different color and material options! How am I, who sometimes takes a long time to make a decision, supposed to ever be able to make up my mind? True to the motto "It's tough to choose," that didn't stop me and I just went back and forth planning with the lovely Ana from USM. The result: in addition to the coffee table, I also fell in love with a dining table and a bar. Whoopsie!
In this context, I have to admit that I had been subconsciously looking for a new dining table for a while. What had always bothered me about my old dining table was that it wasn't particularly stable due to the hairpin legs and the thin wooden tabletop. I also had a problem with the depth, as it didn't offer enough space when I invited friends over for dinner and the table was full of food. If I opted for the USM Haller dining table, I wouldn't have these problems anymore. All I can say is: a 1 meter deep surface, enough stability thanks to the chrome-plated table frame and a clean look. Well, what can I say! The moment I configured the dining table like this, I knew: This is it!
I felt the same way about the bar. After all, how cool is it to have a bar at home? My parents always had a bar cabinet (which I loved to raid when I was a teenager), which is why I somehow associate such a piece of furniture with a certain coziness. And now, at 30, you can certainly treat yourself to something like that. However, since I'm not a fan of closed cabinets, I made it more open: just one drawer for glasses and otherwise two open shelves, some of which are made of glass to keep the look even more transparent. The only thing missing now is more drinks to put on top!
When I was configuring these three different pieces of furniture, the hardest task was honestly deciding on a material and a color. You've probably noticed that I've become a bit more colorful (miracles still happen). So it wasn't easy for me to choose between the various classic colors and the more pop tones, such as yellow or green. You wouldn't believe how incredibly cool the bar looked in yellow and the dining table with a black top! But I, the little scaredy-cat that I am, decided on white. After all, I know myself all too well not to know that my colorful phase could come to an end at some point.
You're already putting it together correctly: my visit to the USM showroom resulted in me configuring three new pieces of furniture, which I obviously couldn't live without! I could just see the picture of the furniture in my apartment all too clearly in my mind's eye. So for me it was a case of waiting! USM products are made in Switzerland and unfortunately have a delivery time of up to eight weeks.
It was precisely this waiting period that caused a few beads of sweat to appear on my forehead for a short time. Life had something great in store for me that I hadn't expected at the end of last year. My boyfriend and I were very lucky to have been given the go-ahead for an absolute dream apartment, so we moved in at the beginning of March. This meant that I was pretty worried about whether my planned USM furniture would fit perfectly in the new apartment. I remember all too fondly one evening before we moved in when we measured everything in the apartment and we were a little unsure whether the dining table would fit into the niche we had imagined for it.
I felt like I was close to having a nervous breakdown because I had a clear picture of the corner in my mind and didn't want to admit that it might not fit. Fortunately, my worries were completely unfounded, as I found out when the furniture was delivered at the beginning of March. Then the big day that I had been looking forward to so eagerly had finally arrived. I felt a little sorry for the guys from the delivery company that they had to deliver it to the 4th floor instead of the 1st floor in the old apartment. But it didn't seem to bother them at all, because they were up there with the furniture in no time and assembled the modules. Incidentally, all USM furniture is always delivered and assembled by the company's own assembly team. Good stuff!
And then came the moment that put a big grin on my face: all the furniture was in place and looked as if it had been made for its respective space. Was it perhaps the right furniture, but for the wrong apartment? No, my theory is: classics are for life and fit in anywhere!
