Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Inspiration Piece!

So, the family room. Again. No, wait. Still.

Carl was having difficulty selecting anything for the family room . At the same time, I was trying to give him space to select something he'd love. Unfortunately, Carl couldn't seem to find anything he liked. Not art, not fabric, not a rug. Nothing inspired him (his words, not mind).

Being the wonderful wife that I am, I narrowed it down for him. I emailed him the link to rugs from Overstock.com and gave him a $500.00 budget. Now, if you ever looked at Overstock's rug selection, you'd know that I only narrowed his search marginally. From researching blogs, I understand that the rug is the hardest thing to find, so it's best to start with the rug.

After several weeks, Carl finally selected this rug.

I'm so proud of my hubby. He picked this gorgeous 8' x 11' wool rug all by himself. He carefully reviewed the cost, materials, and customer comments before telling me what to buy. He even suggested a paint color and window panel colors that I think will look fantastic. I think he'd been hiding a secret decorating talent! Should I be thrilled that he's so good at this, or annoyed he's been holding out on me?

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Find of the (Mid) Century!

Last Friday, during my lunch break , I drove on over to our local Goodwill for some fun. I'm only looking for furniture [right now] and was on a very limited schedule, so I carefully avoided the clothing and book sections. And there it was. Have you ever experienced that moment when you found your it? The exact item you never knew you needed, but knew you needed?

There in all it's glory was this entertainment center.

Oh dear. It's exactly the style my husband likes and wants for our family room-mid century modern. I approached the piece slowly lest someone else realize how awesome a find this was. The piece was in good shape. It even had dovetail joints and groovy 70s drawer liner. And we needed a new entertainment center to hold games and toys. The last one we owned (a horrible shabified yellow monstrosity) met up with our son in a dark room and didn't come out alive. Oh, it gets better. Total cost? $12.00. Yup, my pulse started to quicken. This was it! And it must be mine!


But wait. I didn't have the truck, nor does Goodwill hold anything. I rushed back to work, called Carl (the husband who owns a truck)and begged him to pick up this fine piece for me after work. This guy, he didn't even ask why. He just went to Goodwill, bought me that $12.00 entertainment center along with a bouquet of wild flowers and brought it home.


Truly, I don't know who was more excited, me or the kids. They knew exactly the purpose of the entertainment shelf as soon as they saw it-our new toy and game storage. The spent the rest of the night putting all their toys into the unit and exclaiming over its awesomeness. I may have created monsters.


Wednesday, March 3, 2010

I Am A Turtle

Why did no one warn me that home improvement can hurt! No, we didn't have any major accidents. I'm talking muscle fatigue. I run, do step aerobics, kick boxing, and various other workouts several times a week. None of these things have prepared me for laying a laminate floor.

Carl and I are currently plodding our way through our laminate floor installation project and it is taking us For-Ev-Er! We started on Sunday afternoon. It's now day 3 and we're maybe halfway done. Dang day jobs are just getting in the way. Add in feeding, bathing and homework with the kids and it makes for snail pace progress. At least there is progress, right? I just have to be patient and look on the bright side.

So, what is the bright side? Well, since we have a good portion done, I can already see that I love the floor. It looks great. Another bright side is the skills I'm acquiring. Hey, I can lay laminate floor with no help (not that I want to). I've also learned how to use our circular saw and the correct way to measure. Finally, and most importantly I'm learning patience-one thing I've always needed to work on.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Unexpected Progress!


Have you ever had unexpected progress? Recently, Carl (the husband) and I decided to fix up the family room. The plan was, well, wasn't even much of a plan. We has a direction-sort of. We're thinking something "grandma chic" (Carl's terms, not mine). So, something sorta mid-century modern-ish for my husband with some tranditional thrown in for me.
With this direction in mind, we've been searching through Ikea, Craigslist and Goodwill for furniture and accent peices. While we found some furniture we liked, nothing inspired us. We had no inspiration piece to work with. In the past, I've used art or fabric as inspiration pieces. I suggested that we try to find a really cool rug to work with, but unfortunately, the only rugs Carl likes are the flotki or sheepskin looking rugs. I'm pretty sure that these rugs will not stand up to two children, one eighty-pound doggy and one spiteful cat. So, we're still looking. Maybe one of those Sisal rugs?
While I am in no hurry to complete this renovation, something happened to speed it along. Enter, a sale on laminate flooring. That's right, laminate flooring went on sale at Costco for more than $8.00 off per box. This equals over $280.00 in savings if we bought it in February. So, Carl bought about 700 sq. feet of flooring, loaded it up on the truck and brought it home. And there it sat for about a week.

And then something wonderful happened. Carl started ripping up our gross carpet. Ever rip up carpet? Makes you never want to have carpet ever again! And so, we have officially started laying our new floor and I love it. Well, the floor, not actually installing it. So, right now, the house is a disaster and everyone feels discombobulated, but we are loving the progress. Bonus points for the floor since we've already has polyurethane, blood and vomit wiped right off of it (oh, the joys of parenthood). Here's a peak of the flooring so far!.