Friday night I fell asleep on my futon while clearing off the TiVo. (Yes, I have a futon instead of a real couch—it’s that “lack of a woman’s touch” thing, I suppose.) Anyway, I woke up in the middle of the night with a kink in my neck and a sore shoulder and back. I decided that it was finally time to replace my lumpy, floppy old futon mattress.
I had bought that mattress and frame almost a decade ago from the graduating granddaughter of the guy who co-discovered the structure of DNA. It was a beautiful unfinished futon frame that I sanded, stained, and varnished, so it would be a shame to get rid of it.
Their main brick and mortar location is just a few miles up the road. Now, if you are a Princeton alum who has graduated in the last twenty-five years, you have undoubtedly sat on a White Lotus futon—either in your own dorm, a friend’s dorm, or a room party.
So the discovery that this Princeton institution would be closing its doors at the end of the month took me by surprise. It seems their online business is so successful, that is where they will be focusing their efforts. Good for them.
Good for me too. White Lotus’ offline locations are having a fifty-to-seventy-percent-off sale for the rest of May. In seven to ten days, I will have a custom-made foam core and wool-padded futon mattress with a granite-colored sueded cotton cover. Half…price. Oh, yeah.
Wow! It’s hard to believe that they’ll be closing down. I have owned three (one used and two bought new, including a barely used one I let go for a song wheb I left for Japan.), and sat/slept on a variety of others. Top notch stuff.
Still, I’m not sure of owning a futon instead of a real couch shows the “lack of a woman’s touch.” As I remember White Lotus is (or at least was) a proudly “Women Operated” business…
I imagine online sales are great for these folks. They are the fourth Google result for “futon” (even higher than the Wikipedia entry).
As for the “woman’s touch” thing, I suppose I always thought of futons as dorm room furniture, on the same level as lofts, beer bottle collections, and bean bag chairs. However, on second thought, a nice futon can be classier looking than some couches.