When He Bought a Used Footstool, He Got More Than He Bargained For

Standing tall and wearing a long white beard, Howard has the warm, inviting presence of a mall Santa, with none of the sit-on-my-lap creepiness. He has faded gray blue eyes that exude kindness, surrounded by dark wire-rimmed glasses.

While his relationship status is unknown, one thing is blatantly clear: he loves his kids very much. 

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This includes his grandchildren, to whom he is always a doting grandfather. His Facebook profile is adorned with photos of them, proudly showing them off at every opportunity. 

It was a freezing cold Michigan winter, as it is every year up in the Midwest, but Howard Kirby was willing to brave the ice and snow to go furniture shopping at the Habitat for Humanity store. 

He needed new furniture for his home, but like many Americans, didn’t have the funds to get something brand new.

Selecting the Right Furniture ©Supertrooper/Shutterstock.com

After all, furniture is incredibly expensive and typically built to last. Great things can show up in the most unlikely of places, and that was what Howard Kirby was hoping for. So he set out in his car just after Christmas, and had his hopes up that he would find something great.

For Howard Kirby, the times were rough. He was financially strapped, living in a home in need of some major renovations. 

While he had family living close by who served as a major support system, it simply wasn’t enough to sustain him.

Down On His Luck @mlivedotcom/Pinterest

Kirby really needed a miracle, not moral support. He had no idea, however, that in doing something as mundane as picking out a new used couch he would get all the inspiration he needed to fulfill him. 

At the Habitat for Humanity Store, Howard Kirby was faced with a lot of choices. Around Christmastime the donations come pouring in, with everyone getting in the charitable spirit. 

As such, Kirby had the pick of the litter when it came time to decide what to get.

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He searched around for a while, until he came across a couch set that fit the bill. It was only $70 for the whole set, which included a cute little footstool in matching upholstery, which would make sitting back and relaxing at home extra comfortable.

Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit organization that is perhaps most well known for building houses for people in need. They organize projects in underserved neighborhoods, as well as even recruiting volunteers to travel to third world countries to build homes there. 

This isn’t everything they do, however. Habitat for Humanity also knows that having a home isn’t the only hurdle to cross, and that even recently homeless people often end up with empty homes, unable to afford furniture. 

The Habitat for Humanity Store ©Rob Hainer/Shutterstock.com

For this reason, they offer discount used furniture stores to help people fill their homes with nice, gently-used items at an affordable price.

We’ve already established that Howard Kirby is a real family man, so it makes sense that he wanted to bring in furniture items that would make his home cozy. 

He wanted to fill it with things that would allow him to entertain his whole family at once. 

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Going to the used furniture store, he had his eyes on something that would be comfortable and the right size. It couldn’t be too big or it would crowd his small space, but it had to be big enough to give all his grandkids a place to sit and feel at home. 

Once Kirby found the right piece of furniture, things started to fall into place. He loved the quirky little footstool that came with the couch, and could picture exactly how it would fit into his home–if he could get it there that is. 

The next hurdle Howard Kirby had to jump was getting the furniture to his place. 

Bringing The Furniture Home ©Paul O'Connell/Shutterstock.com

A couch is not exactly something that fits comfortably into the trunk of an average car, though the footstool definitely could squeeze in. 

Luckily, Habitat for Humanity offers the incredible service of furniture delivery at a low cost. Once you buy furniture, it can often be nearly as expensive as the piece itself to get it home. 

In the case of the non-profit’s furniture stores, however, volunteers offer to spend their free time moving furniture for people in need. 

The Furniture Comes Home…©Andrey_Popov/Shutterstock.com

These kind individuals use their own trucks to deliver furniture to people’s homes, no matter how far away from the store they are. After all, people like Kirby often drive hours to get to places where they can get good deals. 

Where did Howard Kirby’s new couch come from though? Who was ready to give up on such a gently-worn couch set? Every piece of furniture has a story, and this piece is no different. 

It has a once-in-a-lifetime story behind it, that impacted Howard Kirby forever. 

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One day a woman made a call that she needed the Habitat for Humanity to come pick up some furniture from her home. Her father had died, and she was left with a house full of items she had no room for.

Kim Fauth-Newbury was the owner of the furniture, but not because she went out and bought it. Unfortunately, Kim became the owner of the couch set, and much, much more, when her father passed away.

He left the contents of his home to her, and flooded with grief, she didn’t know what to do with them.

Kim Fauth-Newbury ©Bezbod/Shutterstock.com

She didn’t have room in her home for any of the pieces that her father had left her, and while she considered moving everything to storage it just didn’t make sense. Keeping a storage unit was expensive, and she knew the only logical thing to do would be to part ways with the furniture, no matter how much sentimental value it held. 

Howard Kirby and his family could feel that something was off with the couch. They sat in it and it was comfortable, but whenever they tried to lay back and relax and put their feet up, the footstool would ruin their comfort. 

But what could make a simple stool so uncomfortable? The Kirby family couldn’t understand why a little square piece was so lumpy and awkward. 

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It was impossible to lay their feet on it in the right position, which seems so strange for a piece of furniture designed to hold feet.

Howard Kirby knew that he couldn’t return the stool, after all, secondhand furniture stores don’t take returns because almost nobody would buy something third-hand. 

He didn’t want to admit defeat, but he felt bad that he committed to a furniture set that was a dud. 

Further Inspection of the Footstool @gma/Pinterest

Kirby’s daughter, not willing to let one simple footstool ruin a nice couch set, decided to inspect the piece. She turned it over in her hands, feeling along the seams, and what she discovered next was about to change their lives. 

Kirby’s daughter could tell that something was inside the footstool. While many furniture pieces exist that are meant to double as furniture and storage, this one had no easy way to open it.

She knew that it wasn’t meant to be storage, but she also felt hard lumps inside. 

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She asked her father if she could rip open the seams, but he was hesitant to let her tear through a crucial part of his new couch set. And what if they didn’t like what they found inside? After all it could be any number of horrible things stashed in there. 

After all, curiosity took over and Kirby and his daughter simply had to know what was inside the footstool. Armed with scissors, she began hacking away at the stool, determined to find what was underneath. 

Peeling away layers of fabric, Kirby and his daughter didn’t know how to react except with absolute awe. 

Curiosity Kills the Kirbys @13ONYOURSIDE/Youtube

There, carefully stored in stacks underneath the fabric of the footstool were wads and wads of one hundred dollar bills!