Rain Drops Are Fallin' On My Couch

There is some strange force of nature which occurs when you purchase new things. It's like buying a brand new car, and getting that first little scratch on the bumper. Apparently that unfortunate force of nature, also pertains to new couches.

We had a horrible thunder and lighting storm here a little while ago. It lasted about an hour and a half (maybe longer as I eventually fell asleep out of boredom). About 40 minutes into said storm, the ceiling in my livingroom began to drip - right onto my brand new couch. Me being the responsible adult that I am, I freaked out and went in search of the largest cooking pot I own (never mind that I have a perfectly good bucket I could have used - my brain went straight for a pot).

Being that it was already about 6:15pm and also dark from the storm, I couldn't see all that well, so taking good pictures was difficult. I put the pot down and lined it up with the dripping as best I could, then lined the area with towels. My poor hardwood floors!

I think the couch is going to be okay. It's micro fiber and I don't know how well it does wet. I dried it as best I could and it seems to be alright. Here are pictures of the leaking water and hopefully temporary damage to the couch.


Oh look.. you can see my teddy, Bruster!

Bedding Splurge

After today, I'm thinking I should have named this blog "Decorating on a complete whim and just buying what I like while somewhat keeping in mind the price since I only have so much money to spend." But maybe that's a little too long. *grin*

In all fairness, I purchased both the bedding set and throw pillows, as well as my daughter's new bedding and sheets. There aren't a lot of "must haves" left. Paint is the biggest need left. I imagine it and carpet costing the most. We went and priced paint and primer a couple of weeks ago. I'm painting six rooms and some are small while others large. So I think it is safe to say that 3 cans of paint/primer per room on average at approximately $15 per can should run me $270. So I'm going to plan for it to cost up to $350.

So how much did my splurge at Walmart just cost me? $180. Which I guess isn't too bad for a king sized bed in a bag (2 pillow shams, comforter, bed skirt), 4 matching decorative pillows and Hailey's comforter and sheet set. They are both really nice. I got my baby blue / milk chocolate set I have been eying. It's so soft. It's microfiber - like the couch! It looks really warm, which will be nice in the cooler months for sure (we keep the house practically set to arctic anyways). And of course, I bought Hailey a Tinkerbell set. I sort of settled on what they had rather than going for one I saw online. I learned with her birthday party that sometimes it's better to just settle for what is just as good because shipping costs are outrageous. I doubt she'll care either way. She's only 2 1/2. It has Tinkerbell on it and that's all that matters to her!

Of course, no blog about my shopping splurge would be complete without pictures of what I bought! So here are pictures of my bedding set with a couple of pillows, as well as Hailey's set.

So that is $180 more of my budget gone. That leaves me now with $748.00 out of my $1,000.

We made one more purchase today but it is not apart of the budget, although I will be taking it into consideration in the long run. We bought a new set of dishes. When we moved into my mother in law's home while she was away, we basically shared dishes. We're still borrowing her dishes, so we wanted to go ahead and get our own. Charlie has been eying these dishes for months. I'm shocked they were even still at Walmart. Of course they go with the more modern feel of the house, as well as matching the black/white theme of the kitchen.

I Was Naughty!

Well... I caved today and I got a new couch (amongst other things). But before I show you pictures, you need to know about today's adventure in order to appreciate my new couch.

On Monday, my mother in law had delivered this absolutely amazing couch that in both color and design, would be absolutely perfect for my living room. I know you're thinking "How great could a couch that some old woman picked be?" Yeah.. I thought the same thing when my boyfriend ran in to get me after seeing it for the first time. I should really go take a picture of it, but it would take away from the pictures of my couch. Haha!

Alas, we loved her couch so much that we started off by going to the same store it came from. We found a few great couches, but none of them were in the right color. We were really looking for something in chocolate brown or a medium tan at absolute lightest. My boyfriend really wanted this one couch in Cobalt Blue and he was extremely unhappy that I put my foot down and said no. I keep reminding him that he agreed to me decorating every room of the house as I wanted it so long as he got to do the kitchen as he saw fit. And the brick in the living room is red. A rich, almost blinding blue couch would have been hideous (in my opinion). We ended up leaving - disappointed in our lack of findings.

He took me to the next store - some Furniture Showcase and within three couches, I knew it was time to leave. The prices were outrageous - $1,500 for a couch that looked almost identical to a couch we'd seen at the previous store for $800 or less. Needless to say, we quickly left that store. It was definitely out of our range.

