Bedroom Furniture! Woo !

So as I hinted in my last post, we finally picked up some bedroom furniture. Although Chris has been committed to not filling the house with crappy cheap looking furniture, he did finally decide that a certain line at Ikea was worth it. He also compromised to white furniture. He was all about a dark, cherry wood look, but I warned him it would take the edge off the bold wall color. We picked up two nightstands and two dressers. Here is the short wide dresser that we placed between my closet and the bathroom. It fit perfectly. 

It is a huge improvement over the nothing that was there, both aesthetically  but more importantly functionally. Hell, I finally unpacked two more boxes. But one dresser isn't close to enough space for the two of us. So here is the first dresser's taller, skinnier brother (yes, the dressers are male - it has been decided). 

And lastly we got two matching nightstands for either side of the bed (we had the matching lamps through a lighting set we picked up on sale at the home depot):

I love the monochrome thing we have going on in the bedroom - it looks awesome and makes it really easy to pick out things I think will match, lol. We also picked up much-needed new blinds in a matching white:

Still need to pick out some window dressings, but this was a huge step for us. No regrets on the furniture - it was perfect, and on budget. Feeling so much more like a grown up - can almost overlook that it will be more than half a decade before I get my next 'real' job. 

Ikea Upgrade: Mirrored Headboard

So as many of you know, Chris and I have been really slow about buying bedroom furniture (and honestly, furniture in general). I have just been really stubborn about only getting things we really love. I have passed by many an alright coffee table certain that the perfect one will cross my path in the future. One of the areas of greatest contention had been the bed. I don't know if you remember, but when we first moved in, we almost bought a bedroom set from Bob's (read about it here), but I wasn't in love with it...so we didn't. 

(Picture Credit: mybobs.com)

After the mattress was delivered  I decided that I didn't want a framed bed, but rather just a headboard hung on the wall. I thought this would prevent the very large bed from looking too large for the room (I am simply demonstrating how large the bed really is):

Also, that picture does a good job of showing the empty wall behind the bed (yea, focus on the wall). I had the crazy idea of making the headboard out of square thick black picture frames, with a variety of black and white photos in them. A play off the bedspread and to add a bit more of us into the room. But, on our trip to Ikea to pick up the furniture that we liked (finally - but you will have to wait until the next post). I got the inspiration for a mirrored headboard. After a quick call to Jenna to test the ridiculousness of this idea, we picked up the mirrors. Chris was happy because, although this was a lot of work, it was less work than the picture frame idea I had before. And tah-dah (also a little peak at the new bedside tables & dressers):

It is very difficult to take a photo of a mirror without the flash washing it out, but here is another try:

The mirrors help to make the room brighter and are a perfect contrast to the dark blue of the walls. Overall, I am really happy with how it turned out. It is different, unique, but also clean and modern. 

Yay! Mattress!

Tomorrow is an exciting day. It is exciting because we are getting our new mattress delivered! We picked it out about a month ago and I wanted to wait until the Guest Bedroom was finished to have the bed delivered (because this will be the home of our current bed). Well...you all saw how finishing that room is going....it still going. It is taking way longer than planned (updates coming soon!). Also, with so many hours sitting these days (I sit in lecture, I sit when studying, I sit all the time now), my back needs the TLC that a new mattress will bring. This is also a much bigger bed than we have now...we are going from a full to a KING!!! So now there might be room for Chris and me after Lucy takes up her share:

This our first big investment for this house (the couches don't count...they were cheap) and I think it is a good upgrade. That being said, we still haven't decided on a bed frame and any bedroom furniture (lamps included). Chris liked this Bahama Bob set from the same discount store that we picked up the couches from (this picture is from their website, I take no credit):

Well, I thought that much matching furniture would be a little overwhelming. Chris said okay...but then I haven't found anything that I really liked. There is no rush to put 'eh' furniture in the house and now that we are getting the new mattress anyway I can take all the time I want in deciding! 

Couches!

So although the Living Room isn't quite finished, we decided we desperately needed somewhere to watch TV. We had picked out a couch and loveseat set that was a dark chocolate brown before we had even moved into this house. The plan was for it to match Chris' beloved recliner. 


Well, we went back to that furniture store to make sure we still loved the set we had picked out and happened upon a nicer set in a lighter color. Although Chris really wanted recliners, they are really ugly and I was happy that he though these couches were more comfortable than the one we had picked out before:

They are this soft suede like material. They feel wonderful, but aren't the the most photogenic...sorry. Before we went back to look at the couches we did some measuring. I really wanted the loveseat to be centered under the window. Chris insisted that regardless it wasn't going to be. Well guess what?

No surprise, but I was right again. We basically just walked into the store and saw these couches. They were a calculated impulse buy (they were discounted because we had to move them ourselves :-/). They are really well sized for that side of the room given that we didn't really measure them:

I think they go really well in the space and for 600 dollars for the set (plus the cost of renting the truck and taxes), I don't think we could have done much better. The pillows came with the couches and seem to play nicely with the blues and yellows in the room. Maybe not something I want to keep permanently, but in the meantime, the pillows certainly add a polished touched to the otherwise empty room. Overall, I am really happy with them and even happier that we have somewhere to sit. We are practically grown-ups at this point. Now just for a coffee table, and a rug, and some endtables, and wall art, and...well, I guess practically might be a stretch.