Sending a Couch on a Stairway to Heaven: A Kelowna Moving Story

If you have ever lived in Kelowna, you know that it is a city full of sunshine, lake views, wineries, and one quiet truth movers learn very quickly: not everything is built to modern furniture dimensions. Between older apartment buildings, narrow stairwells, and balconies that look decorative rather than practical, moving large furniture in Kelowna often turns into a creative problem-solving exercise.

That is something Kerry Wallace knows very well.

Kerry has been with Two Small Men with Big Hearts for a long time. Long enough, as he casually puts it, to have “seen some things.” Working out of the Kelowna branch as a swamper, Kerry has helped tackle more than his fair share of awkward moves. But one couch move in particular still stands out as a perfect example of how planning, teamwork, and a bit of humor can turn a stressful situation into a success.

“It goes way back,” Kerry recalls. “There were three of us on a job here in Kelowna. The customer had just bought this brand new couch, and she paid a lot of money for it. She was in the middle of a move, and our job was to pick it up from the store and bring it to her new apartment.”

So far, so good.

Then they arrived at the location.

“We get to the building, and it’s an apartment,” Kerry says. “And right away, you can tell it’s not going to be easy. It’s a big couch, and there’s no way it’s fitting through the door. The elevator was out, the stairwells were narrow, and she was on the second floor.”

In Kelowna, many apartment buildings were built decades ago, long before oversized sectionals and deep, modern couches became the norm. Tight corners, decorative railings, and stairwells barely wide enough for a person make moving bulky furniture a challenge even on a good day.

“This building had tight stairs and stuff hanging everywhere,” Kerry explains. “There was just no way to angle it in.”

At that point, the team laid out the options. Either the couch stayed downstairs, or they got creative.

“She really wanted that couch upstairs,” Kerry laughs. “So we said, okay, this is what we’d have to do.”

The plan involved serious preparation. “We blanket-wrapped it, stretch-wrapped it, and put piano straps around it,” Kerry says. “Then we had two guys up top pulling from the balcony, and I was on the ground guiding it so it wouldn’t bang into the building on the way up.”

Yes, you read that right. The couch was lifted up the outside of the building.

“It had to go up about 24 feet in the air,” Kerry explains. “Once it was up there, we had to take the sliding glass door off and remove the legs from the couch just to get it inside.”

It was one of those moments where the entire building seemed to pause and watch. Movers know that these balcony lifts draw attention. Neighbours peek out. Someone always takes a photo. And everyone silently wonders if gravity is about to win.

Safety, of course, was front of mind. “The guys were pulling from above, and I stayed clear underneath,” Kerry says. “I kept tension on the strap to keep it off the building, but I made sure I had distance in case anything slipped.”

Even though this move happened years ago, long before today’s stricter safety standards, the mindset was the same as it is now. “Nobody wants to get hurt,” Kerry says simply. “You plan it out first, and then you stick to the plan.”

All that preparation added time to the move. “You probably added about an hour,” Kerry recalls. “You’ve got to rewrap everything, protect it properly, set the straps, and make sure everyone knows what they’re doing before you start pulling.”

In the end, though, it worked.

“She was very pleased,” Kerry says. “She was a little concerned at first, but once it was inside and nothing was damaged, she loved it.”

Kerry couldn’t resist adding a bit of mover wisdom at the end. “I told her, the only way this couch is coming out of here when you move again is back over the balcony.”

It is the kind of comment that seasoned movers make with a smile, half joke and half truth.

In a city like Kelowna, where lakeside living meets older architecture and creative design choices, tricky couch moves are almost a rite of passage. For Two Small Men with Big Hearts, these situations are not obstacles. They are puzzles waiting to be solved.

As Kerry’s story shows, sometimes the solution is not forcing furniture through spaces it does not fit. Sometimes it is stepping back, making a plan, wrapping everything properly, and lifting a very expensive couch into the air while everyone holds their breath.

And when it lands safely in the living room, with the customer smiling and the team uninjured, that is just another day on the job.

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