I have to talk about the next place. It's too funny not to mention it (sorry sweetie... I just have to). We're driving along and we see some very small, rather run down looking building that claims to sell furniture, hardware and building accessories. I wasn't too keen on the idea, but we go in. It turned out to be a 2nd hand shop (actually, it looked more like a 4th or 5th hand shop). We walked through it for a few minutes - all the while, I'm trying not to laugh. Again, we left!

Finally, we stop at Big Lots - which was the original plan to begin with. My mother in law had come from there early this morning with a Pub table. It's basically this very small table that is a bit higher than a regular dinner table and comes with two chairs. She told us they had a lot of good deals going on and that a lot was on clearance so we wanted to go take a look. Ended up finding a couch we could afford that we liked. Okay, I admit it... my mother in law's couch is better than ours. But I don't think it would fit in my living room anyways!

So without further a due... here is my lovely couch (be advised, this is just the floor model that I took a picture of in the store).

It looks like my boyfriend has made his decision on the kitchen's theme. Funny, I'm the one who chose the theme to begin with and he originally said no. *smirks* He's definitely doing black and white checkers. In fact, we now have a bar table for the kitchen to prove it. It's... different. I'm not sure how it will tie in with the rest of the house but ya know what? - If he's happy with it, then I'm happy with it.

We ended up with the floor model - it was the only one they had left. So we took it just as it was, piece by piece out of the store. We got $75 off of it and it was originally $199 so I think we got a really nice deal. He seems so happy about it so it was worth every penny.

I apologize that these pictures aren't that great. I'm only 5'2" so my perspective on these is poor. The table nearly comes up to my chest. I probably should have had my 6'8" boyfriend take a picture. Don't worry... we'll get better pictures later.

But you have to take the bad with the good. There were some horribly annoying people in the store while we were there who just couldn't stand that we'd gotten there first and spent a lot more money than they were planning too - thus we attracted the attention of the employees. They not only interrupted while we were being rung up for the couch, love seat and table set, but they made sure to make a small scene while employees were helping us put the furniture into our truck. The approximately 12 year old bratty girl was the worst. While the employee was wheeling out our couch, they were having a panic attack and fussing at him, saying "That's not my couch!" Well no kidding - it's my couch.

All the while this is going on, I was off being naughty. I couldn't help myself. I found some super cute candles that I thought would look really nice in the room. I also found this really dark cherry wood frame with shadow boxes and mini shelves. It looks so nice and I'm super excited about all of it. Unfortunately, this counts against my budget. I'll get into how much I spent total at the end of the blog. Here is a picture of the frames.

I'm going to off set the dark colors of the floor, red brick fire place and couch with some nice accessories. The pillows that came with the couch, have blue in them - which makes no sense to me. The couch is warm milk chocolate color and blue is such a cool color. I'm going to find a fabric I like and recover the pillows, as well as have pillows made for my coffee table (my boyfriend bought it long ago at a garage sale and it was missing its pillows). Then I am going to use said fabric to choose a matching, flat color for the curtains. I'm hoping to find a rug that has the same type of color and pattern as the pillows. It should all add a nice brightness to the room and tie it all together.

I'm really excited. I think it's all really going to come together nicely. Besides the rug and some paint, I think I have everything I need for the living room for now. I may get some more lighting. It really depends on the budget and how things work out. I sort of splurged today without pricing things like I said I would. But I was really afraid that what I wanted wouldn't be there any more.

Amount I spent? $72.00! Yes, I was naughty. On the one hand, that isn't a lot of money but I suppose it was a bit much for some candles and a wall decoration. But on the upside, I don't really need much more for the area. I'm now left with $928 of my budget.

The Woes of Craigslist

By now, most people have heard of the ultimate classifieds for anything and everything known as Craigslist.org. You can pretty much find anything on this website - jobs, dates, free stuff, furniture, toys, clothing and so much more (even stuff I don't dare talk about *shudders*). Most of the stuff is gently used to often extremely used stuff that people no longer want. Sometimes you can find something brand new or even hand made. Being that I'm on a budget and I have always heard such great things about this site, I thought I'd have a serious look. Too bad I'm not impressed.

Despite managing to find a few things I am interested in, it seems that getting people to respond to you about your interest is really hit or miss. But that's not even the hard part. The hardest part is clicking on advertisements for something that sounds good by the subject, and getting about 2-3 sentences about a product... and no picture! How am I supposed to know if I'm interested or not, if I don't even know what the product looks like?

