New guest accomodations

Houseguest leaves on Saturday. New sofa bed is delivered on Monday. Isn't that always the way? Poor houseguest had to sleep on an air mattress on the floor. At least it was a relative who likes us. Or at least used to.

New sofa

Yes, it's blue. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but it's my favorite color. And it's exactly the color of the lighter blue in the Oriental rug.

Time to update the living room

In the last few months we reached the point where we looked around the living room and said "Something's gotta happen." Not that things were in shambles, but we had kept it the same for at least 10 years and both of us were bored. His chair was the first priority, because it had become uncomfortable, so we found and bought the leather armchair I posted about several days ago. Then we started talked about the rest of the furniture.

The matching couch was looking tired and getting kind of squishy, and didn't go with his new chair. We had debated ordering a chair to match it but figured the new chair would far outlive the existing couch and besides, we had found a good deal on an in-stock recliner in that dark brown leather. So the couch had to go. A little sleuthing (and some phenominal luck) put me in a local furniture store during a Columbus Day 25% off sale, and I found a nice comfortable small-scale Flexsteel sofa. We ordered it with custom upholstery for a great price. We had looked at sofas all over town and they were so BIG. Our house just isn't that large, at least the living room isn't, and it doesn't have a lot of open wall space that isn't taken up by the ginormous television. The sofa has to go under the window on a wall that also contains his comfy chair in the corner, positioned so he can see the television. So the sofa can't be 90" long. The one we ordered is only 79" and that's rare.

The rug, drapes and striped arm chairs are staying, so that left the end tables and coffee table, which we've had for over 30 years. Nice stuff, cherry, well made, but we're tired of them and wanted smaller scale end tables. One evening, surfing through Overstock.com, I found the perfect solution:
Lovely little cherry drum tables with interesting veneer and two shelves behind the door to stash remotes and stuff. They arrived yesterday. The next step is new table lamps for them because he detests the ones we have, but surely that won't be hard.

Still can't find a coffee table that's not as big as a bed, but I'm working on it.

The new baby in the house. . .

. . .at least it's my husband's new baby! And, boy, is it comfortable. I took a turn reclining in it while he was on the computer and almost fell asleep during Project Runway. He may never stay awake for the end of another movie we watch at home.

I finished putting all the rows together in my maybe good-maybe not project and here is a picture of it sans borders. You can see the lighter radiating diamonds around the center and see how the darker "blocks" turn different directions.

Here's a close-up of the center:


Oh, and here's a part of the footboard of my bed. Isn't it grand? I had wanted a metal bed for ages when I found this one in the JCPenney catalog about five years ago. It's a sleigh bed shape and aged iron color. I absolutely adore it. Here's the best part. The whole bed - headboard, footboard and frame - cost $250.00. And, believe me, that's really cheap for a nice heavy metal bed frame.