New furniture

When we lived in Colfax, our living room was an awkward shape and setup. The only thing we found that we liked in there was a sectional, so we purchased one not long after Liv was born. When we moved out here, the room was a very different shape and setup, and though the couch fit okay, it really only fit in one spot. That bugged me quite a bit, as I like changing things up at home rather regularly, as can be seen with the painting and such (and boy have I got some new ideas mulling around on those notes!). With our financial situation, though, we knew, as new as the couch was, that we were jist going to have to live with what we had until it got worn out.
Enter the in-laws. Tom and Gail decided that they were ready for new furniture in the family room. Gail orginally offered the furniture to Andrew's older sister, as their family has little money around to go updating furniture, but with a household of older boys, they have grown rather fond of their "recliners for all!" setup and decided not to take mom's offer. I was around at that point (yippee!) and asked if we could have them, and they were graciously given to us. We moved them in yesterday, and I. Love. It. I love that I could FINALLY rearranget the living room so I can sit by hubby when he is in his recliner. I think it is funny that I rather like the hand-me-down furniture more than the stuff we spent nearly a grand on three years ago. Granted, we are not getting rid of that stuff. There are plans to knock out part of a wall in the basement to make the family room down feel more like a room and the basement feel less like an apartment. It will work down there nicely, and dress the place up a bit. Sarah, we are still taking that hide-a-bed (once the weather permits). It will go in what is currently Harold's living room, and the futon that was in the basement family room will go in what is now Harold's bedroom. The "new" furniture is a floral print, which I am not thrilled with, but I think I may play with recovering them eventually.
In the meantime,the print has the same shade green as the living room, so it matches, and we throw our much loved quilts on everything anyway, so it all has that grandma's house feel, but grandma's house is cozy, and that is the feeling I try to go for.

New (old) furniture

Friday I was able to paint my dining room, and after doing so was thinking it would be so nice to have a side board on the big wall there, and I would love a new dining room set. Ours was purchased by gun point (well, almost...) when we got married. Papa H wanted to buy us one for our gift, and that was fine, but to him that meant TODAY. So we got a cheap (but new) table, that neither one of us really liked as we found nothing else we liked after looking at most the furniture places out there. We had recently been gathering mix and match antique and vintage chairs to replace the rounded back, country style, ugly, falling apart oak ones that came with the table. I needed one more chair and we would be able to get rid of the thing. So, Saturday we went garage saleing during Altoona's city wides. I wasn't looking for much of anything, but hadn't been for a while and thought we might find a chair, though Altoona's clean up weekend was this weekend so, I knew I could look then. We were cruising around, had picked up a few knick knacky things when I spotted a sideboard from the era that we love (art deco). I stopped and looked at it, and then asked how much as there was no tag. I expected somewhere in the ball park of $100 or more, when they said $40. For everything. Everything? "Oh, yeah, the table and chairs over there go with it-it is a full set." (Mouth drops). "My husband is going to the ATM to get the money and we will be back with a truck to take it all." I LOVE it! The chairs are rough, but I was less interested in them, than the side board and the table, which has three leaves so we can now, finally fit all the extended family at the table for big dinners. We are looking into refinishing the table top-which looks fine, but is craised enough that when you put something hot on it, it turns the finish white. If we were keeping it just for collecting purposes, I would let it be, but for everyday use, it needs to be durable so the oh so pretty walnut is not ruined. I just keep staring at it all and thinking it took us six years, but we finally found our table. The wedding gift cost Papa H over $300. If he had been patient, it only would have been $40. I was willing to wait;)