Worse - Craigslist is organized by major cities. The major city it gives me is Columbia, SC and that's a good 45 minutes away from me on a good day. And that's just the starting point - a lot of the postings are from areas up to 3 hours away. By the time I would factor in time as well as gas, I'm no longer really getting a deal on stuff.

I think I'd rather spend a little more money on stuff I know is new and that I don't have to drive hours away from my home for.

Choosing Decorative Accessories

My boyfriend started asking me about themes last night and I honestly didn't know what on earth he was talking about. Themes? I thought I'd picked those...

But then he got to talking about accessories - what kind of things I wanted to put on the walls or on tables, etc - things that would really pull it all together. Almost sounds like he has a better idea of what he's doing. Ha! I hadn't really thought of those things just yet. I've been so caught up in fixing dings and scratches in the walls, paint colors, carpet prices and bedding that I forgot what is probably one of the most important elements of interior decorating... the decorations!

One thing this house is seriously lacking - lighting... particularly in the living room area. It's just such a large area but it seems so dark in there to me despite having a couple of overhead lights. I want it to remain a warm, welcoming area... but I also want to brighten it up. The dark, wood floors and rich, red brick significantly suck the lighting out of the whole room. So I'm thinking a few lamps on some side tables would be nice.

But what else? I have watched so many interior decorating shows where space is an issue - the owners don't have much or the room is cramped and they teach them how to open a space up. I don't have that problem. In fact, it's quite the opposite! I have no idea what to fill most of my space with.

Shelving is a must in my bedroom. I'd like a couple of shelves on the walls placed on either side of the bed where I can place some nice pictures of my daughter and a few knick knacks. Other than that, I don't want the bedroom too cluttered. It already has 3, rather large pieces of furniture. I want to keep a fresh, clean look to the room - peaceful, modern and elegant.

My office will be somewhat tricky. Right now, my desk isn't where I'd like it to be. There are two extra doors in the room right now (confusing and complicated, I know). One will be sealed up so I will have a little extra wall space, but not much. There is literally something on every wall right now, which makes it hard to place furniture in it! Once I figure out where I am going to definitely put my desk, I'd like to put a few shadow box frames up on the wall with some special memories in them - my daughter's first curl, first hat from the hospital, her hospital jewelry, etc.

But then what? I feel like something may be missing. I worry about cluttering up the rooms despite the large amount of space. How many decorations are even really necessary? I'd love to hear your input on this!

Choosing Themes

I'm working on themes for each room of the house. I like a modern feel with an earthy undertone. I've never decorated a house before, but I have several looks in mind that I have been dying to have in my home.

My bedroom and office are most important to me. It's said that the kitchen is where most people spend the majority of their time, but that simply isn't the case for me. Since I work from home, I spend a lot of time in my office so it's important to me that I have a nice, soothing yet uplifting work space. Green is my favorite color and using the inspiration of my favorite purse, I plan to paint the room a sort of medium olive-green while leaving the crown molding in the room, white. I think it'll give nice contrast and give the room a nice, fresh feel. There is both a sliding door closet and built in drawers in the room. I plan to accent those in a lighter version of the medium olive-green as well as using the same color on the inside of the window sill.

The bedroom is inspired by a bedding set I found at Walmart. It's medium power blue and milk chocolate in color. I've been wanting a set like this for a long time. It's not something I ever would have thought I'd like - that is, until I saw it and just knew I had to have it for my bedroom. Here is my Baby Blue / Milk Chocolate Bedding Set. I plan to paint the room a lighter blue to enhance the blue of the comforter and plan to use a matching milk chocolate color on the bedroom door, closet doors and possibly as an accent color on the inside of the window sills. I've not yet decided on curtains. If I can find some that match for a decent price, I'll probably buy them. If not, I may pick up some matching fabric and see if I can't convince my mother in law to sew me up some!

The bathroom is going to be tricky. I'm not a huge fan of yellow but a sunny, pastel yellow sounded like it made most sense for a bathroom. What better way to wake up in the morning? But because of the flooring color and because I'm not sure I want to spend money replacing it, I think I'm going to work with some kind of light teal / aqua. The bathroom will require the most work out of me no matter what color scheme I choose. Unlike the rest of the house, there is not only wallpaper in the bathroom, but there is paint on top of wallpaper - and then a wallpaper border on top of that. There is also an irreplaceable sink and countertop to consider. That's a task that I may work on later as it would be impossible for me to include it within my $1,000 budget.

