Thank you all for your encouraging words about my last post. I think that for now, I’m going to stick with the good ol’ post when I want to/have time to. No one will be pinning this as “How to build a successful blog!”, but eh, it’s what’s going to work for me. Flying by the seat of my pants vs. rigid planning. It’s how I roll.

We’re currently knee deep in planning some landscaping out back and a first birthday party. The landscaping could probably take over a 6 part series here, so I’ll have to save that story for another day. For Easton’s party, I spent the last two nights designing invitations all by myself. Yes, my Photoshop skills are growing leaps and bounds at a snail’s pace. Maybe I’ll share what I came up with once they arrive and I know that I didn’t totally mess up.

I also need to realize that sometimes short posts, posts with only words or posts with only pictures are okay. Instagram takes over a lot of those types of posts these days, but it doesn’t mean that if I feel like I only have a short thought, I can’t drop in here and share it. Today is one of those days!

I dropped in on the West Elm website to check if the Tali window panels had gone on sale yet (nope) and I somehow ended up browsing furniture. Here are my 3 random finds…

1. Graham Glider

I felt like I had to shout it from the rooftops for anyone who has asked me about our Lacey glider, which was discontinued. Guys, West Elm sells a glider!! It’s $799 so it’s pricey, but given the amount of time each day that I sit in ours, I think I would buy this in a heartbeat. Since it’s pricier, I would probably forgo the ottoman because I don’t use it all the time, but it’s nice to have if you can swing it.

2. Rustic Dining Chairs

In another post for another day, our kitchen table set is falling apart. You get what you pay for and well, it was cheap from a big box furniture store. I have been drooling over these Rustic Dining Chairs for a few weeks and even scoured Craigslist for used ones. No luck yet.

3. Wood Tiled Nightstand

This is another piece I am madly in love with and our current nightstands leave so much to be desired. Dark bedroom walls, DIY upholstered headboard and these babies? I’m going to dream about it tonight.

One of the contestants in East Coast Creative’s Creating with the Stars competition made one of these. It was amazing, but I’m not sure I’m that much of a dedicated DIYer.

That wraps up my random finds this week. Anyone else think that West Elm is killing it in the furniture department lately?

ps- West Elm didn’t pay me for this, I’m just browsing around 🙂

Since I finally put away our Christmas things, I feel as though I need to write out everything we want to get done around here while it’s fresh in my mind. If I could have tackled all of this tonight, I would have. I am so anxious to finally organize this house and make some progress on projects that were put on the back burner when I was busy with school.

Oh, and we have a baby coming in May so many of these items are marked urgent. Some are just marked as “they are bothering us and we’d like to do them ASAP”. Since we realize we have to prioritize (I’m approaching the third trimester here, eek), I’m putting them in the order we’d like to do them.

1. Finish built-in bench in new office

We scratched our heads and shopped for wood this weekend, but hit a standstill when we realized we need to buy a table saw or something. And we’re cheap a–es. Solution pending.

2. Move office furniture in

Mike needs this room to work in and be organized and our goal was to get him somewhat settled in the new office before the baby comes. We’re going to use the furniture we currently have with some potential hacks.

3. Remove wire rack from the baby’s closet, paint, stencil and add closet system

(from Roomzaar via Pinterest)

I put this as first in the baby’s room progress because the closet is the most needed to start to organize some of the stuff we already have. Hanging tiny little clothes in a huge closet is killllling me. Must. Make. Closet. Pretty.

4. Add board and batten to the baby’s room

(via Decorchick)

We plan to add molding high and all the way around the room, like Emily’s living room. Pattern to be determined 🙂

5. Add crown molding to the baby’s room, paint, add furniture, etc.

I know this category is huge and can probably be another to-do ist in itself, but we kinda have to wait until we get through other stages to work this part out. We have furniture in mind and a general idea of where we’re going, so we’ll share as much of it as we can as we go along (being sure not to spill any gender specific details :))

6. Replace playroom carpet

We originally planned to do this before Christmas but that didn’t happen. Since it’s not a space we’ll be using right away, we put the new office and the baby’s room first. But this carpet has got to go. If carpet wasn’t so expensive, we probably would have committed to this already.

