Dresser #2: Mission Complete

I posted about our new dresser I bought on Craigslist and refinished. It replaced the dresser in this post. We had been using this dresser for many years and it matched nothing we owned. So when we cleared it out to use our new dresser, I decided to refinish it to make it more purposeful in our home. And since I already had the tools out and experience fresh in my memory, why not move on to the next piece? Also, I wanted to take advantage of the double naptimes we're still rocking (on most days) I fear are fleeting...

Benjamin is obviously still in the nursery and uses the dresser in there. But eventually, he will have his own room down the hall {eventually being whenever that happens... no, I'm not pregnant} with a bed already in there. That room, however, was lacking a matching dresser. With natural wood furniture, my intent was to strip the wood to natural and coat it with polycrylic. And then click my heels together at how fast and easy the project was compared to our first dresser project.

Sure. Except obviously that didn't happen. This was also meant to be a super cheap project because I really was just doing this as an additional piece and nothing we need to be using anytime soon. Too bad it didn't end up being cheap, either. Le sigh.

But it's done! Here's the timeline:

May 3: Swap dressers and move this one to the garage.
May 4-7: Take off hardware and casually apply paint stripper to areas and scrape.
May 8: Give up on paint strippers after spending over $20 on two kinds and resort to plan b-- painting it white. Sand 1/2 the dresser by hand.
May 9: Sand the rest of the dresser/drawers .
May 10: Clean the dresser really, really well using a wet t-shirt & Lysol Dual Action wipes
May 11: Apply 1 coat of primer.
May 12: Coat #1 of satin white paint applied.
May 13: Lightly sanded, quick wipedown & coat #2 of satin white paint applied.
May 14: Lightly sanded, quick wipedown & coat #3 of satin white paint applied.
May 15: Still not pleased that I can see splotchiness of the cherry wood on the sides. Buy two cans of white Rustoleum and spray paint the whole thing. Deal with a clogged can (delays, additional sanding, cursing) and realize I don't like the color and see splotchiness of white spray paint now instead of cherrywood. Lightly sand, quick clean up & apply coat #4 of satin white paint.
May 16: Apply two coats of polycrylic (with quick sand/wipedown in between) and my husband screwed in the knobs. He's been getting on my case for not giving him credit for work around here like cutting the trees. Move dresser upstairs. Done. For the last coat of poly, Benjamin proceeded to talk to himself in his crib for a solid hour (happily) while I finished the project. He decided two naps were not happening that day. I mean, why be easy when Mom is nearly done with a project?

Before & After
Sadly, the only photo I could find of that dresser before I took it apart and got down to business!

Estimated Costs:
Citristrip Quart Safe Paint & Varnish Stripping Gel: $10 Used only 1/4 of it before realizing I might need something stronger. Still consider it a wasted $10 as I don't plan to use it again anytime soon.
Klean-Strip Quart Chemical Premium Sprayer: $10 Same story as above. I know both work, but this project was just not having it. Another wasted $10 with tons of unused product left over.
Kilz Primer: Already owned-- really old can and super hard to apply because it was so thick!

Glidden white satin paint: $10 (used about 75% of this but consider it full cost)
Rustoleum spray paint: $6 total

Minwax Water-Based Polycrylic Clear Gloss: Used leftovers from first dresser project and used no more than $2 worth.

Foam brushes & paintbrush: Used a few cheap ones and reused them each day. Probably $3 worth

Sandpaper: Used leftover sandpaper. For light sanding between I learned using a very fine sanding block is the way to go. You're only roughing it up barely to help the next layer adhere and also get rid of those paint bumps that are inevitable. And bonus, Dollar Tree sells them for $1/each 2-pack. Don't waste your money on these. I don't shop at the Dollar Tree often, but I do buy shipping supplies there and happened to see sanding blocks while I was grabbing packing supplies recently. Score! (add $1 here)

Lysol Wipes: Had them already

Total: About $42

I considered new knobs, but figured I'd try to keep the cost low. Also, if Benjamin uses this as a dresser eventually, chunky knobs work well for kids.

