It's Here!

The new sofa is here!!

It arrived Saturday and we have already been enjoying it.

It's from Ikea- the Karlstad series. I was very skeptical about buying a sofa from Ikea at first. We wanted something that would be affordable, and that would take the wear and tear of kids. So, after some online research, and this blog post, I was convinced it was a good decision. After all, Ikea caters to families with children.

Rob and I took a few Ikea trips over the past couple of months for our kitchen project. We spotted the Karlstad sofa on one of our outings and it was in this color and with the aluminum legs instead of the boxy wood ones, which is why we probably took notice of it. I LOVED the color and the fabric, which is the Korndal Medium Gray. I wanted a neutral color sofa, but have been having a difficult time with browns and tans. And the tapered steel legs were much more my style than the ones that come with the sofa.

We looked into getting the chaise version instead of the sectional at first, but decided that the sectional would provide more seating and would fit better in our space.

As with all Ikea furniture, you have to assemble it, which was actually easier than I thought it would be.

When it first arrived, I was feeling overwhelmed- see below...

But, after a rescue by grandparents to take Aiden for a few hrs., it became less overwhelming.

Once we got all the pieces out of the box, it didn't seem as scary.

Rob worked on putting the pieces together, following the wordless Ikea instructions carefully. While I put all the covers on. It is all "slip-covered", but it is tight-fitting so it doesn't look like a slipcover.

Aiden's already enjoyed the "big new couch" as he calls it, and he's right-it is so big that we can all stretch out on it comfortably!

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!

Etsy Friday- organization

I love to be organized. I admit that I am not always great at it- I do have drawers, closets, and areas of our home that aren't very organized. But, I feel that life is happier when you are organized. This time of year often puts people into organization frenzies. I guess it goes hand in hand with spring cleaning. I have a whole pile of things for good will- getting rid of stuff is often the first step in organization.

So today's Etsy post are some things that may inspire some organization.

There are a ton of fabric bins/baskets that you can find. Especially if you have kids, you know how important it is to have something to keep toys and books under control.

{Fabric Bin}

A good wall calendar is important to help you to remember things like birthdays, dinners, parties, etc. I know everyone is all high-tech now with their Iphones and Blackberries, but I am an old fashion kind of gal and like to have things written down.

{Vintage Wallpaper Calendar}

Etsy even has some great printable calendars where you pay a small fee, usually about $5 and then you are sent the design and then you can print it out. Doing this at Christmas would be a great way to get a couple gifts out of it too since you can print as many as you want for personal use. ( I just love this one with the Mid-century chairs!)

{Printable Calendar}

There is an area in our kitchen that just collects clutter from mail, keys, etc. A good magnet board could help in an area like that. And you can even find cute little magnets. And a key rack would help prevent losing keys.

{Black and White Magnetic Board}

{Metal Serving Tray Memo Board}

{Glass tile magnet set}

{Bicycle Key Rack}

And lastly, I came across this and just had to post it. I do all the bills in our house. My father is an accountant and taught me how to budget from a very young age. I also just enjoy it- I know, I am a nerd. I like sitting down and writing out bills (again, old fashioned, I don't pay everything online) and taking out my calculator and budgeting our money. Ok, I know, you are considering never looking at my blog again because you think I have issues, so I will stop now. When I saw this bill organizer, it just made me swoon. This is exactly the kind of thing I would love.

{Bill Calendar}

So, there you have it. Maybe you will do some organizing this weekend? Either way, hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Out with the old, waiting for the new

Our new sofa is being delivered this weekend, and our old one is gone forever. So right now our living room looks like this.

It actually hasn't been that bad not having a sofa. The white chair is from our bedroom and is so comfortable, I wish that we used it more. But we won't have room for it down here with the new sofa.

Although I don't want to tell you about the sofa until we have it and I have pictures to show, I will give away that the color is gray, which is one of the reasons I am so excited about it. I felt that our current living room curtains being dark brown, wouldn't go too well with the new sofa. I got some fabric and am in the process of whipping up some new curtains. However, season 3 of Mad Men just came from Netflix and therefore I only got one curtain done. But here is a picture of the fabric. It is Waverly's Cross Section in charcoal.

I will post pictures of the sofa hopefully on Sunday or Monday. See you tomorrow for Etsy Friday!

And the "Lucky" winner is....

