Sofa Shopping

Jan 10, 2011

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:

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.

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.

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!

Welcome, holidays

Dec 10, 2010

Karrey

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Site

Has it really been almost 6 months since I’ve updated last? Wow.

Since I left you, school has eaten my life. Right now, I’m one final exam away from having finished my first semester of nursing school at my local community college, and let me tell you: THIS SEMESTER WAS HARD. Technically, it wasn’t even a full courseload (though only just barely part-time), but it entailed trekking half an hour away two nights a week for 4+ hours at a time, and then from October-December I also had to participate in nursing clinicals on Saturdays and Sundays, working in a nursing home from 6am-1pm each day. All of that on top of working 40 hours a week at my regular job. I think I may have joked over the summer that I’d be pretty busy with school, but to tell you the truth, I had no fucking idea what I was getting into.

So, when I wasn’t busting my ass working, studying, or going to class, whenever I had a moment of free time to myself, I was greedy with it. Who wants to take time to work on renovating a house when you barely have time to make sure the clothes you’re wearing are clean? So, I’ve been a little lax on the house/blog front. Oops.

No more, though! Well, at least after next Tuesday. And for the next three weeks, during my blessed winter break.

I can’t wait!

Kitchen

Jun 24, 2010

Karrey

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Inspiration Kitchen

You see this pile of cabinets? We’ve been hoarding them since January of last year (well, most of them anyway), paying to store them off-site until we’re ready to remodel our gross-but-mostly-usable kitchen. We had grand plans for these babies, to strip the disgusting paint, rust, and goo off of them and repaint them a glorious, gleaming bright white. We even bought a vintage 50s Chambers stove to match the theme, one without a pilot light and with an oven compartment so tiny that I would have had to buy all new tiny baking sheets to fit inside, and which we recently sold to a very stylish barber from Riverside because we just couldn’t reconcile ourselves to the idea of eventually using it on a daily basis. That was a sad day, giving up that gorgeous hunk of porcelain and chrome, but it had to go.

It’s time for this pile of cabinets to go, too. With so many pressing items on our list of shit to do with this house, the kitchen is pretty far from even being considered ready to renovate, and the monthly expense of housing these supplies has really stacked up. We finally came to the conclusion last night that, once we’re ready to gut and remodel, we’ll either find another set of metal cabinets (in better condition, hopefully), or else we’ll buy new from somewhere (this is starting to become my preference, due to the customizability).

With this decision in place, I’m allowed to start fantasizing in earnest about IKEA kitchens, which is my current favorite in the running for new kitchens.