7. Add bookcases to playroom

(via Centsational Girl)

We want to add some Ikea bookcases to the wall where the shelving is in the picture above and make them look built-in, like Kate did with hers.

8. Finish up the molding in our entryway

We need to add the box portion underneath our chair rail in the entryway and upstairs hallway. Mike is itching to finish this one but we reeeally need to do the baby’s room first. We’re just dying to get to number 8…

9. Start our gallery wall(s)

(via Sawdust and Paper Scraps)

I’ve shared this inspiration picture from Sandra before and we’ve been slowly accumulating frames to hang all the way throughout our entryway. We haven’t hung any yet because we figured we’d have to take them down to nail into the wall to finish the molding, so we wanted to do #7 first.

10. Build outdoor kitchen

Despite the fact that we’ll have a newborn, we’re hoping to make some progress in our backyard this year. We seeded back there in the fall and we hope to do something with the landscaping and start working on the built-in grill we’ve been dreaming of (and drawing in Paint :))

Um anyone else overwhelmed by this list? I’m about to have a Jessie Spano freak out moment and start screaming “there’s never enough time!!!”….

On Saturday, our new sectional was finally delivered! (You can read more about it here) Before the delivery men arrived, Mike’s dad came over to move our current couch and our chair/couch (as we lovingly call it) into our formal living room. The living room had nothing in it up until this point, so while it may not be a permanent solution, it’s better than nothing for now. The chair/couch is definitely too big but the room is already getting more use than it ever has…

Yes, that is all 3 of our babies passed out on the new thing in the room. Aren’t they so sweet when they’re sleeping?

But the sweet never lasts. Especially when you have a cat named Macky and you get a new sectional.

Literally minutes after the guys put the couch pieces together (since he was following them back and forth from the door to the family room), Macky claimed the couch as his and started trouble.

This meant that we immediately ran to Target and snatched up some anti-cat scratch tape. It’s sticky on both sides and is supposed to be unappealing and eventually train them to not scratch the couch. We tried out a piece on the back of the couch for a day or so, then covered a Macky danger zone.

We’ve never bought this tape before, but we have had furniture shredded before so we were being cautious. Thankfully, it is hardly noticeable from a distance and only lets off a little shine.

We knew Macky was incredibly intelligent (he runs to the door when the doorbell rings, plays fetch and cries upstairs when he wants to go to bed), but even we were not prepared for his reaction to the tape. He went to scratch the couch and didn’t like the feel of the tape (effective!), so he decided to use his teeth to peel a piece off (ineffective!). I just removed him from the situation and stuck it back on. So far he hasn’t scratched it again and I’m hoping it was just a curious, “I’m just being Macky” moment.

Thankfully, Macky lost interest in the new couch quickly. However, someone else is couch obsessed (besides me).

Darwin. My cancer fighting, little orange love of my life (his arms are shaved for his chemo treatments, we call them his legwarmers :)). He never slept on the old couch in the family room, but he has not left the new sectional. He’s been gaining weight, but he’s still a little cat on a big couch.

He settled on the crack of the chaise and has since been the only member of this family to use the chaise. We are just so happy that he made it to see the new couch that we don’t dare move him. My heart melts looking at his little body curled up there.

I could not wait to get rid of the pillows that came with the couch. I shoved them in our linen closet and put out the ones I’ve been waiting to use 🙂

And of course, Darwin was available to model them.

I put the Organic Ironwork euro sham and Harbour Rope pillow (both from West Elm) with a wavy blue pillow I picked up at Bed, Bath & Beyond a while back.

We decided to go with the euro pillows because a) the couch is large enough to handle them and b) we fall asleep here all.the.time. I liked that we could use a real sized pillow and wash the shams easily. It’s supporting my back as I type this 🙂

I was a little surprised at how gold the couch is in the room. I thought it was a little more neutral and less clashy with the carpet. It also seemed massive at first. I think it just took a while to get used to the different arrangement and fabric. The couch seems large because instead of having a bunch of room to one side, we have now centered the couch and have some dead space on either side.

One side is housing Macky’s bed (which he sleeps in every time we’re in the family room, including now) and their scratching post (which Darwin is scratching now). Obviously very important elements in this room and I like that they are tucked behind the half wall.

