The Itch To Switch

 One of my favorite YouTubers is Ashley from Til Vacuum Do Us Part. She loves switching her furniture and bedrooms around to create a new look, a process she calls the Itch to Switch. I know that itch only too well. As a teenager living with my parents, I would often rearrange the furniture in the living room. Thankfully my mom didn't mind; she knew I'd clean as I went, and she wasn't going to stop me :D. We switched bedrooms a few times, though it was hard because there wasn't a whole lot of space in the hallway of our apartment. Once I was married and had a home of my own, moving furniture and decor or painting a room became so commonplace it didn't surprise anyone. 

When we first moved into our new home, I set up the living room furniture similar to how the previous owner had hers set up. The sectional was against the stairwell. It worked perfectly, especially at Christmas because I wanted the tree over by the sliding glass doors.

When the spring came around and we were stuck at home because of the shelter in place order, I got the itch to switch. I flipped the sectional and put it in front of the sliding glass doors.

I really do like it in this configuration. It's open and welcoming whenever you come up the stairs. But as I began thinking of fall and winter, the holidays and the decor changes, I got the itch to switch again. The Christmas tree, I believe, looks best in the corner by the sliding glass door. Granted, Christmas is still over 3 months away, but I start decorating for fall in a couple of weeks. I couldn't help wanting to start the new season with a fresh look. The itch to switch took over and the rearranging began.

I started by  moving all the furniture off the rug and giving it a good vacuum (pause to appreciate vacuum lines). I got this rug from Costco, I wanna say three or four years ago, and it has held up beautifully. 

I pulled the cushions off the sectional to make it easier to move, and while I was at it I vacuumed underneath. No matter how careful I try to be, dust and crumbs get in there.

I lifted the coffee table to make it easier to move off the rug, and found this under it. My son E's drawings from when he was about three years old. You can't leave them alone for a second, y'all!

I should mention that I was doing this on my own; my son E was still asleep. I don't mind doing this by myself; I'm thankful I still have the strength and ability to do it. Unfortunately, you don't always catch the mistakes until afterwards. Everything looked good so far so I continued moving furniture.

I brought the chair and ottoman over and set it up like it was before but on the opposite side of the living room. 

I replaced my current decor because I'm not ready to start decorating for fall yet. By now I was pretty satisfied with how the living room looked and I began focusing on the dining room. 

My dining room table is a six seater with a removable leaf. Whenever I put the sectional in front of the sliding glass doors, I took the leaf out of the table to make it smaller.

Now that the sectional was switched, I felt like the table looked too small. So I got the leaf and added it to the table. I also changed the configuration of the chairs so they fit properly on the rug.

 By this time, as you can imagine, I was tired. The furniture is heavy, I was cleaning as I went, and I needed a break. I went and fixed lunch, woke my son up for school, and went about my day. As I did, I began to notice something that really bugged me.

It's probably hard to tell from this picture; it might be something that would only annoy me. But the rug was not centered. I don't think it's very noticeable unless you see it in person. The rug was over to the far right instead of being centered in front of the fireplace and bookcases, which then caused everything else to be off-center as well. Every time I walked by I saw it and I knew I was gonna have to fix it, but by then my neighbor was home from work and moving heavy furniture around would disturb him. I waited till this morning and got to work again.

Moving the rug meant moving all the furniture off the rug again, scooting it over and putting everything back. I should have take better pictures, sorry about that. I moved the furniture a bit more to the center and moved the chair and ottoman further back. It looks more balanced now which was what was lacking before. While I was at it, I took my olive tree from the kitchen and put it here in the corner. I really like how it looks. I don't know if it'll stay here permanently; it might go back before the day's end, but I'm enjoying it in the meantime.

I like switching my furniture for two reasons. First, it gives the room a new look without spending any money, and if I don't like it I can switch it back. Second, it allows the furniture to be used more evenly. Let's be honest, everyone has their favorite spot on the couch. Whenever you sit down it's always in the same place. If you look at someone's couch, you can see where that spot is because that's where most of the wear on the furniture is. By moving my sectional around I'm forced to change my favorite spot; it's technically the same spot in the room, just not the same spot on the furniture piece. I also rotate my cushions once a month so that they too wear out evenly. I find this gives the furniture a longer life.

This won't be the only itch to switch going on in my house this month. Fall is coming, and that means pumpkins and pillows and throw blankets, oh my! Come back soon!  

Let's Take A Tour - The Living Room

To the right of the top of the stairs is the living/dining room combo. This front area of the house is very open concept, which helps it all look large and bright. I'm going to focus on the living room part of the house today, and look at the dining room next time.

I should mention that all the living areas in the home have large white and grey tiles except for the bedrooms, which have laminate wood floors. This keeps the house feeling light and airy. It could also make the house feel cold, but area rugs give it that warm, cozy vibe.