From the beginning to the end, I took some photos, but was far more ambitious in the beginning. Isn't that how it always goes. Zealous to start and then...bleh. Get. me. done. with. this. project. A few of those coats of paint were skipped, but here is what I salvaged from my camera.

Sanded & primed. In hindsight, it needed a better layer of primer. I was working with what I had, but yeah.

In addition to the dresser, I added in a mini project to refinish this wood hook that was hanging in the laundry room when we moved into our house. We have white cabinets in our laundry room and a large magnetic whiteboard, so there's lots of white. Since I had the white paint out... I went for it. We still have to get around to hanging that, but you get the idea here. A good place to hang a future backpack (!), some laundry items, bags, etc.

Knobs hanging and painted & hook getting a few coats of fresh paint to update the look

The front looks quite chic now! And in keeping things cheap, I kept the knob that has a piece out of it-- it's actually not accidentally broken but was made using knotty pine and the knot broke. It's so hard to tell now that it's white. 

It took awhile to figure out which drawers fit where, despite labeling them before we took them out. Problem was, we had moved this dresser so many times and never labeled them properly before. After musical chairs drawers, we finally found a good fit for them. Well-used dresser, but with a nice new facelift. I just wish I could brag about only spending like $4 on it or something. Ah. You win some, you lose some. It fits nicely in one of our bedrooms now and I'm thrilled it's over. Ha!

Bedroom Remodel

Not the expert photographer here, but I wanted to share all we've done to our bedroom! We started changing things a bit at the beginning of March and finished things with the dresser. It took about two months to add things here and there. We love it! Our goal was to upgrade to a more hotel chic space, but somewhat on the cheap because we have been working and plan to work on more house projects that were going to cost plenty. But we really needed a haven of our own and now we definitely feel like that goal was accomplished.

As you head upstairs, you see our bedroom. The left shows the canvas we were working with when we moved in 3 years ago. That's their furniture and horrid wallpaper! We stripped the wallpaper our first summer here and the right is what you see now.

We may have stripped the wallpaper, but we didn't do much decorating or matching. We moved in with early marriage furniture (aka: college furniture) but upgraded to a King for our enormous master bedroom. Except, it was just a bed frame. Embarrassing to admit it, but our mattress and box spring were on the floor for many months! Getting a cheap metal bedframe was an upgrade, sadly.

This is from the former owners on the left and what it looked like when we moved in and removed the wallpaper on the right. Neither are up to the times. I was halfway through my pregnancy with Andrew on the right, hence the teddy bear and baby swing.

The old office and the new office. Well, hardly new as the furniture in there remained the same. The desk is Pottery Barn and the chairs, Ikea. Lamp is Pier 1 and the big chair, Target. But since none of these were part of the remodel, I won't go into price details on those...

Standing from the office, you see the bedroom from another view. And a closeup of our upholstered headboard.

More headboard love. It's such great quality. We paid less than $300 for it, delivered!

Nightstands are from World Market and the inspiration for our dresser. They have a mostly classic, but slight Mid-Century Modern feel to them. I was stressing about having to pay shipping for these and then it dawned on me... um... call the store! Our local one had 4 in stock and we drove on over and picked these bad boys up. No shipping costs and they were on sale! Lamps are from Ikea, as are the lampshades. Those are Benjamin's sleepsacks under there because we dress him in our bedroom at night. And, a big ol' bottle of hand sanitizer from his newborn days...

More views of the whole bed area... and while we're here, I'll mention the new duvet and faux down comforter we bought for our bed. I feel like the comforter is a bit short for a King, but it is comfortable. Faux because my husband is allergic to everything animal pretty much. True story: When we met, he would always tell me he had huge sneeze attacks when he'd wake up in the morning. When I tried to crack the code, I discovered he had a down comforter, yet he was allergic to cats. While not the same thing, one thing should be a somewhat indicator of the other that you might have a teensy intolerance to pet furs and feathers. Gone was the comforter and gone were the sneezes! Also, that brown comforter from way above? Yeah, that was the replacement. Let's just say DKNY made it look way nicer about SIX years ago. Way past its prime and we even used that thing as a wrap for our items in the cross-country move! Needed to be retired BIG time. {embarrassing}

The canvases were made after our wedding and are not part of the remodel, but they did get switched around.

