On the Move with LoveSac

For those of you who live in Boston the phrase “moving day,” has a single definition: tomorrow, September 1st. It’s not your moving day or my moving day; in Boston more than 80% of rental properties turn over on this day, so even if you are not moving, you’re impacted by the thousands of others (many of them students) doing so. Moving trucks double parked, sidewalks blocked, cast-away mattresses and couches littering the streets…it is a hassle for everyone.

Evidence of a move in Beacon Hill

Evidence of a move in Beacon Hill

Curt Savoie, principal data scientists for The City of Boston shared this heat map showing the concentration of moving permits issued by the City for August 28-September 1. It paints a scary picture. And this is only the folks who applied for permits, it doesn’t include all those college students who go rogue and move out of a borrowed truck.

Courtesy of The City of Boston

Courtesy of The City of Boston

LoveSac, the furniture company with stores in Natick and Burlington, will be making moving day easier for one lucky Bostonian by doing the dirty work for them. Through a sweepstakes held last week, folks could enter to win a free move…on LoveSac. I’m not moving, but if you read about my panic attach producing move a few years ago, you know that I can empathize with the cost and stress of moving. I would have done ANYTHING to have an opportunity like this. And not only will the lucky winner get an all-expense-paid move, but they will also win a Sactional. What’s a Sactional, you ask? I’d be happy to tell you.

Bloggers relaxing on a Sactional

Bloggers relaxing on a Sactional

I met the LoveSac team and learned all about the Sactional at a fun event held last week at the Liberty Hotel. (Full disclosure: the event was thrown by LoveSac’s PR agency which happens to be the one I work for. Some of my talented colleagues planned and executed the event, but as always, the observations and opinions I express on this blog, are entirely my own). The Sactional is LovSac’s answer to everything that is wrong with couches: big, bulky, difficult to move, doesn’t fit in your next home, and a color or pattern that you love at one stage of your life, and then seems like worst decision ever. Sactionals can be recovered as easily as changing your pillowcase, those covers are machine washable, and the couches comes apart into manageable-sized pieces that makes moving easy. After watching delivery folk struggle, sweat and swear trying to get my couch up my narrow three flights of stairs, I found myself shocked that the pieces of the Sactional could be taken apart and easily carried down a SPIRAL STAIRCASE at the Liberty.

LoveSac founder Shawn Nelson

LoveSac founder Shawn Nelson

I was convinced from a mobility perspective, but I thought there had to be a catch. Would the scale of the couch be too big for urban apartment living? Would they have enough fabric choices to satisfy a color lover like me? LoveSac’s founder Shawn Nelson squashed my reservations. Shawn serendipitously started LoveSac by creating an over-sized beanbag chair when he was 18. Shawn talked about the 300+ fabric choices and contrasting piping! He had me at contrasting piping! And true, you can build your Sactional to be as large as you like and as large as your home will allow, but the two-cushion option actually has smaller dimensions than the couch I have in my tiny apartment.

These pieces make up the couch, how easy is that to move?

These pieces make up the couch, how easy is that to move?

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Convenience and style notwithstanding, the LoveSac team is fun, and they clearly have a believe in the brand. Shawn, just out of high school, turned his passion for one crazy over-sized beanbag into a company that has a passion for it’s customers’ lives. He says that life happens on your couch with those you love, that time should be comfortable and stress-free. That’s a concept I can get behind!

So for all of you who are moving tomorrow (I have a few friends in that crowd), take a deep breath, stay hydrated, stay sane. Moving sucks, but September 2nd will be here before you know it!

DJ E-M

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 Those who know me know that I cry at weddings.  And not a delicate tear slowly rolling down my perfectly blushed cheek the way people cry in movies.  No, my nuptials waterworks are more of the whimpering, blubbering variety.  And at Raquel and Tyreak’s wedding I realized that I don’t even need to have a personal relationship with the bride and groom to induce my wedding weeping.  I realized that this innate part of my nature makes the chances of me being a good wedding DJ pretty slim.

DJ Tommy was kind enough to let me help him as he spun the tunes for the happy couple’s ceremony and reception.  I had imagined us scratching old vynls as wedding guests chanted “Hey Miss DJ.”  Ok, that did not happen.  These days the world of DJ’ing is a digital one.  We were armed with a laptop instead of boxed of records.  But don’t think that the ability to create a play list made this experience an easy one.  There was a curve ball: the bride and groom are Cape Verdean (Cape Verde is an archipelago off the coast of West Africa) and wanted to include some traditional tunes.  We had to work very unique Cape Verdean songs — with their thumping beats and perfectly complementary melodies — in with Justin Bieber and Jay-Z?

We did manage to master the mix, but this was not a dancing bunch.  When I am a guest at a wedding, you can’t drag me from the dance floor.  But this group couldn’t be lured out there.  There was more dancing going on behind the DJ booth than on the dance floor.  We played all the requests we received including a few new(to me) dances I had never heard of including the Cha Cha Slide and the Cupid Shuffle (watch these videos to learn the steps) which are the modern day versions of the Electric Slide — where have I been?  Those did get a good number of people out on to the dance floor, but it was a fleeting moment.  These people just didn’t want to dance.  DJ Tommy has the experience to know that every crowd is different, and as long as the bride is happy the night should be considered a success (and at the end of the reception the bride did gushed about what a good job we did) but it was hard for me not to view the night as a failure.  I had envisioned my DJ debut as looking more like late-night at the hottest club, not a middle school dance with only a brave few cutting a rug.  

But I had to remind myself that this night was not about me and my potential future as a DJ.  It was about Raquel and Tyreak, and the first night of their life together, and if the night is measured by the smiles on their faces than it was a huge success!  DJ Tommy and I had every foot in that place tapping, every head bobbing…even if we couldn’t get their entire bodies into it.  So, tears and all, it was a pretty good night for DJ E-M.

Many thanks to DJ Tommy who was so great to let a DJ wanna-be hang out with him.  And to Raquel and Tyreak for letting me share their special day with them.