Now that our old house is sold — in other words, now that our budget actually has a bit of spare cash again — I’ve started working down the list of home improvement “wants” that I started when we moved in last summer. There are some big ticket items like renovating our master bathroom and painting pretty much the entire downstairs, but after some discussion, Jose and I have decided to hold off on those updates until at least the fall. Still, there are several things that still make a big impact that I’m tackling now.
First up is fixing up our living room! The rug we had was too small and our old U-shaped sectional was too big. I know that doesn’t totally make sense, but it’s true. We looked around at couches back in December and after the old house sold, it finally made sense to go buy something new. We bought the simple sofa you see above and a leather recliner from Ethan Allen. The sofa was from their “quick ship” line and arrived a couple weeks ago, but we chose a custom leather for the recliner so it won’t be here until early June. The recliner will go somewhere in the foreground of the photo above — either right where I’m standing facing back into the room, or on the right side to form an “L” with the sofa.
Then it was time for a new rug. I must have looked at literally a thousand rugs — some in person and many, many online — at price points from $200 to $2000 and after much debate, I was about to pull the trigger on a $900 wool hand-tufted rug. But something kept stopping me, and finally the little voice in the back of my head became clear: our kids are still little, and I do not want to drop a grand on a rug that will likely get dirt/food/milk/vomit on it multiple times over the next several years. So I went back to the drawing board and found this 9×12 rug on Wayfair. It’s polypropelene, not wool, and it’s made by machine, not by hand. But it feels surprisingly soft and looks great AND it was only $300. Win win win.
It’s starting to look like a nice little living room! Well, if you look past the toys on the coffee table…and the toys in front of the fireplace…and the kid shoes in the doorway to the kitchen…and the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs…you get the idea.
Katie says
I think I might’ve looked at that exact same rug when we were buying them a couple months ago. I really like it and the soda too!
Katie says
I think I might’ve looked at that exact same rug when we were buying them a couple months ago. I really like it and the *sofa too!