Our curtain story is rather interesting. We have narrow, tall windows and normal panels are far too much fabric for us to use both panels. I got the idea to cut each panel in half and no-sew (though I briefly considered a sewing machine purchase) hem them. I also had to trim the bottom because they were too long, which resulted in a lot of ironing and curtain work. We planned to buy two packs (4 panels) but as it was, we only needed 3 panels if I planned to cut and use only one panel per window. each set is $50, so it would have set us back $100. Not bad considering the quality and darkness of these curtains, but we'd have so much leftover fabric we paid for and didn't use. We resigned to being fine with that, but our Ikea has an "as-is" area near the checkout with a large textiles pile you can rummage through. And whatdoyouknow! We found a single panel for just $10 of the exact same curtain. So instead of two packages for $100, we paid $60 for the three panels we needed. Score. Savings, 40%. I bought three sets of curtain holdbacks and we had the look we wanted.

Little "helper"

These frames are Pottery Barn circa 2004 or something. Since we were dating, I had the same pictures and cards in them! We've been married almost 5 years, folks. Time for a switcheroo. After spending what felt like hours and hours on Etsy and Art.com, I followed my husband's lead and found two pictures we took and printed them. I used mpix because they have both great quality, and would print a 10x10 square like I wanted. Originally I wanted to select art and nothing related to our kids, but I kept coming back to this photos of Andrew's bulb we planted with a friend just after his first birthday and just before Benjamin's arrival. It sprouted for the first time that spring, just after Benjamin was born. I chose that picture to represent Andrew and the bottom picture of Benjamin touching the Pacific Ocean for the first time to represent him. If we have another child, the top picture will remain and we'll find another photo of Benjamin and that sibling to add to the frame and replace the beach one.

A local Kmart was going out of business, so I ended up heading in to see if I could snag a deal on holdbacks. They had some, but the deals weren't to be had. However, I did pick up a Bali brown blind to replace a PINK light-filtering shade that was previously there for three years. So. much. better.

Back to the dresser which I detailed in a previous post. All in, the cost was about $200. 

African man found a new home upstairs now that Benjamin can reach him. We bought $1 sticky felt and attached it to the bottom of the dish, wood boxes, and African man's feet so they wouldn't scratch up the nice surface on our new dresser. Note to anyone interested in refinishing furniture dark and using a high gloss finish. Don't. Dust can be seen much easier.

Cost:

Chambery Upholstered Headboard from Wayfair: About $280 (though now the price has increased!)

Werna Ikea Curtains: $50 + $10 panel from the As-Is area = $60
Ikea curtain rods, brackets, and finials: $9 per window

No-Sew Heat Bond Tape: $3

Going out of Business Kmart Bathroom Bali Blinds: $13
World Market Nightstands: $99 each, sale
Bran Lamp Bases from Ikea: $18 each
Jara Lamp Shades from Ikea: $15 each
Ivory Duvet & pillowcases from Overstock: Can't find it... but I think it was around $70
Down Alternative Comforter from Overstock: $40
Two King Size Beautyrest Pillows from Walmart: $15 each
Holdbacks from Menards: $8 each pair
Two 10x10 photos printed from mpix: $16 shipped
Sticky felt from Michaels: $1 each
Craigslist Dresser from my DIY refinishing project: $200

Total cost of remodel: $1,032 (though, prices above don't include taxes), so probably a bit more.

DIY Project Dresser: Mission Complete!

I did it! Not without sweat and almost a few tears, but it's done! My first furniture refinishing project I told you about a couple weeks ago.

