I'm so excited to find a home to raise Ellie and her future siblings in, it won't be our forever home (by a long shot), but our first real home. Every place we look at I try and picture how I want to decorate it to make it feel welcoming and cozy. A place that we love to spend time at and people love to come and visit us. Of course, it's not just how it's decorated that makes it a home, but the love we fill it with, but shopping to furnish a house can be a lot of fun.
And yes, you read that right. We need to furnish an entire home. Anytime Matt and I have lived on our own (we didn't live with each other until after we were married), we were living with roommates who already had furniture so neither of us have ever had to make any big kid purchases like that. Since buying a home is such a large purchase, there's no way we will be able to just buy all new furniture to fill every room, so we are going to focus on the rooms that matter the most, such as the living room!
I've been trolling Pinterest (follow me here!) and found tons of inspiration for our dream home. Pinterest can seriously suck you in for hours. It's awesome and a total time suck at the same time. What I've been drawn to most is soft colors with pops of white. I love how a neutral palette provides the opportunity for a pop of color, and how easy neutrals are to transition into seasons with a swap of pillow covers and throws. I also realize, that having a lot of light colors is ridiculous with a growing brood (I am in no way preggers right now, but want to eventually have more children) that will inevitably color on it and wedge Lord knows what kind of food into the fabric. Here are some of my favorite pins.
After looking at my pins, I'm really leaning towards a color palette of greys, blues, silver, and ivory. I like that the blue can be swapped out easily for mint, peach, pink, purple, aqua, and yellow and create a new feel and breathe new life into the room.
What are your favorite places to shop for furniture? We need basically everything and I'm up for any and all suggestions! What pieces are important to you in decorating? Any advice on furniture buying?
9 comments :
Love those pins! Decorating is the greatest. I would be careful with couches that are too light. Kids are messy, no matter how hard we try to prevent it. There are usually options for scotch guard that can help too! Good luck!
My husband and I are SUPER frugal, almost to a fault (it took me 6 months to take the plunge on a $20 purse when my old one had broken...eek!) but the one thing we stand by is splurging on a couch. We looked for months for a good middle ground one (decent quality with a good price) but all we found was cheap and expensive, no middle ground. So the cheap end (Ashely furniture, American signature, etc.) is where we started. and while a $400 couch might be less than a $1500 couch, $400 is still a chunck of change that I don't want to spend on cardboard and fabric (no joke, that's essentially what they're made out of.) then there the expensive couches. Huge difference in quality and longevity. Solid wood frames as opposed to cardboard and plywood. So we decided to invest in a pottery barn sofa (the best deal we found actually, and the best quality we found.) they had a "get 10% back" sale on furniture. We got their buchanon with a B grade fabric (literally hundreds of fabrics you can pick from, all in stores too!) and ended up getting $100 back on a store gift card, which can be used for throw pillows! When we were paying, another customer came up to us and said "I'm am interior decorator and pottery barn sofas are the only ones I recommend to my clients. I still have and use mine I bought 15 years ago!"
Basically, my advice is to splurge on the sofa :)
(This is WAY more than you were looking for I'm sure...haha!)
Our couch is the most expensive furniture item we've ever purchased! It is an England brand leather sectional, I believe. We've had it since 2009 and it has held up well with our 2 dogs. Granted we don't have kids yet but I'm hoping it will keep holding up!
so our taste is identical!
I have a white/cream colored couch, which at the time seemed really great cause we had a white dog. now I regret it so much! I think my next couch will still be light but maybe grey or tan.
hope home shopping is fun for you, and not stressful! miss you!!
LOVE those soft pink drapes against the gray walls... so pretty :)
Can't wait to hear more about your home search. Good luck *fingers crossed*.
Agree on the couches. And function and comfort over form. Definitely. Side note: who hangs such a large pic of themselves in the living room??? Omg.
When we bought our house, we basically had to fill it as well. I definitely recommend going with a more expensive/quality couch. We got a brown leather one, but it was on the cheaper side and it's already showing wear and tear and now we're already looking to replace it. But I love your inspiration! Beautiful pins!
Area rug in high traffic areas (like under the coffee table) don't get a light color or something laced with light colors. Our white stripes through ours ended up brown and that was the end of that.
Coffee table- we got rid of ours when the baby started crawling walking because her head was like a magnet to the corners. Not to mention you couldn't put things on it anyway (cups, magazines, candles) because they can get it. We purchased an ottoman instead and have loved it.
Couches- our microfiber ones wash well but attract dog hair badly if you have a dog.
Good luck and can't wait to see how it turns out!
LOVE!! :) You're going to have so much fun decorating your first home! Which you found, right??? I'm so far behind in blog land! HAHA
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