When we first moved in, I didn't take any pictures; I was too busy putting everything away and deciding where it all would go. It wasn't until Christmas that I took a picture of the living room to send to my sister so she could see the progress (and my tree):

Since the tree was the main focus, I didn't bother to turn on any lights other than the tree lights, so it's pretty dark, but it will give a sense of what the room looked like at the time. Here the sectional sofa is against the stairwell. 

It's changed a bit since then. For spring I turned the tables so to speak. Well, actually, what I turned was the furniture arrangement:

The living room is the one room that has had the least amount of changes from the old house. All the furniture that was in my old living room is here except for the coral entryway cabinet; I gave that to my daughter, and she uses it as a coffee bar in her home. The picture above the tv in the first picture is the one that is now in my office/guest room (see my previous post). That was where I'd originally put it, but I didn't like it. It's the same shape and almost the same size as the tv set, and it looked awkward. I wanted something lighter to go above the tv, and I found this piece at Hobby Lobby for $30 (half price of course). I loved it the minute I saw it. The distressed wood frame gave it that farmhouse feel, while the scrolled metal design gave it elegance - the perfect combination! Just one tiny problem: the hanging hardware was on the wrong side. This piece was meant to hang vertically. Well, I wasn't about to let that get in my way. When I got home, I removed the hanging brackets and put them on the long side so the piece could hang horizontally. Presto! It worked beautifully.

You might also notice the three pictures above the sliding glass doors. This is where I first put them, but they seemed to disappear up there. The color of the frames was too similar to the color of the walls. Plus, they didn't go with the new Hobby Lobby piece. So I took them down and put them in the office/guest room instead. At first I figured I'd leave that wall bare, but since this house has vaulted ceilings, it looked like such a big empty space. Around this time businesses started to open; I hadn't been out decor shopping since the pandemic started. I'd heard stores were having huge sales to clear out all the old merchandise that had sat on the shelves for three months and make way for new items. Sounded like the right time to find something pretty and affordable.

 I went to TJ Maxx first, knowing that Mondays is 10% off all purchases if you're 55 and over. The metal flowers are a set that I found for $14.99. With my discount I paid $13.50. They are the perfect size, shape, color, everything!  

As summer got closer, I also wanted to make my home feel more like the season. Much of my home decor at the old house had fall colors: lots of gold, rust, dark greens and blues. It's lovely, and I still enjoy those pieces, but I wanted something a bit more...summery. It was time to go to Hobby Lobby and see what the clearance rack had for me.

I'd gotten this piece from Kirkland's years ago, and it was in my old living room. It's the first two verses of Psalm 23. As you can see, the colors are deep, rich fall colors, and the frame is also dark wood. I wanted to brighten this corner of the living room with something just as inspirational but also lighter, with a touch of farmhouse. Thankfully, all the spring decor was 50% off.

I love this so much! It looks like a piece of shiplap, with some twine tied to the bottom and a cotton stem cutout at the top. The verse is from Romans 8:31. The price made me very happy: $9.99. I can use this every year for spring and summer, and the other picture for fall and winter.

I've also styled my bookcases a little differently now. In the old house, the bookcases were just that: a place for books. They had my books, my daughter's books, and both my son's books. Once my oldest son moved and my daughter got married they took their books with them, and my youngest son has his books in his room, so I was able to decorate my little bookcases with more than just books:

The statue on the very top is a favorite piece I've had for many years. Back in the early 2000's I sold home and Christmas decor through a company called Kingdom Treasures. They aren't around anymore, but I've kept a few things from their collections, and this is one of them. The little planter is from TJ Maxx. The pineapple was a Christmas gift; it's a candle, and it smells just like a pineapple! I like adding picture frames and baskets to give the shelves some dimension and interest.

I did something of a mirror image with the other bookcase. This planter I found at the Target Dollar Spot for $3. The clock is new; I had a clock for years that I'd also gotten from Kingdom Treasures, but it stopped working one day. I probably could have gotten it fixed, but I decided I wanted something different, so I found this one at Hobby Lobby. I think I paid $12.50 for it. 

The sectional is the same one I had in our living room at the old house, except I've "shrunk" it. There's another piece that's an armless chair and it can be put on either side of the sectional to make it a right hand or left hand sofa. I took it out and have it in another part of the house (you'll have to wait and see where). The rug, coffee table, leather chair, all came with us from the old house. I change the look up with throw pillows and blankets, and different flower arrangements in the pitchers I use as vases. The sliding glass doors lead out to the balcony, and the drapes were left by the previous owner - a blessing, because I didn't have to buy any. Over to the left is the dining room, but that's a story for another post ;-). See you then!

