Now that we’ve picked out a new apartment (we don’t move in until May 15th) it is time for us to pick out some stuff to go in it! We don’t have the funds to buy a bunch of stuff just yet, but we do need a few things considering currently we don’t really have any furniture. The new house is a lot bigger, so we’ll need quite a bit more to fill it out. We are good about saving money and using it to buy quality and also budget friendly pieces. Luckily, we’ve also sold several websites lately, so we had the money to do a little bit of shopping. We plan on filling out the house slowly though, and buying things only that we really, really like and think would work in our house for a long time. We also have a few building projects up our sleeves that hopefully we can tackle sometime soon. 🙂

I’m so excited about getting to design and decorate the house!! Plus I’m going to be working all summer, so I’ll finally have a little extra money to tackle small design projects! I already have several pieces of art just from my painting class and I’ve got ideas for other ones as well! I can’t wait!

Anyway, back to the point. Since Drew currently has a studio apartment, he doesn’t really have a living room area. Therefore he really doesn’t have any living room furniture. So one of the highest priorities for big furniture purchases for the new house was a couch for the living room. We also eventually need to invest in a nice chair, a coffee table, a t.v. stand and maybe an ottoman, but those all can wait. We really need somewhere to sit in there. So today was deemed go-compare-couch-prices-at-furniture-stores day.

We had a list of furniture places with us, but once we got to the first place, the people were really nice, they had a lot to choose from, and the quality and prices were great too. We had a feeling that we weren’t going to have to look anywhere else. Plus, they happened to be having a no tax sale this weekend. We found several things in our price range that would have worked, but we were unsure of little things. We didn’t like the texture of the fabric on a couple of the couches, one had only pillows for the back, two were too white and I was afraid they would get dirty too easily, and so on. After several hours of roaming the store and comparing and re-comparing and sitting and laying and contemplating and calling our families to see what they thought, we finally made our choice. This is what we bought:

We liked the fabric better than most of the other ones we saw, we liked the simple classy lines and the cushions on the back (rather than just pillows for the back), and the size seemed to be perfect–not too big, not too small. It was comfortable–not too hard, but not too soft. Some that we looked at were too squishy and Drew sank into them too far and some others were hard as a rock. We wanted something a little firmer, but not hard or too stiff.

The only problem we had at first sight with this couch was the color. It is hard to tell in the picture, but it really is a pale spring green. We wanted something more neutral so it would go with whatever we decided to put in there, but the more we thought about how much we liked everything else about it, the color seemed like less of an issue. Plus, the more I looked at it, the more sandy/neutral it looked. With all tan/creme/beige/taupe neutral walls of apartment life, we figured it wouldn’t be so bad to have a little color in a couch. Plus, since we’ve never had a living room before, we are starting from scratch, so we can make it fit into whatever decor we choose. Or make whatever decor fit around it. You get the idea.

Here is a picture with the pillows it comes with:

Have you ever walked around a furniture store and noticed how hideously ugly the majority of patterned couch pillows are? I sure noticed. The ones on ours weren’t so bad, but I’m definitely not crazy about the diamond pattern on those two. They look better in this picture actually than they did in real life. It real life, they are bright red and yellow and black and remind me of the circus. The brown ones don’t bother me so much. I can easily sew covers for the diamond ones though, and that saves me from having to buy pillow forms. As I was sitting there testing out the couch and contemplating the pillows, I remembered the fabric that I bought a couple weeks ago to make pillows for Drew’s ugly (and dis-functional) current loveseat (which we will not be keeping). I blogged about them, here. If you don’t remember, here they are:

How perfect! I first thought that the grey and green one would be perfect because the greens are pretty close, but now that I’m thinking about it and seeing the pictures next to each other, I think I might recover the diamond pillows in the creme and brown patterned fabric and then the smaller brown pillows will match as well! Plus we have a creme colored rug for that room already and it would look great with a darker stained wood coffee table! I can then bring in some color through some paintings or artwork above the couch. I’m excited about it! I’ll have to see how they look together in person! Too bad we won’t get to see the couch for another month! (We wanted them to deliver it directly to the new house so we didn’t have to move it up the stairs!) The bad part is that I forgot how much fabric I bought and I don’t remember how big those diamond pillows are. I might need to go get a little more fabric. I hope they still have it then!

If you’ve forgotten from the house tour, here is a picture of the living room where the couch will go:

Yay for house decorating! I only wish we didn’t have to wait a month to get to see it all together!