rug-a-dug-dug

As mentioned in a previous post, I had been looking for a black and white stripped area rug but hadn't had much luck.  Sites like Overstock have decent selections of rugs but nothing struck my eye - at least nothing within my budget.  I'm a member of thefoundary.com - a website that offers products at up to 70% off retail.  The daily selection is usually pretty random and consists of anything from cutlery to furniture to artwork.  It’s free to sign up for access to their site so give it a whirl!  If anything, it’s fun to browse through their interesting selection of pieces from up-and-coming designers, unique artisans, and even well known companies.

No, I don’t work for thefoundary.com but I DID purchase a living room rug from the site.  The rug we chose retails for over $1,000 but we got it for $310 – and that includes shipping.  And it’s an 8x10.  Even a thin 8x10 from Ikea would set you back over $300.  Needless to say, I jumped on it.  It wasn’t a striped rug that I had previously been searching for but it was black and white and had a classic pattern – houndstooth.  Like our sectional, men’s-suiting-inspired patterns tickle my fancy.  It hasn't arrived yet but I'm crossing my fingers and toes that it "goes" with our room.   Eh, if not, they offer free returns.  Until the rug arrives, here's a little taste of our new purchase:

We also hung a few pictures up on the bare wall behind the sectional.  James is already developing a hint of narcissism and looooves looking at himself.  If he is sitting with us on the couch, he practically does an owlish head spin just so he can get a glimpse of his picture on the wall.  If he is in his little wheely-chair-thingy, he will scoot across the room just to get a better view of his picture.  Despite being a little under the weather this week, he smiles and giggles each time he looks at it.  It’s pretty funny/weird.  Here is a pic of James enjoying his visit to the doctor and a pic of some pics. (Both are taken with my bberry so not the best quality.  Deal with it.  Oh, and the urine sample cup that James is playing with is clean and un-used so don't call DSS on me.)

We’ve also been doing more clean up in the backyard.  We don’t have much time to get anything accomplished during the week after James goes to bed and before the mosquitoes invade our space but we’re chipping away at it.  We got one of the huge briar bushes ripped out – no easy feat.  We started burning a bunch of the crap in a large drum barrel but the weather has been too hot/dry so we didn't burn much in fear of a spark getting away from us into the woods and burning the town down.  So, the briars are still in a heap waiting to be burned or dumped - but at least they're one step closer to being out of our life.  That also exposed the base of the giant pine tree – and exposed the fact that it had been attacked by termites and/or carpenter ants.  I don’t know how the tree is still standing and producing greenery at the top but it’s gotta go.  There are still more briars to be pulled out but Joe was yelled at by momma bird for getting too close to her nest full of eggs so we will probably hold off a bit longer to rip that bush out. There's way too much going on back there but I will try to organize some pictures to share at another time.

An area rug and a pile of dead briars doesn’t sound like much but it’s progress to us – especially considering the lack of any substantial time blocks that we’ve had to dedicate to the new house.  We'll continue to use any spare minutes we have to chip away at the yard before we lose the energy and enthusiasm to do so! 

Aside from the yard, a few other things on our semi-immediate agenda are:

• get wood burning insert installed
• build console table - to separate sofa from dining area and to provide another space for storage and lighting (and depending on how that turns out, maybe a smaller matching table to serve as a desk on the empty wall in the dining area?)
• hang new roman shades in James' room
• hang pictures/art in James' room
• make a drapery wall in our bedroom
• lose 50lbs.

...and on our not-so immediate agenda:

• paint and tweak kitchen cabinets
• remove wall paper and paint kitchen
• install new counters and backsplash in kitchen
• build a headboard
• do something about our ugly bedroom
• do something about our ugly downstairs bathroom
• do something about our ugly upstairs bathroom
• add a full dormer to the back of the house
• lose the 50lbs. that I put off losing from the other to-do-list

Check back in 2021 to see if half of this stuff has been accomplished.