Saturday, April 12, 2008

Behold! My new sanctuary

I have often been embarrassed by our hand me down furniture over the years.

First there were the two love seats that my IL's passed on as we got married. These seats wer functional, and their form wasn't bad, but they didn't seat many. We also had Granny's vintage blue naugahyde vinyl glider-rocker...that piece I loved. I nursed my babies in it and we have kept it as a result.

Then there was the cream leather sectional whose previous owners' cats destroyed one side of before they "blessed" us with added seating.

Then we, lacking a guest room, inherited Grandma's super-floral sofa sleeper (in mint greens) and her burnt orange rocker when she passed away in 2003. They were especially out of place when we moved into our new-construction home the next year.

Then, our friend S was getting married, and they were keeping her furniture, did we want his Broyhill set, that coordinated with our beloved glider rocker? Absolutely. And we loved that couch...a little too well - we wore holes in the cushions and the springs started to break down.

So at Christmas 2006, we purchased a futon with a mission style wood frame and a green microfiber mattress cover, in keeping with the loveseat's colors. The futon was great as a bed. Not so great as a couch, as the mattress would slide out of adjustment every two seconds. And it looked very dorm-ish.


We ripped out the crappy carpet in the downstairs and put in a beautiful cherry laminate floor in the living room this fall. Also, Charlie Brown made a cut-out entertainment console in the wall, which streamlined the look of the room considerably.

Then, early this year, when we did our taxes we discovered we were getting a phat check from Uncle Sam. And Charlie Brown and I said, "This is it. We're getting REAL furniture."

So we got this set with the sofa, loveseat and recliner. Then, we needed a coffee table. And given the rich colors of our living room, we needed a dark finish like cherry or merlot. But none of them fit the bill when it came to matching colors. And I was frustrated, because we were thisclose to having a GROWN-UP room in our house for the first time ever! That week, when I was shopping at Target, I walked by the patio furniture and saw this table, I started to think outside the furnishing box. I brought Charlie Brown back to Target, asked him what he thought and he was sold. Besides, since it is patio furniture, it is metal and weather proof glass (read: virtually indestructable!)

So, without further ado, here is my new living room, which I am comfortable opening up to company like never before:








© 2008 Ramblings of a Red-Headed Step-Child. All Rights Reserved

5 comments:

  1. Yay for new furniture! And brilliant score on the coffee table!

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  2. Beautiful......I love your floors.
    Our living room is 3rd on our Project List, we're still finishing number 1.......

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  3. So nice! And the mounted tv is my favorite part. Seriously, I've been trying to convince hubs to mount our tv for years now.

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  4. Your living room looks great! I don't really have a decorating bone in my body, so I have to pick things out of magazines that I like and copy off of that. It does look similar to my floor. What I have is called Golden Amber Oak and I got it from Sam's Club...didn't go to Lowe's this time.

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