Archive for ‘Shopping’

January 19th, 2011

SofaSofaSofa

Hellloooooo, nurse! How have I not heard of Younger Furniture before now? They’re American made, don’t have fluffy, overstuffed back pillows, and can scratch my Midcentury Modern itch nicely while still holding up well as brand new furniture.

Lily by Younger

Jasper

Jasper

So, yeah, it might be time to take a little jaunt over to my favorite local source for all furniture modern and beautiful, Meta Home, since they’re listed as one of only two sources for this brand in the state of Iowa. Hooray for offering beautiful options to consumers in my neck of the woods! The Iowa City area is a magical place.

Thanks to Pam over at Retro Renovation for posting about these gorgeous couches!

January 10th, 2011

Sofa Shopping

We’ve got so much good shit in the works, you guys, it’s unreal. And a little overwhelming, actually. PROJECTS A-PLENTY! It’s about goddamned time for this blog to make a comeback, anyway, and we’ve got a passel of reasons to be posting over the coming year. JUST YOU WAIT!

One thing that we’re thinking about in earnest right now is buying a new couch. We’ve been living with hand-me-downs and curbside finds for years, and after spending the entirety of this winter complaining about back pains from sitting on our current one, it’s about time to think about upgrading. For reference, here’s a crappy picture of the current beast:

IMG_0178

It’s gold velour and right out of the 70s, and while at first it’s extremely comfortable and intensely nap-worthy, after a while of sinking into it, it’s difficult to dismount and starts to hurt your back. It’s actually a sectional, although we put the shorter leg of it in storage when we “streamlined” our living room the last time we rearranged. It’s time for it to go.

Right now, we’ve got two contenders for its replacement: the Blake sofa from Macy’s and the Digby sofa from Flexsteel.

Macy's Blake Sofa

The Blake sofa from Macy’s has quite a lot going for it: it’s deliciously long, very comfortable without being too deep or sinking, comes in what appears to be a good, durable fabric in great colors, and it’s offered at a fair price (although unfortunately, we qualify for “long distance shipping”, which comes to a whopping $225, yikes). It’s also made in either the USA or Italy, and since we’re avoiding Chinese-made goods, this is a good thing. Unfortunately, the closest Macy’s is somewhere near Chicago, so if anything ever goes wrong, we’re sort of screwed in terms of getting it fixed or replaced.

Flexsteel's Digby Sofa

The Flexsteel couch, which we just discovered at our local Coralville Simpson’s Furniture, is pretty great as well: it comes with a lifetime warranty, it’s actually made in the state of Iowa (!!!), is made of materials that will definitely stand up to the test of time and wear-and-tear, and comes in a really wide variety of fabrics and colors, so it would be very customizable. Plus, we could probably swing cheap or free shipping from the dealer, and we’d have a local place to service it if anything ever goes wrong. The downside of this model is that it’s not as luxuriously long as the Blake (80″ vs. 88″ wide), and it’s definitely not nearly as comfortable.

So, we’re deadlocked on a couch for the moment. FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS!

February 22nd, 2010

Where do we start?

The problem with having such a long list of things that need to be done (or purchased) is that it’s difficult to know where to start. Well, we KNOW where to start: the basement walls. They’re cracked and bowing, and they need to be addressed first. We’re going to be installing wall anchors to pull the walls straight from the outside, and that’ll probably be done first thing after the ground thaws out and dries out this spring. It’ll be a pretty big, expensive project, although hopefully it’ll be taken care of within a few days’ time.

The problem, then, is figuring out what to tackle first after the walls are completed. Here are a few prospects:

  • Tearing up every square millimeter of carpeting in the house and installing hardwood flooring ourselves
  • Tearing out and rebuilding the basement bathroom
  • Tearing out and replacing the stairs leading down to the basement, and walling-off the stairs and putting a door at the bottom of them so that it’s a separate space that isn’t open to the upstairs
  • New couch
  • The Kitchen of Doom

I’m going to follow this up with a series of posts filled with ideas that I have for these projects.
Where would you start?