Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Before and after: living room

In preparing for purchasing a new home, Matt and I had done a lot of thinking about what furniture we wanted to take with us and what we wanted to get rid of. We both agreed that our current sofa and chairs needed to go. They, like our dining room table, were a garage sale purchase, and while they were useful during medical school, Matt and I were ready for some real furniture.

Part of the problem with our old living room was that it was used for many purposes - living room, dining room, and Izzie's play area and storage area, as well as the location of her rocking chair and dresser/changing table. In our new house, one thing that I have really focused on is having Isidora areas and adult areas - I think the living room is one of the prime examples of this.

Here is a shot of our living room in our apartment. Of course there is stuff everywhere because I wasn't interested in cleaning it up just to take pictures. You can see all of Isidora's stuff in the corner. We rarely sat on the couch - mostly we just sat on the floor in front of the couch to eat dinner at the coffee table. The plant on the book shelf was given to me by my parents when I first moved in to the Hawthorne - and it is still alive!!

Here is a shot of the sofa and one of the two chairs. You can see Isidora's dresser/ changing table in the corner. Also, Isidora's high chair is here because this was our eating area as well (the carpet definitely showed it).

On to the new house! We were able to give our old floral couch and green chairs to a good friend of ours who was looking for some furniture and we headed over to Weekends Only to pick out some new furniture. Matt and I have been setting aside money for essentially all of medical school and we had decided that whatever we got in our tax return, we would put toward things we would need for the house (furniture, appliances, etc.) Weekends Only was a great find for us because it is a furniture outlet store - they buy furniture from other furniture stores in the area that are not selling, and then Weekends Only lowers their overhead by being open only 3 days per week and not including things like warranties or delivery. That way, they are able to offer furniture for approximately half the price.

So, for the living room, we were originally looking at a sofa and loveseat pair, but then we came upon this sofa:

This is a Broyhill sofa that was the only one of its kind bought by Weekends Only. Apparently, this sofa is pretty fancy stuff - and we were able to get it for a steal! However, that meant that there was not going to be a matching sofa - so, we wondered around until I spotted this chair:

These are swivel chairs made by Ashley Furniture and once I sat on it, there was no turning back - I really loved to sit and rock back and forth, it was so relaxing. And again, we got the chairs for a great deal. I was also able to call the Ashley Furniture Store and order two accent pillows with fabric matching the chairs in order to bring the room together, and the pillows go really well with the couch, even though they aren't made by the same company.

Another thing I loved about our house was our stained glass windows (seen above). As we were wondering around the store, Matt spotted this lamp:

It is a Tiffany style lamp that went so nicely with the style of the house, we picked up two of them for our living room. These were actually more than 75% off original retail price, and I love they way they look in our living room.

So here is the finished product - other things we picked up at Weekends Only were the coffee table and end tables, the book shelf, and the rug you can see in the first two pictures of the new living room. You can see the plant my parents bought for us has made it all the way to the new house (with a significant hair cut).

I have to say, I really love our living room. The sofa is so comfortable, and as Matt says, you can tell it is very well made simply by looking at the little details in the sofa. Of course, Isidora and I both love the swivel chairs - we have pulled them out from the wall and other furniture so they are not in danger of hitting anything. What I may like most about our living room is that there is not a toy in sight - it is an adult space (even though right behind the door in the third picture is Isidora's room), and it is a great place to sit and chat or read a book or just relax.

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