(note to self- time to pry Macky out of his bed and wash it)

They were previously next to the entertainment center (on the opposite side of the opening to the family room), but more about why they were moved in a second. This space seems a little awkward and we were hoping to put a console here to store our laptops, phone chargers, remotes, etc., but I’m torn about where to put the kitten’s furniture.  One option is the other side of the couch!

Because of space constraints by the chaise, we had to move the accent chair we had in this corner (you can see it in the photo of Macky with his claws out above). That’s Darwin’s cat house, but it’s collapsable and he hasn’t slept in it in a while so it can probably go upstairs. We would like to put a round table with a lamp over here.

As for the accent chair? Well, it got moved to where Macky’s bed and scratching post previously were!

I know, you’re probably confused by all of the cat paraphenalia and need a full room shot. But I can’t give you one because we still have a bunch of stuff in this room that needs to find a new home. We’re still using our former end tables and ottoman for the time being. They’re just pushed out of the way right now, making it obvious that we need to find replacements with mucho storage.

We want taller, darker, round end tables and the round storage ottoman from Target that I mentioned here. We’ll get to it probably sooner rather than later since this arrangement isn’t quite working. But, two accessories that I planned for this room that I did manage to get were my weathered wood urchin thingys!

They required some mantel tweaking, but I love them 🙂

I originally planned to get just the large one, but I couldn’t resist the thought of stacking the little one on a pile of books.

So there you have it, 20 something pictures of cats, old couch, new couch and my West Elm finds all crammed into one post. Overwhelmed and confused? Yeah, me too 🙂

As part of our staycation, today we headed into New York. One of the perks of living sandwiched in between New York and Philadelphia is that we are fortunate enough to have so many wonderful things to do within driving distance (plus about 6 Ikeas, no exaggeration). All we knew for sure today was that we were going to a Yankee game at 1. We were delighted when we walked outside this morning and saw how gorgeous the weather was.

We had a great view from the 2nd row of the bleachers, but my goodness it was hot in direct sunlight. We were roasting and decided to leave after 6 innings. My friend Shannon was with us (hi Shan!) and we decided to hit up a museum. We wound up at the Museum of Modern Art (commonly known as MoMA) and managed to get in for free since the company Mike works for receives free admission for up to 3 people. Woohoo we saved ourselves $60!

I thought I had made all of the museum rounds for college classes, but as we walked in I realized that I don’t remember ever being at MoMA. Maybe with a high school art class but I don’t remember it. We were pretty exhausted so we didn’t stay too long, but we did manage to browse most of the place. I wasn’t sure if you could take pictures at first, but then I saw nearly everyone had a giant camera around their neck. I figured I’d take the opportunity to snap some highlights on my fancy…iPhone.

First, the very literally house related. This is a cross section of a house from Niagara Falls, NY that was going to be torn down. Those are 3 different pieces, so no, the stairs are not going into a doorway 🙂

I loved seeing the architectural details up close and personal. Like that thick baseboard, they don’t make them like that anymore!

Then there was an entire area dedicated to furniture/interior design. There was this very West Elm-like industrial light fixture that was made out of a cluster of single bulbs (maybe the West Elm designers have been hanging out at MoMA?)

And this cabinet, which looked like it was straight out of Ikea but instead the drawers got taller and wider as you moved down and over.

When I first saw this next display, it reminded me of the Brady Bunch house. But then I realized that the 70s are totally in style right now and most of this furniture could be in any West Elm/Ikea today.

This bubbly thing was called the cloud bookcase. I wish they would have stuck some books in there, but I guess museums are not meant for staging. A mini version could make for a cool wine rack though 🙂

This next stack of drawers just reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, so I had to include it…

Then there were the art pieces that set off a little light bulb in my head in terms of inspiration. All of these things I think I can use as a starting point to create some of my own art.

First is this panaramic ocean view made out of single prints arranged in a line.

I had to do something like this for a Fundamentals of Design course I took as an elective in college. All it takes is to stand in one spot but focus your camera on different areas as you move along. I did mine with Times Square back in the day.

Next was this departure/arrival board.