Let me just first start by saying that perfectionists are not meant to refinish furniture. But I hand sewed a couple small basement curtains (really poor job, but whatevs) and I could care less about that finished product. But the dresser? Yeah, it needed to be pristine. Because it's not like we'll open and close it nonstop and bang stuff into it from here on out, right? 

Hah. Riiiiight.

Here's the nitty gritty.

April 3: Date purchased

April 6-13: California Trip #1

April 14-18: Take off old hardware, sand.

April 19: Wipe down entire dresser with a wet t-shirt & then Lysol Dual-Action Wipes

April 20: 1st coat of General Finishes Java Gel Stain

April 21: Day off

April 22: 2nd coat of gel stain

April 23: Day off

April 24: 3rd coat of gel stain

April 25-28: California Trip #2

April 29: 1st coat of polycrylic, light sand, cursing because I "lightly sanded" too hard & right through stain, reapply light coat of gel stain

April 30: 2nd coat of polycrylic

April 31: 3rd coat of polycrylic

May 1: Receive knobs, apply 3 coats of gel stain & 3 coats of polycrylic

May 3: Move upstairs and create a long scratch on the top...which meant more stain and more polycrylic

The dresser itself was an interesting find. We had been searching for a new dresser online but were having no luck finding one that was over 70 inches in length, not made of all wood composite, and reasonably priced. You would not believe how much dressers made of particle board are going for! We wanted a large one for our clothes and to fit along a large wall. This one was about 2 inches longer than we'd prefer at 76 inches, but mostly because of the detailing and not the actual dresser width. 

I saw this dresser and loved the Mid-Century Modern details on the drawers and knew it would be gorgeous. I decided against it because it was $250 and I'd have to do lots of work to get it up to our standards. And then... a week later I saw the price drop to half! We went to check it out and there was even a glass piece on the top to protect the wood. It was meticulously maintained by the previous owners. It was most likely $2,000 new and Thomasville brand. It came with a large mirror as well, but I got rid of that on Freecycle because we're not mirror-on-dresser people. Also, imagine how much more work that would be to refinish! 

And so it began. {For some reason because it's high gloss, it doesn't photograph as well as it looks. Trust me.}

Estimated Costs because I was horrible at keeping receipts:

Thomasville Oversized Dresser: $125 on Craigslist 

Delivery: $30 (I asked her if she knew anyone who could deliver... paid her son $30 to deliver it about 7 miles and unload into my garage. Cheaper than renting a truck and having to deal with the hassle!)

General Finishes Java Gel Stain: $20 (used about 60% of the quart, so about $12 used)

Minwax Water-Based Polycrylic Clear Gloss: $14 (used about 20% of the quart-- plan to use on next dresser project, so worked to about $3 worth used)

Foam brushes & paintbrush: $13 

Sandpaper: Had a lot of this but bought a $6 pack as well. Will use the rest on dresser project #2.

Lysol Wipes: Had them already

New Amerock Brand Knobs: $7.41 from Ebay

Total: Just under $200

What I learned/would do differently if starting over from scratch:

- Calling Caroline saved me gobs of time. Her SIL told her that my dresser would look great with gel stain and to consult Pinterest because people were posting about updating their cabinets left and right. I was planning to sand to natural and then stain with regular stain! Oh, how I love gel stain now!

- Ebay for knobs was genius. 

- I'd choose a semi-gloss polycrylic instead of a clear gloss. I still love it, but it's a high gloss finish I didn't expect being so glossy.

- Sanding lightly after the first layer of poly is apparently difficult. Like, find the finest sand paper block and go as light as can be. Otherwise, you'll create a lot more work for yourself.

- When in doubt, buy more foam brushes. Turns out Target sells them for cheap!

Believe it or not, I've already started dresser project #2. It's the dresser we were using before our new fancy one moved in. Before I moved out of the house, I traded my bed to my parents for a spare dresser they had. It's tall and a cherrywood color. Basically, it's not pretty and matches nothing in our house. But it's real wood and I would like it to end up in Benjamin's eventual big boy room where the furniture is currently a light wood. This project involves stripping the old stain, sanding a ton, and coating in poly. Of course I only have one can and it's high gloss... so we'll see what decision I make on that one.

