Damn, Rugs Expensive (And Also, My Furniture is Fugly)

I know, I know, I still need to get around to sharing what I spent on my in-progress office/guest room makeover. But my receipts are all the way upstairs, and I'm feeling a little under the weather today, so that post will have to wait until I feel more up to it (or up to walking upstairs!).

But in the meantime, I thought I'd switch gears, to our living room.

Which happens to be a little smaller than my office, at about 17.5 feet x 13.5 feet. We actually had quite a difficult time trying to get our current furniture to fit in a configuration that made us happy, since we were dealing with a less square room than we had previously, the fact that we like our couch to face our TV directly (since we both usually sit on it to watch TV), and because there are two windows on one wall, and a metal railing along the stairs on another wall.

Got all that? No? Ok, here are some pictures from before we moved in. Sorry for the poor quality pics, these were taken with my little point and shoot that I always carry in my purse.

From the main "entrance" of the living room, at the top of the stairs:



From the dining room:

From the far side of the living room, looking back at the stairs (That's our realtor coming in the door. And notice the ugly entryway light fixture? Not a fan of the brass, but it does add some much needed light in the living room. But more on that later.):

We ended up having to separate our formerly 9 foot long entertainment center (which consists of two tower shelves, a center console for the TV, and two shelves that connect the two towers above the TV). It was just too far away to have our huge entertainment center on the only wall that it would fit on, with the couch along the metal railing. Luckily we've got IKEA furniture, and we were able to come up with a way to make it work as separate pieces.

Then, because I insisted that I wanted the chairs that used to be in our old pool table room at our old house to be moved to our living room (seriously, this was the best decision ever. Our old living room chairs squeaked like no other, and weren't that comfortable to boot), we had the fun of trying to get two bigger-than-before chairs, the couch and two end tables to fit in an "L" shape, leaving enough room to walk.

It was sort of like those tile puzzle things where you have to get them all lined up to make a picture/pattern, but you can only move one at a time. Mega frustrating!

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But after moving everything 2 inches that way, then an inch back the other way, it fits, good enough at least.

The real problem is the furniture itself. It's FUGLY! But so, so comfortable that I'm not willing to give it up anytime soon.

(The two tower shelves in the far corners used to flank the TV console table, with two shelves connecting them above the TV.)

Would you look at that barf-inducing 70's patterned upholstery? Yeah...about 30 seconds after finalizing the placement of the furniture, you know I busted out our slipcovers!

Which themselves aren't that great, since they're getting worn and aren't a perfect fit, like most store-bought slipcovers seem to be. But I do plan to make custom slipcovers at some point. It's actually pretty easy, I made one for our other couch that lives downstairs now.

Anyway. What was this post supposed to be about? Oh yeah, rugs.

So, we don't have a dining room table yet. And probably won't get one until we own a house, since I want to buy one that will fit our future dining room perfectly. But that means we eat dinner on our coffee table, which could spell disaster for that hella light colored carpeting we've got going on. Plus, adding a rug is also a great way to add some more color to the room, especially when we're renting and can't paint the walls.

I searched high and low for a decent looking 5 foot x 7 foot area rug to put under our coffee table, and was just blown away at the prices. Our previous rug was purchased about 5 years ago from IKEA, for around $230, which I hoped to spend this time around. But all of the ones I was lusting after were in the $500+ range for some crazy reason. Maybe if I wanted a rug to last for 20 years I'd be willing to spend more, but we just need something that will get us through a year in this house, and not be too ugly, too flowery, or just the wrong colors, but still hide the occasional spilled or dropped food.

Then, after scouring every website I could think of, and visiting all the home goods stores in the area, I stumbled upon the selection on Walmart.com. And low and behold, I found something that would work, but not break the bank. In fact, this rug was so cheap that I was able to get a matching smaller one for our front entry, and still not exceed what I'd paid for our last living room rug!

I wasn't expecting high quality for the price of $65! But I was actually pleasantly surprised at how soft and well made this mosaic rug from Walmart actually is!

But enough blabbing, here are some photos of it in action. And you can see a bit of how our living room is coming together in these photos too (but ignore the frames in the background, I'm switching those out because I'm not digging that neon green!).

And I can't forget to include a shot of our matching entryway rug, this baby was only $21.87!

So, to tie up this long and rambly post....fitting existing furniture into a new house is hard. Rugs are expensive as heck, unless you stumble on a too-good-too-be deal. And oh yeah, my furniture is ugly as can be, although super comfy, and even the slipcovers aren't helping all that much. I really need to get on making customized covers....I'll be sure to add that now to my million and one item to do list!

Have you shopped for a new rug recently? Did you suffer sticker shock like I did?