At the suggestion of the flooring guy, we sent two chairs with carpet casters down to the basement where they could roll around on carpet and not scratch up the floor. Then we brought up the old This End Up love seat to put in front of the window, as Gretchen and I had been discussing the reasonableness of getting a love seat to put there and the fact that we owned one and had someone to move it seemed like a reasonable indicator that we should take a run at it.
Julie was way less than pleased by this development, as she is tired of changes to the house. I think she has finally decided to accept it as a fait accompli, but this does not mean she is happy about it.
In any case, we have started to unpack boxes. We have even hung the curtains in the living room.
It's progress.