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway! I was excited to see that people actually read my blog and hopefully enjoy doing so. I had a good time checking out all of your blogs as well.

I decided to let Aiden pick the winner- I thought that those of you who didn't win couldn't get upset with him!

I had to interrupt his morning shows, but managed to get him to pick a number.

The winner is #16 - Jhenna. Congratulations!! Just email me your information and pick out a print from LuckyBluebirdArt.

Thanks again to everyone who entered and I look forward to doing another giveaway down the road.

Happy Monday

This morning I woke up to gray and rainy skies. But I'm not complaining- we had a beautiful weekend with 75 degree weather and lots of sun. Although we had a busy weekend we were able to spend time outside, which was refreshing.

We had some friends over for dinner Saturday night and I got to use these napkins that I bought a while back for the first time.

I got them on clearance from Dwell Studio around Christmas time. I cannot afford stuff from Dwell Studio, but I love their designs and confess I often covet their products. These napkins were regularly $64 for a set of 4 (?!?!!) and I got them for $20 for a set of 4- so I bought 2. I just couldn't resist. They were the perfect color yellow for our dining room and now that spring is here, I certainly don't regret buying them.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway -you have 2 more days to enter!

Etsy Friday- a giveaway!

The weather is gorgeous outside, so I will try and keep this short because neither of us should be on our computer right now.

I've never done a giveaway before- I have no idea how many people actually look at my blog, and that's ok with me. I keep this blog because I enjoy decorating. For me, our home and making it what it is, is something that I love. I feel blessed to be able to stay at home with our son, and it brings me joy to make our home a place that the 3 of us love being. So, I don't write this blog to become well-known. Not that I am opposed to that, or to others who have made blogging their career. But I do this mostly for me, I just hope that others enjoy it and feel inspired by it.

Ok, enough of that- so, I am doing a giveaway that is sponspored by no one, but a little gift from me to you (ok, one of you). I could spend hours on Etsy looking at all their lovely stuff, and I have mentioned LuckyBluebirdArt a few times now. I finally got around to ordering a print for the kitchen.

I mentioned to Amanda (the seller) in our Etsy convo how much I love her prints and have mentioned her a few times on my "Etsy Fridays". When my print arrived that I ordered, she also sent another print, that I had put on the blog. Isn't that just soooo sweet of her!?!

So in lieu of her kindness, I decided that I am going to do a giveaway of any one 8x10 print from LuckyBluebirdArt. I am excited about doing this giveaway because it's something that I have in my home and hope it is something that you will enjoy too. I am also happy to support an Etsy shop, and maybe it will inspire you to do so yourself.

So all you have to do is comment on this post: ETSY ME!

I will keep it open through Tuesday 3/23

I will ship anywhere in the US

I will announce the winner on Weds. and the winner can check out the shop and pick out any of the 8x10 prints.

have a happy weekend! :)

Farewell

If you know me, or read this blog regularly, you know that I have been battling with our sofa for quite a while. You know that while I love this sofa, it is not conducive to life with a toddler, (or a dog). As Aiden gets older, it becomes more and more clear that the sofa is not cut out for life with a toddler- especially a toddler boy who likes to wrestle and jump. I will find buttons on the floor that popped off, the cushions aren't as comfortable as they used to be, and although I have done a good job keeping up with getting it cleaned, I will never buy a white sofa again.

I have been trying to find the perfect sofa for quite awhile- online, in stores, and I even thought about just getting a slipcover made for the current sofa. But, I never found anything that I felt really good about. I want something that will fit our lifestyle without compromising our style of decorating. We also don't want to break the bank.

So, all this to say, Rob and I found the perfect sofa. We weren't even trying- it just happened. (ok, I know this all sounds extremely cheesy) But, it does seem like fate- especially because we decided we weren't going to buy the perfect sofa until we sold our current sofa on Craigslist, for a decent price. And one day, when I was feeling frustrated with our sofa, I just decided to post it on Craigslist to see what happened. And 2 hours later, an excited girl from Philly contacted me. And she is picking it up this weekend. And we ordered our new sofa yesterday.

So, we are saying farewell to our beloved sofa. I am a little emotional- this was the first big purchase we made as a married couple and it was with us in our little West Chester apartment, moved into our first home with us, and got us through those long sleepless night when we bought Aiden home.

I'm not going to share about the new sofa yet. Lets just take this time to say goodbye.

(if you think I am a complete nutcase, I understand)