My "Day Off"

I wanted to post about my crazy "day off" yesterday, but by the end of the day I was beyond exhausted.  I couldn't even think straight anymore.  So here I am, giving a recap of Friday on Saturday, though I can't say I'm fully recovered.

Let me just mention, for starters, that I love to decorate.  I love fixing up my house, whether for holidays and special occasions or just everyday.  I love changing things up.  I love moving furniture around and into different rooms to get a new look.  Even when I was young and living with my parents, I would change things up and move them around.  I love to paint, I love to clean and polish and dust and shop for beautiful things...you get the picture.

When my two older kids came home from living in Central Florida, they brought a bunch of furniture with them, including a sofa and love seat we'd bought them at a furniture outlet store.  At first I put them in the garage, since my son's desire was to look for a place and take the furniture with him.  Things didn't work out for him financially, and it made no sense to me to have brand new furniture in the garage while I was sitting on faded furniture that was 13 years old.  So I sold the old sofa and love seat and put the new items in the family room.  It worked quite nicely.

Last year I decided to get an electric fireplace/media center for the living room, and I got rid of the enormous wall unit that was in the family room.

The wall unit worked while we had the oversized television set, but once that broke (and there was no way to get it repaired) I was left with a gaping hole in the wall unit.  I tried fitting other things in there but it didn't work.  Out it went, and a television table the kids brought back with them took its place.

I'd originally put it in the living room, but I moved it to the family room and put the fireplace/media console in there instead.  I flanked it with bookshelves, a look I documented here.  And that worked as well.  I was super happy with the way the house looked.

Unfortunately, the furniture we'd bought for the kids was not the greatest quality.  It was 3 1/2 years old but looked like we'd been sitting on it for 20 years.  The cushions were attached to the furniture, and they were sagging horribly.  The frame under the cushions also appeared to be sagging.  The fabric itself looked the worse for wear.  It's microfiber, which usually stands up to all kinds of abuse, but this fabric was stained and the stain wasn't coming off.  I tried covering the sofa with a fluffy blanket so the sagging wouldn't show too much, but it wasn't fooling anyone.  I had moved this furniture into the living room at Christmastime because the tree wouldn't fit in there with the recliners and sofa, and after Christmas everyone wanted the ugly furniture to stay in the living room because "they made the room look bigger."  I thought it made the room look dingy.  I wanted so badly to get rid of it, but I didn't want the huge expense.  I thought about going out looking at garage sales or second hand furniture, though there's always a chance I'll end up with something as bad or worse than what I already had.  

After Christmas Costco always puts their home furnishings out.  I was walking by the seasonal aisle on my way to the meat section, when I saw a gorgeous, huge sectional.  It was a lovely beige fabric, light but durable, with the nailhead design that I love so much.  It was $999, a great price for this large piece of furniture but more than I wanted to spend.  I sat on it for a minute and loved how comfortable it felt.  Ah, if I could only find something similar but at a lower price!  A couple of  months later I saw that the price had been reduced - a common occurrence when Costco is ready to bring in the next seasonal item, in this case patio furnishings.  Now the price was $699 - a whole $300 off!  I was tempted, but at the same time, how would I get this home?  I don't have a truck or SUV anymore.  Besides, I was wanting to get some cabinets to organize the garage, and my car needs new tires.  Spending $700 on a sectional wasn't an option right now.

Because I have executive membership at Costco, I get a yearly rebate from them.  I wasn't expecting much; I buy from Costco regularly but I hadn't bought anything major, so there was no reason for me to get much money back.  I was totally surprised when the rebate check came in: $116.  The wheels in my head started turning really fast.  With this rebate check I'd be able to get the sectional for under $600.  No way was I going to find a deal like that anywhere else anytime.  I'd have to act, and fast.  Time (and inventory) was running out.

When I told my daughter what I wanted to do, she suggested renting a truck from Home Depot.  Home Depot rents vans and large pick-up trucks for $19.95 for the first 75 minutes, then $5 each additional 15 minutes after that.  The idea was, rent the truck, get the furniture from Costco (which is a few blocks away), get it to the house, and get the truck back in an hour.  That sounded doable!  Then I remembered the garage storage cabinets.  What if I could get those from Home Depot, and the furniture from Costco at the same time?!  I would save on delivery costs!  I checked out the Home Depot webpage, but there was nothing at all like what I wanted.  Everything was either plastic or resin, and I wanted something stronger.  I looked on the Lowe's website next.  Bingo!  A large steel cabinet for $249, and a smaller cabinet for $157.  Lowe's is less than a mile away from Home Depot; I could still get everything done and pay less than what it would cost to have the cabinets delivered, which was $79.  The picture looked brighter and better each moment.  I prayed and asked God to work this out for me as He saw fit, then I got to work.

