House (Part 3) - Making the House a Home

The last house post was about the tweaks I did to the house and then moving in.  Sunny and Rosy were super helpful, as always.

But probably the funnest part of moving into my new house was buying new furniture!  Truthfully, I don't really have a good eye for decor and color matching.  Part of it is that I don't like anything too matchy matchy, and so I just go with pieces that I like and hope that they don't clash too terribly.

I had to completely furnish my dining room because I'd never had a dining room before!  I mean, I had one as a kid growing up, but all the apartments I lived in as an adult were too tiny for a real table and chairs.

So what do I do when I first get a dining table?  Put my pugs on it.

I was going to get a new light fixture but I couldn't decide on a new one and so I tabled that decision for later (a year later I still haven't gotten a new one).  And I still haven't decorated my dining room.  I like buying art that I like to fill my place, but that takes time and money (especially for framing).

I got a bench for one side of the dining table, but the other side and the ends have wooden chairs painted in gray.  I love these chairs.  They're so sturdy and, with the seat cushion, very comfortable.  I like upholstered chairs, but it still seems weird to me in the dining room.

Upstairs I got a new bed and mattress for me and moved my old mattress and box spring to the guest room.  I loved this at first, but it's not as comfy as it was in the beginning.  I can't tell if I should've gotten a firmer or squishier bed.

I didn't love the look of my old duvet cover, so I whooped out one I bought ages ago from Anthropologie just before I adopted Sunny and never used because I was worried the pug fur would show up too much on the dark cover and the pugs' nails would pull out the embroidery.  The girls love it.

I mean look at Sunny.  Have you ever been as comfortable as Sunny looks here?

I used to have a huge black expedit media console in my apartment.  I originally was going to bring it into the house but because my house has such small doorways and narrow corners the movers said they'd have to take it apart to bring it in.  Given that it was old, I didn't love it much anymore, and the movers billed by the hour, I told them they could take it if they wanted it and got a new media stand instead.  It was really hard finding one with an opening for the cable box.  I mean it's kind of a pain with how dusty it can get in there, but I don't want to have to open the doors of my media console just to get the remote to work.

Since I don't have much of an entryway I got a coat rack.  I love this one from West Elm because I can hang stuff from the hooks, stow stuff in the lower compartment (I got some woven felt boxes to hold my shoes and slippers), and rest things on the bench or use it to sit on when putting on shoes.

I also got a new coffee table because my old one was a $20 from Ikea I bought as a placeholder table when I first moved to DC and then never replaced.  It was slowly falling apart and so it was definitely time for a new one.

And matching console table.  It looks so clean and orderly here in comparison to the mess it is nowadays.  If there's a flat surface in my house, I will cover it with stuff.

The tv stand, console table, and coffee table are more mid-century style and the coat rack is more industrial, but I have limited space to put everything so they all go in the living room together.

And since my couch is fairly small (two-seater), I got two chairs.

The chairs are now also covered with stuff most of the time.  I'm a serial clutterer!

Once the floors were fully cured, I laid down some rugs, which the pugs highly appreciated.

Before (sad pugs, no rugs):

After: (Lots of rugs, happy pugs!):

With the help of my close friend (the same one who helped me pack - man I owe her big for this past year!), I hung up the small amount of framed art I have.

Before (no art):

After (art!):

No change to the kitchen.  I didn't want to waste a single cent on it now since my eventual goal is to completely redo it one day (no clue when that's going to be).

I don't have many pictures of the spare room on the main level because sadly I rarely use it.  I thought I'd use it as my office but I don't.  Instead it's become my room of shame - the place where I just dump stuff and then close the door. I did manage to get a new bookcase and put that together.  That's the one corner of the room that is somewhat orderly.  

When I redid the floors before moving in I had them rip out the old gross runner up the stairs.  I toyed with the idea of installing a new runner, but instead got these awesome stair treads that require neither installation nor tape.  They're by Dean Flooring Company and, while pricey, they are so worth it.  They really don't budge.

I don't have a good picture of it, but I also installed faux wood blinds in all the downstairs windows.  I had the temporary paper blinds up forever because I had to wait the appropriate period of time after painting the window trim and then I bought the wrong sized blinds and had to return them (I measured them right but the size of the blinds at Home Depot didn't quite match up).

I didn't do anything to the porch for a while since by the time I moved in it was too cold to really use.

Once spring came around, I bought a bunch of stuff from Ikea and then went through Ikea hell putting it together by myself (with pugs).  Sunny thoroughly enjoyed the boxes.

That rocking chair took me several hours to put together.  It was one of the worst Ikea experiences I'd ever had (and I've gotten a LOT of Ikea furniture (including two huge Expedits) over the years).  But I loved the patio furniture once it was set up, before the heat and spiders drove me inside.

Even the girls got their own new patio furniture!  Sunny likes the bed okay, but Rosy still refuses to go on it.

And I try to keep the flower window boxes nice, but I'm terrible with plants.  The petunias I planted in the spring didn't last very long despite my best (okay, maybe halfhearted) efforts. 

Whoo, I feel tired just recapping all this.  Time to sit back with a nice drink!