The Comfort Factor

While yesterday I was talking about our weekend exploring and our kitchen chairs, today I'm pulling out something completely unrelated that we have recently added to our home. For a while now we've been looking for a nice area rug to add to the living area in our rental.

Well, I'd gone back and forth a few times after checking our rugs at a number of different places. Yesterday, we finally bit the bullet and picked up a new 8x10 from Home Depot.

I loved the hits of colour it provided in our room, and also the pattern that will hopefully help hide any dirt  from Halle or the pups. It's also nice and soft, and a great place for Halle to hang out and play with her toys.

We were especially happy that we were able to use a gift card we had received for my participating in Home Depot's Match the Look contest, as well as some store credit that we had. After all was said and done, we only had to shell out just under $70 to bring this home.

I'm really liking how this place is coming together for us. Since we are a young family, it's nice to add some more fun and colourful pieces to our home. I can't wait to add some more accessories to this room and pull out more of those colours from the area rug...

I'm happy that we waited to find the right rug, and didn't make an impulse purchase when we first moved here about two months ago. This one just works perfectly and makes me so happy. It not only helps to define our living room space, but it also helps to warm it up as well. Every day this place feels more and more like our home...

Being Flexible and Frugal

I recently found the inspiration for redecorating our not so pretty living room (see picture below - this is from the MLS listing - all the furniture belongs to the previous owner... but you get the idea). Our living room is the first room in the house after you come in from the built on foyer. Right now it's split up and part of the room is carpet (where the picture is taken from) while the majority is parquet. Now I've seen some houses were parquet looks beautiful - but in my case it just reminds me of the horrid apartment we lived in for five months before purchasing our house - so it seriously needs to GO!

I'm dying to redo it (and the whole room), but right now our budget is very tight. So, knowing that it would take some serious deals to get the project rolling I turned my search to Craigslist. The area itself is not too large, and B assumes we wouldn't need more than 250 sq ft of hardwood to do this area. So the other day I took some time to scour the Craigslist listings, when to my delight, I stumbled across a listing for 230 sq ft of Canadian Red Oak for $250! Now, the thing is, the guy who is selling it is an installer, so it's a bunch of different sections of already stained floor that was left over from other jobs he did. So we'd either have to refinish it ourselves or get the pros to come in. B assumes we can get it done for a decent price, over a weekend while we are away. The big bonus - B and my Dad could install the floor together (my Dad is an all around handyman) and we can still stain it whatever colour we want. I was seriously excited and even B thought it was a great deal (he's not always the easiest to convince).

So - B called the guy who listed the wood and should hopefully be meeting up with him on Sunday to make sure that everything looks good. If it does, the wood will be ours. Now I don't expect we'll be laying it anytime soon, as our first priority it to replace our furnace, water heater and A/C in time for our tax rebates! However, I'll feel happy just knowing we have the material and are ready to install, hopefully sometime early in the new year.

For now, I am working on our mood board, and trying to come up with a plan for executing our reno as it will involve a lot of work (which I will share another time). I also plan on taking on a few smaller projects that will contribute to the final plan for the room. I'm just happy that I was able to find the materials we need for our floor for a great price! Just proves, it pays to be open and flexible when doing home renovations!