Thursday morning I called Home Depot to reserve the truck.  Turns out they don't do reservations - it's on a first come, first served basis.  I told the woman at Home Depot that I'd need the truck Friday morning, around 10 am.  See, with homeschooling and work, Fridays and Saturdays are the only days I can run all my errands, and I needed to do this on Friday because that's also my son R's day off and I was going to need his help.  She told me to call a half hour before and she'd hold the truck for me, but no more than 30 minutes.  At that point I decided, on faith, to go ahead and order the garage storage cabinets from Lowe's so they would be ready for me to pick up the next day.  I was really taking a chance, and I considered skipping my bible study group to get there early, but that didn't feel right at all.  How could I put God in second place to garage storage and furniture?  No, I was going to my bible study class, and trust that God would provide.

I was up early Friday morning.  I'm so glad I have a quick and easy makeup routine for days like these, because I didn't have the time to spend in front of the mirror.  I went to bible study and boy am I glad I did - Daniel chapter 9 is totally awe inspiring!  I left just as the video ended, ran home and called Home Depot.  To my chagrin, the truck had just been rented out, and the woman didn't know when it would be back.  She kindly took my number and said she'd call as soon as it was returned.  In the meantime I was left to wonder, now what?  My daughter suggested I check with another Home Depot, but did I really want to go to the next city north or south of us to get this truck?  I thought about heading to Costco so I could be close by when the truck showed up; then a thought occurred to me: what if they didn't have the furniture anymore?!  I grabbed the phone and called.  Good thing I did, too - they were sold out.  NO!!!!!  I asked if she could check stock in other stores.  She found 5 of them at a store two cities north of us, about a 20 minute drive.  I called that Costco to verify and they confirmed that they still had it in stock.  If I was going to do this, I'd have to act fast, but not before lifting my petition up to the Lord.  I called the Home Depot in the city north of us.  Yes, they had a truck and it was available to rent.  The clock was ticking.

I grabbed my son and we headed north to Home Depot.  Renting the truck was easy-peasy.  All I needed was my driver's license, insurance card and a credit card.  I left there and headed north on the expressway.  I took a bit longer at Costco than I thought because the boxes were so large and bulky; so large that I wondered if we'd be able to get them all in the truck.  I didn't want to have to make two trips!  I was praying that it wouldn't be necessary, and praise God it wasn't.  The young man at Costco was able to get everything on and even tied the boxes onto the truck for us - now that's great service!  R and I went straight home, unloaded the boxes into the living room, and headed out to Lowe's.  My daughter A is still nursing her leg per her doctor's orders, so she wasn't able to do any physical work, so instead she was in the kitchen making stir-fry for our lunch.  No time to stop though - we ran to Lowe's to get the storage cabinets, which by the way, weigh a ton!  Oh my gosh, it took so long for them to bring the stuff out because the girl couldn't find anyone to put them on the dolly.  R and I were trying to load them into the truck and another customer kindly helped us.  It was definitely a three person job.  I stopped off at our local Costco to fill the truck with gas - that's something to keep in mind.  If you bring the truck back to Home Depot and the tank isn't filled, they charge $6.50 per gallon to fill it up.  No thanks!  I put $20 in and made sure that was enough.

Back home we ran, left the boxes in the garage, then hauled ourselves back to Home Depot to return the truck.  By now we were both tired and hungry, and R was getting a headache.  Because of unforeseen delays we had the truck for 3 hours, so I ended up paying $62 for the rental.  With gas the total came to $82, more than I'd wanted to spend, but considering that I was able to get so much done that I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise, it wasn't a bad investment.  Besides, now I'm able to enjoy this:

It looks so pretty, and is extremely comfortable!  The pillows were Christmas gifts from my son R.  He got each of us a pillow that he felt best described our interests:  A got Alice In Wonderland because of her love of Disney, E got Treasure Island, filled with adventure, and I got Sherlock Holmes.  My son knows me only too well!  Classic English literature, crime and mystery, all rolled into one.  Sherlock Holmes has been my favorite since I was a teen.  It never gets old!  Anyway, there is enough seating here for our family and then some.  I'm so in love with the look!  I would like to eventually get an area rug, but with Molly I don't know if that's the best idea.  The area rug I had in the living room had to be thrown out because Molly's nails kept getting caught in the rug and it was looking pretty shredded.  I don't think I want to do that again.

By the way, the stir-fry turned out exceptionally delicious!  It was a chicken stir-fry with lots of veggies and a spicy sauce.  It disappeared off my plate very quickly!  I'm so thankful to my son R who ran all around town with me, my son E for helping me get the furniture moved and everything put together, and my baby girl for cooking and cleaning.  I'm especially thankful to God for making it all possible - I couldn't have done it without Him!

We haven't put the garage storage cabinets together yet - that's our next project.  Can't wait to get that done as well!  Stay tuned!