Project Dresser

I think it somehow slipped my mind to tell you all that we gave up our dreams of fancy Amish furniture for our bedroom and decided to give our master bedroom some much deserved TLC. The wallpaper was stripped during my pregnancy with Andrew and we sort of left it alone without any furniture except a chair, bedframe and dresser.

When my parents stayed in our room during Benjamin's birthday weekend, I was totally embarrassed that I'm 30 years old, married for almost 5 of that time and we still don't have anything fancy in that room except a couple canvases from our wedding. We got real about things and realized that who were we kidding... we can't front thousands of dollars on Amish furniture because we would rather travel and send our kid to college. So yeah. Reality check.

We bought some fancy stuff that makes the room feel very chic and yet we're under $1,000 on the whole project. We have a couple final touches like adding art to frames that had the same pictures in for like 6 years (I know!), re-hanging our canvases, and refinishing the dresser we bought on Craigslist for $125. Well, $155 if you count the $30 we paid the lady's son for delivering it to our house.

With a little help from Pinterest, tutorials, the awesome people at Wo.odcraft and a speedy phonecall with my friend Caroline, we've removed the hardware and are halfway through the sanding stage and well on our way to staining this new beauty for our bedroom to be complete.

There are gobs of other things rolling around in my head right now, but I think my Instagram peeps know well enough what I've been up to as of late. Lots of family love and attention going on. I'm back for a bit before heading on another adventure next week. The Wilsons are nonstop, I tell ya. And yet the baby didn't get the memo that it's not cool to scream on airplanes. If you are a furniture refinishing guru, feel free to leave your fun stories, advice, or complaints in the comments. I'll appreciate them. Stay tuned for the bedroom reveal that will take place in a month or so.

We've Been HANGING Around Here Lately...

These photos may not be much to any of our readers, but they mean a great deal to us! Having all these items hung makes this house feel so much more like home than it has for the past few months. We've been literally dodging these pictures and shelves as we waited for us to get off our lazy behinds the right moment to hang them. That time has come. I think we had a crazy impression that we'd actually get the rooms painted and de-wallpapered before hanging anything. I'm pretty sure that will take years.

I'm standing in the family room facing the front two windows. Ray hung the two shelves there. Some more fun pieces to note... the previous owners painted the windowsills but stopped at the top-- all because the terrible curtains that were there before blocked their way. Rather than take the curtains down to paint, they decided, why bother? I am assuming it was all for show before putting the house up for sale. Awesome. Way to give 75% effort. The little man on the chest (my family heirloom) is from Africa. Ray picked him up when he visited and climbed Kilimanjaro with a friend a few years back. Here's a before shot of this exact space in our house, pre-shelves.

This is the view just to the left of where I was just standing. You see the corner, a piece of art from Ray's Aunt Ceil (sadly, the other piece was broken through moving, etc.) and our lovely 19" tube. I know, you're all jealous. What's even better is that it doesn't even have a working remote. We have to manually change the channels. But, the photo was taken to show more pictures hung-- these are frames filled with photos of family, friends, and all things Europe. All of them were taken during our lives in Germany and the surrounding countries we visited.

If you keep turning your body left, you'll see the fireplace. I've shown the fireplace before though... Now, looking at this wall you are completely standing with your back against the windows from the first photo. You've taken a 180 degree turn. These are the other two from our set of Crate & Barrel shelves that were purchased for us as a gift from two wonderful wedding attendants. I even remember who gave them to us! Unfortunately, they sat in boxes for the last two years as we lived in a small beach bungalow and toured Europe. Those would be our lovely couches...yes, old and slipcovered. But let me tell you... they are comfy! We can't buy all new furniture at once, but we all know that I have my eye on some other couches that will take the place of these trusty ones. In due time...

