Moving on

I know, I've slipped behind in writing, but I've been busy! We are almost to the point of signing a lease for our next place, which means I have been deeply involved in packing (because it's never too early!) and buried in the Ikea catalog as I figure out how to furnish a place with more rooms both cheaply and cleverly. At the same time, we've looked at lots and lots of local and national furniture stores to comparison shop. We have determined that 1) furniture is MUCH too expensive, 2) my tastes are not reflected in most contemporary furniture trends (what is with the 70s revival? Black shellac? Crazy mirrors? Insanely detailed and uselessly decorative drawer pulls? Ugh.), and 3) this is going to be harder than we had originally thought!

Our biggest certain decision so far is that we are going to get an actual bed frame for the first time in our married lives! Huzzah! But we've also decided to take advantage of the fact that we have a garage and don't love anything we've seen and do a DIY frame using one of Ikea's bare bones pine frames as a base. I would show you the pictures of the tutorials we found online that we love, but I don't want to get your hopes up in case it doesn't work out! Let me just say, we're going for an upholstered headboard--shazam! It's going to be a joint project, the husband working with me, and we're going to take our time and not feel pressed to have the bed done IMMEDIATELY! We've had a Hollywood frame for this long; we'll survive with it a little longer!

In fact, I think that taking our time is going to be the theme of outfitting our new house. I was all set to head to Ikea and spend tons of money all at once and be done with it, but I think instead we're going to go more slowly, really be sure of what we want, shop the Habitat for Humanity Re-store and Craigslist, hit the garage sales in the spring, and pull everything together over a little bit of time. We've got a few spaces we need to work on, our bedroom being one of them. In our last move, our dresser got damaged but we've kept it anyway, and then the boys dresser got damaged as well, so we need to replace both dressers, along with our bed frame. In addition, we have an "unfinished" basement that is actually quite nice and more finished than any others I've seen, really, but I want to make it into a serviceable play space for the boys, so I'm going to address the flooring (which right now is just painted concrete) and put our kid-friendly furniture down there. Right now, I have a pouf (that I picked up at a thrift store ages ago) and a dream, but I think it will all come together.

And then there's the kitchen. The kitchen, on the one hand, is beautiful: black granite counter tops, stainless steel appliances, the works. On the other hand, it's also severely lacking in counter space and storage cabinets AND the backdoor opens right into the kitchen, so we need some sort of mudroom-esque area as well as additional counter space, which means I need a multifunctional free-standing piece to solve all those problems. No worries, right?! And did I mention that the first floor half bath is in the kitchen? Yep, it is! Shaker houses are so quirky sometimes!

I'm so excited!!