I went, I sat, I swooned...

and I bought!
The chair is amazing. Seriously, it's the most comfortable thing ever...
I was worried with the wood arms and the cushions stacked it would feel very stiff, but it's not. It's low slung and wide...I can't wait to sit in it and read.
Now all I have to do is decide on fabric for the cushions! This is great for me because i tend to get bogged down by insecurity when it comes to big decisions like reupholstery, etc. This way, if I decide i don't like it or i get tired of my choice, I can just have new cushion covers made!
Sure, I'm an enabler to my own commitment-phobic ways, but at least its being represented in lovely vintage chair form!



(I don't have a picture of it in my apartment yet because I have to borrow a friend's car to go get it tomorrow--it wouldn't fit in mine.)

my chair answer?

As a few of my fellow curers have witnessed, I have a chair dilemma.
I have this honkin' huge, old chair that I just haven't been able to part with...and yet I also can't seem to bite the bullet and get it reupholstered either.



I'm hesitant because one, I'm a wuss when it comes to big decisions like this and two, the springs in this thing are seriously shot. If you sit in it, the seat's cushion folds up around you like a taco shell, because you sink so far into it.
I'm seriously debating if it's worth recovering...having to change out the springs could be way more expensive than I'm willing to spend.

And then there's this option...which I love, and of course I would have the cushions recovered--that's something I could commit to immediately and easily.


















I know, it's VERY different. But wouldn't this look great with the cushions reupholstered in some fun fabric??
The other reason I'm leaning toward this option besides the fact that it would be less time and anxiety inducing to figure out, is that this chair is selling for $200...and with new fabric on the cushions, that would come out WAY less than a big ol' chair that needs new springs, new padding, new foam AND a lot more new fabric.

I'm seriously leaning toward it. I've only seen it online, but I'm going to go sit in it later today to see if it's the answer to my love/hate relationship with the old chair in my room.

I won't be sending the big upholstered one to the landfill, I assure you. I'll give it to Goodwill and maybe some other, braver, wealthier soul will snag it and give it the love it deserves.
Or if anyone reading this is near Atlanta, and you want it, just give me a shout--it's yours, for free! (If I get the lovely wood armchair, of course.)

update, week(s) 5 and 6

I'm not really following the book's schedule very well...I've tried, but a minor home disaster and then a vacation kind of threw a wrench in the works.

I've been priming my bedroom in order to paint it the new Yolo color "Water 01", this weekend.
I've primed one wall a night after work this week so far, and I'm almost done. I've got one more half wall to do tonight and then it'll be painting time!

















I also ordered these sconces to go on either side of the bed (which will be on the wall facing the camera in the previous shot.)




















And I almost got these awesome nightstands, but some lucky soul beat me to it!!!



















The good thing at least about that is now I know what I'm looking for...I've looked at so many nightstands over last few weeks that my head has been swimming with them. I freaked when I saw these "That's it!"...but I didn't act fast enough.
I'm hoping someday I'll find something similar.
I thought about doing just shelves or cubby-wall-mounted type things like some fellow curers suggested, but I realized I really need as much storage as I can get. The idea of having two whole drawers on either side of the bed to use for little items that pile up around our dressers and bed, just sounded SO exciting.
I know...I'm easily excited, obviously, but really, the idea made me ecstatic. :)

And what would an update be without the (as suziegoombs so accurately described) "ubiquitous flower photo"

i'm back

And there's SO much to catch up on!
Ok, so I have been productive since I got back from my much-needed vacation. I'm still behind the cure schedule...we're supposed to be on week 7 now, but I'm really still on week...um...5, i think. I'm still painting!
But I'm operating in a mixture of weeks, really.
I'm not going to be done by the end of next week (week8) by any means...but I will have made some progress and hopefully that will stand for something.
I don't know if I'm really feeling worthy of a "cure certificate" to be honest..I mean, I'm going to finish, but its going to be more like a 12 week cure (as someone else already suggested) or for me, maybe a 14 week cure.

Its tough because one of the things keeping me from being totally done (besides an abundant cash flow) is my "no more filler furniture" commitment.
I've realized through this (it's not called therapy for nothing, right?) that I have a real tendency to buy fill-in or "carbohydrate" furniture, as Maxwell calls it, because I want things to be finished or settled or just complete...even if it means I don't love the things I have.
And that leads to me not feeling very connected to my home and that's part of the reason I really don't like my living space as much as I want to.