When I saw this, I got the idea of using this as a personal travel log. I’ve always been interesting in displaying our travels and I think it would be fun to list all of the places we’ve been on a board like this! I was thinking departure and arrival can be dates instead of times. Of course, it wouldn’t be functional, but maybe just a painting or print.

And finally, I love a good mosaic. This one takes the cake.

No that is not a photograph, it’ is actually small pieces of magazine pages!

I had to make something like this out of magazine pages in high school, but mine was awful. I tore the pieces rather than making them a consistent shape (like these circles) and was overly ambitious with my image. It ended up looking like a 4 year old made it. I would love to attempt something like this again, but I think I’d learn from my high school mistakes and use some simple circles and would definitely not make a face! This artist is clearly way more talented than I could ever be.

That’s the quick summary of our MoMA trip. We cut it short because we had to sit down for a good hour before our legs decided to function again. Regardless, it was a nice unexpected stop on our staycation!

On Saturday, we set out to expand our search for a sectional. We hit up a bunch of stores: The Dump, Ashley Furniture, Thomasville, Mealey’s and American Signature. Thankfully, they were all very close to each other so it was easy to store hop!

At first, our adventures started off as usual. There were the chubby baby couches…

See those rolls? Not so cute on a couch.

And then there were the couches that were characteristic of some different rolls, the Rolls Royce sectionals…

Complete with heated massage seats…

Then while at Mealey’s, one of our last stops, we spotted this…

And angels sang.

Cuddler piece? Check. Clean, modern lines? Check. Build-your-own configuration? Check. Choice of fabric? Check.

The rainbow of colors on the top are just the microsuede options. Underneath that are stacks are larger swatches of non-microsuede fabrics.

The best part of this sectional? It was even cheaper than the one with the piping I wasn’t crazy about at Raymour and Flanigan. Weeeeee!!!

A few of you recommended looking into Rowe sofas, which I actually did before my last post. I had seen them mentioned around and read they were of great quality, but on their website I didn’t see any cuddler pieces for their sectionals. But, I did see that they sold pieces to a lot of major retailers, which is why we decided to head to more large stores. I didn’t even look to see who manufactered this sectional, but the sales person told us it was manufactured by Jonathan Louis… which she said is a division of Rowe and is made with the same quality. I couldn’t find any info on this online, but it was an added bonus to a sectional I already wanted 🙂

So, we decided to buy this baby (not the chubby baby). We went with the same fabric as the floor model, which is a slightly velvety, medium toned, twill type of stuff. We didn’t want to go too light or too dark, so we decided to go with a color similar to what we currently have. It’s funny, I’m picky until I see something I want and then I don’t think too much about it. I know what I want and when I find it, I choose a configuration, pick a fabric and sign the order sheet in about 10 minutes. We went with the cuddler on the right (when looking at the couch), an armless sofa, then a chaise on the left. So it will be the same as the picture above, but with this added on the left…

The lighting in the store was awful and when combined iPhone photos, I know the color looks different in the two pictures. They were two different displays in different areas so while the fabric was the same, they even looked different in the store.

I sat on this cuddler and it was a dream, I am so excited to get ours. I’ve already claimed this spot as mine 🙂

Mealeys had some great bright turquoise accessories (our current accent color of choice for the family room).

I loved lamp.

And vase.

But my goodness are accessories in furniture stores insanely overpriced. Like the lamps were $125 I think, which was minimal compared to a lamp I looked at while browsing around The Dump that was $250!! I guess they make a pretty decent profit off of them. I say go to HomeGoods on your way home 🙂

We also spotted some consoles we liked and we thought one might work well next to the cuddler and up against the half wall. The first one we spotted was insanely overpriced at $1000 but I snapped a picture thinking we could make one.

But then we spotted this one at American Signature that I like more, plus it’s only $199 compared to the hefty price tag of the other one.

I love the side storage on this one and that we could still stick our shoe basket on the side. But we’re going to hold off until the sectional arrives to see what kind of space we’re dealing with. Same goes for this round storage ottoman from Target that I’ve been eyeing as a coffee table…

I think that if they all work out, our family room will be much more functional and way more sleek looking. The sectional should take around 3 weeks to come in and I am so excited to be able to check this purchase off of our list!!