When we looked at our house it was empty which made it more appealing and easy to picture ourselves living in it. What it didn't do was let us know how much of a disaster a certain staircase would pose to us.
Eric's parents were nice enough to offer us two of their couches they weren't using to put in our basement. Naturally we were pretty excited seeing as we were going from a 1 floor apartment to a 3 floor townhouse and didnt have eough furniture or money to fill the new rooms.
Well lets just say neither of them made it down the stairs. We even sawed the legs off of one of them to try and make it fit-but no luck. We did acquire a little extra space though with a new hole in the wall!
Finally after a couple weeks of sitting on the floor to watch tv and then on the couch cushions from one of the non-fitting couches (which would become our make shift couch for a solid month) we broke down and bought a sectional (after measuring carefully). Eric rented a truck to pick it up and his dad came over to help him take it down the stairs. After lots of sweating and cursing we still did not have a couch downstairs. But we did have a new hole in the wall! And were out the money it cost to rent the truck.
Here is the evidence:

We continued our search through every furniture store within an hours drive and found one we thought would work out so i called the next day and reserved it. well we got cold feet and decided not to buy it because we werent for sure it would fit. Then we found another one that we were pretty sure would but it was a special order and we couldnt return it if it didnt. After much debating we took the jump and bought it. We also paid for them to deliver because eric couldnt take trying to get another couch down those stupid stairs. (why is an only 10 yr old house built so stupidly?) we were pretty nervous when it came and I hid upstairs the whole time because I knew I would have a nervous break down if it didnt.
Well by some miracle it fit!!! So after 4 couches, a little sawdust, 2 holes in the wall, some money lost, much pain(in the neck and in the rump) and lost sleep we are so happy to have something to sit on down there! Now if I could just get my hands on some money to decorate...