Turning your body left once more, this is the longest wall and the longest couch. The three mirrors have come a long way with us. I had them when I lived in Hermosa Beach with my awesome Scottish roommates (when I first met Ray), in our first apartment together, and now across the country. These have been hung for awhile, but not spaced evenly or hung correctly. Now, they are in perfect unison.

This is the foyer. You see this as you just walk in the door. Goat is on the left and we love him. On the right are two new additions-- well, not new. The coat hanger is from Pier One and has lasted as long as those brown mirrors in the above photo. The other framed picture was made for me by my lovely friend Alison as a gift. I really think it's wonderful. Because it represents friendship, we figured friends will come and hang their coats in our house... and what a perfect place for both of those to be. However, I really want to replace that area with something like this. Again, we probably should wait on the purchasing of those very optional items at the moment. I believe that small victories at a time make you appreciate each one.

Here's the formal living room again. We hung our new Chicago photo on the left side...

...and on the right side we hung our photo from living in Germany-- the Köln Cathedral. It's a smaller photo, though, so we've already made the plan to get two 8"x10" pictures from two other European countries printed, matted, and framed to go on the opposing sides. It will make it larger, even out the center, and cover up a hole that bothers us. In order to be considered completely and entirely done, this room needs curtains and to be painted. But since neither are dire at the moment, we're waiting on both. Those two lamps are also new. While we aren't sure about the color or style of the lampshades still, we figured the price was right-- $30 at Costco for BOTH!

Here's the larger guest bedroom. We bought a lamp and hung one of Ray's Air Force paintings.

Back downstairs, Ray centered the beach portrait and miraculously changed the entire feel of the room! There was a big hole that was uncovered before and we made sure to cover that up nicely. It looks awesome.

In our terribly wallpapered laundry room, I hung the magnetic board and replaced the really long and awkward curtain with a shade that looks so much better in the space.

We're having a great weekend here so far. After an arduous week of scraping, picking, sanding, and using the xacto knife on just about every single piece of the baseboard molding in the baby's room... and prepping the walls with more sanding, scraping (these people loooooved tape and it's on every wall in so many places!), patching, etc., it was finally ready for a coat two coats of paint. We chose gray. Or is it grey. I know they're both correct, but I've never decided which I prefer in writing. That reveal is to come soon when the moose is hung on the wall and furniture is back in place. It does look a bit blue to us, though we still like it.

Big Kid Furniture.

***Over the last few years, this post has received a lot of traffic through Google image searches and I've received a lot of emails inquiring about the chair in the blog post below. I'm sorry to say that I never did buy that oversized brown chair you are all so interested to purchase. It's no longer sold by the Chicago store I first snapped that picture, but there are really great chair-and-a-half options to help further your search. Good luck to you!

---

Recently we've invested in some furniture. For many reasons, we felt it necessary to begin purchasing some items for our home. We're having a baby in the next 5 months and we know there will be a few more visitors in our home. This room is our formal living room which used to only have a worn out, slipcovered loveseat and those two chairs. Now, we feel comfortable unveiling the *almost* complete room.

The loveseat made it into our family room to be reunited once again with our slipcovered couch. Those will eventually make their way down into the basement once that is finally resolved, cleaned thoroughly, patched up, fixed, etc. Once that happens, we'll consider buying new couches for the family room as well. The photos of my dream family room couches are below.

We purchased two identical couches for this room in chocolate brown. We are sort of brown-obsessed. It's so neutral and we can't help but select something that matches everything! The two corner chairs are the Avington collection from Target. We got an incredible deal on those, but not without an incredible amount of effort and driving on our part. The plant is currently dying (sigh). The pot is gorgeous and has lots of beaded detailing on it. We scored that at Home Depot. I just wish we knew how to keep that plant alive! Here's what it looked like when it was new and thriving (and a closeup of the pot). The bookcase was just moved from the family room-- I purchased that at Pier One Imports about 5 years ago. The ceiling fan is difficult to see but it will soon be gone. Once we decide to paint the room (the same color as the adjoining dining room), we'll also take out the dated, pink and white (eek!) ceiling fan. That will promptly make its way to freecycle because it's a nice name brand one that I'm sure was classy in the early 90's.