One of the things I realized from the flood in our place is that if I lost almost everything I own, furniture wise, it would all (almost all) be immediately replaceable.
And I'm not trying to promote an unhealthy connection to physical possessions here, but I want to at least miss my things if I lost them...and the truth is, I wouldn't, because I'd be able to go out and find near exact replacements for all of it.
It would be an inconvenience, and it would be expensive, but it wouldn't be hard to replicate all of it....and, well, that's not what I want.

The homes I always envy the most are the places that look like a collection of well placed, individually found items, collected over a lifetime. I always want that, but think I can never have it. Why, I'm not exactly sure. But I do know that when I see things like that, a perfectly randomly found gem of a peice...a desk or chair that I just LOVE that's not from a big-box store, I always think "I can't afford that".
But you know, I probably could if I hadn't already dropped the $200-$300 on a fill-in piece from West Elm or CB2.
I'm not knocking those stores...they haven't their rightful purpose and I'm sure I'll still own things from them, but I don't want ALL of my stuff to be from them.
It doesn't suit me and it makes me feel like i'm living in a catalog rather than a home.

SO, this whole long drawn out story explains that one, I've learned something about myself that I want to change, and two, that my room may not be "done" in any specific schedule, but I'm ok with that because I want it to be filled with things I've waited for-- that I absolutely love and hope to never lose. And if i have to live without a shelf or nightstands for the next several months, a year even, I can do that. It'll be worth it because I know when I find exactly what I want and I haven't already wasted a few hundred dollars on a stand-in piece, it's going to be so fun to purchase and come home with the perfect thing I've been searching for.

a bit behind (still) but have a make-up plan!!

Ok,
so I am behind...technically. I mean, we're supposed to actually paint next week, right? But I'm going to be soaking in some sun in the Virgin Islands all next week (don't hate me--I need it!!) so I went ahead and moved our furniture away from the walls, un-installed the bedside shelves and spackled the resulting holes. I bought some Harmony primer too.
I'm going to try to prime our bedroom before I leave, so that when I come back I can get straight to painting my color--which I've had a sample of on the wall for a week now, and I LOVE it!!
I haven't posted any pictures, unfortunately, but I will get to that later today.
I feel behind cause I haven't actually executed some stuff yet, but I've been planning for all of it--i've finalized a list of purchases to make, and realized that some things, like reupholstering my chair may have to wait (for financial reasons). I've made a budget, etc.
I just have to pull the trigger on a lot of it...when i get back from vacation.
I know I can catch up...just feels like i'm stuck in a holding pattern. I can't exactly order all my furniture, bedding, etc, right before I leave town and I don't have enough time to do my painting before then either...so...
I have a plan of attack for when I return, but for now, its just going to have to seem like I'm not really moving forward.

week 4 update 1

Done:
-bought flowers
-cleaned out bench--its too large to put in the outbox, but I went ahead and emptied it to signify that its going away.
-took outbox items to goodwill

To Do:
-make budget
-finalize style tray
-make shopping list
-put prices for list in spreadsheet
-visit paint store (going today!)

I'm amazed, and not in a good way.

After sustaining a flood in our apartment, I am continuing to put our home life back together. My efforts keep getting stalled and hitched by the restoration crew that continually shows up, unannounced, in our apartment while we're at work.
Monday evening I came home to our baseboards ripped off of our entry way and the floor fan back on.
Tuesday evening I found they'd moved the dehumidifier and air scrubber to different locations and turned those back on as well.
The most amazing (and unsettling) part about this whole ordeal, besides the fire that began from an unused outlet, is that we have not received even one phone call from our rental company..not one. No inquiries as to our safety, our apartment's damage, or our current recovery status have been made.

After realizing that these industrial sized machines had been running for 3 days, on OUR power, I decided to call the realty company to see how we would be compensated for the power overages that will inevitably be showing up on our bill.
Their answer was that my renter's insurance would be covering that.

Wait...what? The machines that are running off of MY power, that are restoring THEIR walls...the power to those will be covered by MY insurance?
I think not.

I feel frazzled and disconnected from my home, to say the least. Coming home lately has felt like a chore. I have a ongoing letter composing in my mind about my disappointment in their handling of our home and our safety and I can't be in my apartment without this dialog continually formulating in my head.

This has all made my efforts for the cure seem fruitless. Why improve our bedroom, put in the money and effort when our place is in disarray and the people owning it could care less about us?
I know the bedroom makeover would be for me and will probably help me sleep even during difficult times, such as this, but its hard to keep the momentum going when everything else seems to be getting worse.

See, I'm not looking on the bright side now...now I'm just tired.