Signature Style…?

I found a fun quiz thanks to a link from the How About Orange blog.  It is a quiz to determine your signature style.  I ran across it once before, but don't remember what my results were.

According to Ethan Allen, my signature lifestyle is now… elegance

“We’ve analyzed your selections – your Signature Lifestyle is Elegance. Elegance is the essence of timeless sophistication. A seamless composition of quintessentially classic design elements, reinterpreted through streamlined scale and shape. Luxurious yet beautifully livable. A cosmopolitan mix of clean woods paired with chic, enduring fabrics.”



Hmmmm… this makes me laugh because you could take a look around our house and definitely realize that is not the case. 

The Couch Saga

So I posted a picture last week of the couch we’d found and purchased.  I was so looking forward to getting it on Saturday.  The truck arrived, and to my dismay, they weren’t able to get the pieces in the house.  We have a house that is over 110 years old, and the builders didn’t have the foresight to think that someday, doorways would need to be bigger.  Silly them.  Our exterior door is only 31” wide, and the door into the living room from the entry way is only 29” which posed quite the dilemma.  The three young delivery guys and my dear husband tried to hash out a plan, but even taking the doors off , there wasn’t a good enough angle to get the two pieces of the sectional into the house.  They thought they *might* be able to get the smaller of the pieces in, but that would do us absolutely no good.  So we had to send the couch back.  I was not happy, Jessica was unhappy, and Tim was downright cranky as well.  Jessica went to work and I moped around and did stuff that I needed to get done while little man was napping.

Later in the day, we headed to The Old Cannery to see what we could find.  This time we took the tape measure with us and were armed with all of our dimensions.  Each couch we measured was too big.  I was entirely frustrated and didn’t think we’d ever find anything.  I don’t know how Tim and Allison ever got a couch into this house.  When I moved in with Tim, we had a nightmare with my couch, but I thought that was just because of the style of the high back (Tim ended up cutting the couch in half with a sawz-all to get it out of the house… it was really ridiculous).  Our last “couch” was really just a loveseat, but I did not want to go that route again because there were always seating issues. 

So… we looked until we found another sectional that I had looked at and dismissed the first time.  It seemed huge and it was black leather-ish.  But, each piece of it was separate, so we could actually get them into the house.  We measured and deliberated.  It was literally the only “couch” that would fit into our house.  It wasn’t exactly what we’d thought about for us, but now in hindsight, it was a much better decision considering the grandbaby and the dogs.  And it is really not true black.  It is more brown than black, which totally works for us and we won’t have to repaint.  :D 

Voila! 


We opted for only four out of the five sections when we were buying it.  I really wanted the chaise lounge effect, so we didn’t get the ending arm piece.  We ended up with three across and then the fourth piece like a backward L.  But then yesterday, I went back and got a fifth piece (without a back… it is really just a giant ottoman that is the same size as the other pieces) and we shifted the layout around a bit because I was worried that the dogs were going to ruin the back that was partially in front of the front window (they were sleeping on it when we weren’t in the living room and mashing down the top/back cushion).  Now they are extremely content.

So is little man.  :D 
 

Now we can all sit on the couch (including the dogs) and there are no worries. Yay!  Now I just need to get another teal pillow and a small end table so Tim has something to put his glass on instead of the arm of the couch (lol).  I’m also thinking about swapping out the art, but I’m not sure what I’m thinking for that just yet.  I’m just happy that we actually found something and it worked out with our crazy old house. 

Another home improvement project complete.

Long Weekend?

How can a three-day weekend not be long enough?  In most respects, it wasn’t a 3-day weekend for me.  I had yesterday “off” as far as babysitting, and I have today “off” as well.  But the past week was a crazy busy one.  Poetry workshops, shift at Speakeasy, watching little man, cleanup at Speakeasy, a trip to the mall, a paper due, and some cleaning/organizing at home and in the craft room. 

At the very end of the weekend, we raced out and did a few errands.  I’ve been frustrated with our couch for a long time.  We bought it several years ago, and shortly after we got it, the back cushions became misshapen and would never stay in place.  It is also one of those couches where you sink into it and have a hard time getting up.  After having several hours of back-to-back episodes of DIY programming on in the background Sunday, I was ready to do something with our living room.  Yesterday, I finally just gave up.  We went to The Old Cannery and took a look around.  We have space issues in the living room, so it is always a challenge to find something that works, but we think we found it.  






It is a sectional, but a smaller one. It is firm, and the cushions are attached to the back so we won’t have the same problem we have with our current couch.  I’m excited to get it and see how it works out.  I have to call the delivery service this morning.  Yay.  Obviously it won’t exactly look like that in our house, but at least it is a step in the right direction.  Tim won’t let me repaint the living room, but I’m going to put up some new art, get a few throw pillows and clear out the old ottomans and that should refresh things a bit. 
I also found an amazing chair, but we didn’t get it.  I will just have to daydream about it for now…  



So now it is a new week and I’ve got lots to do.  There is still a lot of work to get the craft room organized.  I also have a ton of laundry to tackle today… AND I’m totally inspired to get some art done.  

How was your weekend?  Was it long enough for you? 

That Sink-ing Feeling

When I was sick with the flu, I broke our sink. We had a nice pedestal-style sink and it served us well. At some point during the years of service, Emily cracked it somehow. There was a faint hairline crack that irritated us, but really wasn't a problem. Until I was sick. Right before I got the flu, I filled the liquid soap dispenser and forgot how heavy it was. It is a ceramic dispenser and it sat on the back of the sink. When I was sick, I got dizzy and ended up bumping into the sink, knocking the soap dispenser with my elbow. It flew into the sink where it landed, just perfectly, upon the already-there crack. The sink broke. The inside of the bowl broke into a ton of pieces.

So poor Tim was all frustrated about that. We went for a little over a week with the sink in quasi-usable condition, until I felt okay to go to the store with him to pick out a new one.

There were several that I really liked, but they were outrageously priced. So we found a modestly priced one and ended up with that. Poor Tim had to make two more trips back to the Depot and a side trip to McClendon's to get the job done, but he did it without too much of the turrets that he usually has during such a task.

We had gone back up to the Depot (trip #2) to pick out a new faucet. We got one that we really liked, got it home, and found out that it didn't work. He could make it work, but it looked funky. So he tore everything back apart and went back for trip #3. What a guy! So now this is what we have…