But... our most proud item in this room isn't the new furniture... but the rug! We drove about 20 miles away last weekend to check out a Bassett furniture showroom that would've been cooler if we hadn't slept in that was really nice, but nearly everything was sold! They were having insane markdowns on so many items and we left with this rug. It was a floor model (um, people will be walking on it in our house, too... so no big deal there), in just about perfect condition, and marked down to $73 (including tax) from an original price of $600! It's huge, quite formal, and looks great in the space. We had no intentions of purchasing a rug at the sale and didn't know our room size calculations. But for that price, we knew it would get some use no matter what!

Here's the view from the opposite side. I'm taking the photos from our dining room. Once we ordered the couches, I went online and scored the two teak end-tables for $65 each. They match the bookshelf, all the dining room furniture, and the molding quite well.

What we have left to finish in this room: window treatments, 2 lamps for the end tables, revive the plant (haha), replace the ceiling fan or patch the hole, paint the walls, and hang our Chicago black and white print of the Wrigley building.

A closeup of those new teak end tables. Anyone know of an affordable place to purchase lamps? Or... do you have any lamp design ideas? Which style of table lamps, color of lampshades, color of lamp base? I'm clueless.

Here's the love affair we're having with this other set of couches (told you about our obsession with brown, right?). These are at a local department store and are super expensive not priced competitively. This is actually the same store we purchased our dining room chairs. Our first priority is to start saving better. Since we've bought a home, a lot of our money has gone to expenses and furniture. Now that we feel our home is liveable (aka enough beds and furniture), we need to calm down. But, I can dream for the future and sending our current pieces of Bauhaus down to the basement and replacing them with these lovelies:

We're all about depth. I want a couch that can fit two people laying next to one another. And, it is required to be comfortable enough for afternoon naps. Every family room couch should be that comfortable. This is a deep, wide, and long couch with an incredible feeling of softness to it. While we currently have a loveseat on the opposing wall next to our fireplace, we won't be replacing it with another loveseat. We really like these oversized chairs. I think they call them 1/2's or something of that nature.

Now, for a dilemma. I already asked what kind of lamp would look best (feel free to give me links!) on those teak end tables in our sitting room... but now I need help with window treatments. This is the situation on our lower and upper level. We have gorgeous floor to ceiling windows in just about every room of our home. The problem is that the window on the right is so incredibly close the the corner and they are not evenly spaced along the wall. This presents a problem in treating the windows-- hanging drapes are pretty much out.

I am assuming we'll have to fit them with roman blinds or a valance. I will likely never use the blinds for their purpose of withholding light--because we like light and the beauty of having long windows, but we do need something. They seem too bare.

Here are some options I came up with... but by no means are these comprehensive. This is a boxcut valance in a natural tone. Since both rooms will have dark couches and dark wood accents, would light curtains even be good? What about the style in a darker shade? I like the simple valance.

Here's one without a valance. It has its own mini drape over the top which appears to act as a valance. It's a darker shade but I'm sure I could go lighter.

Finally, texture. What about those cool woven ones? Since we already have a lot of patterns in our formal sitting room, I don't know that these would work. I like texture but too much can seem overbearing. Final question... since you can see into the family room from the formal sitting room (and vice versa), should I choose the same window treatments so they are somewhat unified? After all, they both do have brown couches-- or will.

Random, but appropriate. I have found a new favorite thing. These yogurts are awesome! I've only tried the triple berry, but I can tell you it tastes a bit like strawberry ice cream. It's amazing. I've heard great things about this lemon flavor, too, but haven't tried it just yet.

Phew. That was a lot for just one post... but I can assure you that the next post will be even more exciting... though maybe not as long! We're finding out the gender of Baby W tonight (we hope)!