My daughter's room is probably going to be the easiest room for me design wise. I'm doing a full Tinkerbell theme designed around a Tinkerbell bedding set (although I've not chosen which bedding set I want). Behr has a great Disney series of paints and awesome design ideas on their website. I plan to use a lot of their ideas for the room. I also plan to have a close friend of mine who is an artist, come in and paint a large scale Tinkerbell on my daughter's wall. The biggest splurge in her bedroom will be flooring. Like any parent, I'm concerned about her play area and let's just say that the forest green carpeting in her bedroom is far past its best and I have significant doubts about it getting any better with the use of a steam vac. I will be purchasing carpet for the room -or- purchasing linolium type tile and buying an area rug. It depends on the budget, how much cost is and which I think would look best in the end.

The living room area posesses a challenge for my modern tastes as I have a fairly large red-bricked fire place that extends a full wall in the living room, including wrapping around to part of the kitchen. After much debate and thought, my boyfriend actually came up with the best plan. He started talking about using an earthy red or orange and I just kept thinking "I don't want a red room with red brick." But then I found this awesome rug at Walmart. It's a little pricy, but I'm betting with some shopping around, I can find something similar that will work just as well. My living room area is fairly large and all dark, hard wood. I think this rug will be a nice warmth to the large space while still giving the room a modern edge. This Shag Overclean Area Rug paired with a few modern and accessories should be perfect. And since we already have some cream colored paint, it saves us a little money!

I may be purchasing a new couch. My mother in law had her new couch delivered today and it's absolutely gorgeous. I'm so jealous. I got stuck with an old couch that belonged to the people who last lived here so of course it's laced with cigarette smoke. I really don't want to keep it. It's too bulky for my taste to begin with. If I do purchase a couch, it will be something I save up for or pay in installments - therefor it will not be included in the $1,000 budget.

The kitchen is completely out of my hands. My boyfriend loves to cook and I agreed that he could design the kitchen himself. I'm not sure what he's going to do. He has plans for a checkered theme. I thought he was going to do a mauve red and off-white, but it sounds like he's leaning more towards black and white and cows.

Choosing Paint

A fresh coat of paint can dramatically change the look of your home - and for the least amount of money. I plan to paint all six rooms of my home - all with a different color scheme. This will make paint a little more pricey. You could probably get more bang for your buck by choosing one color and painting the whole house. Additionally, you could opt to check out your local paint store for already mixed colors. They tend to sell those for much cheaper. They are usually "Oopsies" or cans of paint that weren't purchased by the customers who requested them.

One hurdle I have to clear - nicotine stains on the walls. The previous owners of my home were fairly heavy smokers. My walls are quite obviously stained orange. You can google for some nicotine removal strategies like I did, or you can just check out this link: Removing Nicotine From Walls. I already attempted to wash my walls - mainly those in the dining room area where the majority of the smoking took place. Because I plan to repaint the walls anyways, I tried a sink full of very hot water, bleach and pine-sol. It did make a difference, but a heavy coat of primer (or 2... or 3...) will be required in order to cover the stains. Whatever you do, be prepared to destroy whatever you use to clean the walls. I made the poor choice to scrub the walls using my sponge mop so I could reach the full height of the wall. I completely destroyed said mop.

I did some research for good primers to use and I'm honestly still undecided. It seems a case by case scenario greatly affects the outcome of each brand's use. I've heard both good and bad about several brands so I'm not really sure what will be best. I'd suggest talking to your local paint store about it and seeing what they reccomend. One thing I do know, I will be covering the walls in very thick layers of primer to even out some of the dings and scratches - and more importantly keeping the remaining nicotine from soaking through.

As far as choosing colors is concerned, stores like Lowe's and Home Depot have great color booklets that you can pick up for free. They have some good ideas in them. Additionally, you can get great color ideas using your favorite household accesories, bedding set, etc. You can take a pillow or picture of a piece of furniture to the store and use it to find matching and coordinating colors to enhance the room.

Most importantly... Choose colors you like that work well for the room you plan to use them in. Use colors to bring warmth to open spaces, light to small areas and life to dull areas of your home. The right colors can drastically change and enhance your home for a small price.