Having never owned a home, I couldn’t understand when designers would talk about living in a space for a while prior to designing it. That always seemed like such willpower for a compulsive, impulsive person like me. But, I’m finding that I don’t really have too much choice because we’re so busy keeping up with life and Eric’s new business that time is passing faster than ever. However, this has meant that we’re able to really think through the design and furniture choices that we’re making, save up for them and price them out/get coupons/shop around.

For instance, we originally thought we wanted to order a new mattress set before we moved and have the mattress delivered on move in day. Yeah, that didn’t happen. But, after shopping around and saving up, we got a new sleep number bed during July 4^th weekend and saved about a third of what we had originally planned to spend on it. (Sidestory: We’ve had the bed about a week now and I have to say, I’m becoming a big fan. Eric is happiest sleeping on the ground and I prefer to be so cushioned inside the bed that it’s basically impossible to tell if I’m lying in it or not.)

Back to the matter at hand…we really have two “immediate” needs that we have to address and everything else can be slowly parceled out over the months ahead.

The first is an indoor dining table (We have a gigantic outdoor eating space, which, being California we can use 99% of the time). Here’s a look at how the prior owners had the dining room styled.

We have a tiny dining room table that originally belonged to Eric’s parents. I actually love the turned wood pedestal, but the chairs have seen better days and we’re long overdue for an upgrade. This is our table, set for a summer party we hosted this weekend that was a combo housewarming/birthday/meet my parents/hang in the pool:

Also, gratuitous pic of Luke and I, more at my friend Ellen’s blog.

Anyway, we regularly have house guests and often have dinner guests…and with our growing brood, having more indoor seating is a must. I think I’ve looked at every furniture store in existence plus spend some time on Craigslist and I’m just not seeing anything that really captures what we want. Probably because I’m not that current or stylish but no one seems to be selling what I’m looking for.

I happened along Pinterest plans that Eric and I both like that he thinks he can easily accomplish and – hopefully – will come in substantially less than what we originally estimated paying for this piece of furniture.

This seems like a good place to interject a life theory that Eric and I talk about a lot. There are three ways people want things – fast, cheap, and convenient. And, you can usually only ever get two of the three things. So, we will have discussions about is this is fast, cheap purchase…probably going to pay more for it. Are we going to take our time? Then we can probably save some money on it. Anyway, hopefully these projects will fall into the cheap and convenient category because it definitely seems like it might be easier to drop some dollars and just get something delivered later today 😉

The second project is likely going to take time and thought as well. When you walk into the house, you’re smack in the middle of the living room which opens out to the deck/pool. It looks awesome but it’s really tricky to arrange furniture around because the room is long and large.

And even in this picture (with the arrangement that the sellers had) doesn’t capture an additional 3-4 feet of further to the right before you get to the kitchen wall which is just dead space otherwise.

Our end goal is a combination of these two pins, placed on left wall of the picture above:

And, I love it for many reasons:

• Our living room space is large with no great focal point and this both creates the focal point and shortens to room
• It gives us great toy storage behind doors for when we’re hosting
• Space for the TV
• Custom to fit a space that an entertainment unit may or may not fill

I’m excited that we’ve landed on looks and design direction that feel right for us instead of forcing something that doesn’t feel quite right just to have it finished. Hopefully we are able to squeeze these projects in over time but until then, our house is really starting to feel like home.

How about you Country Mama, I’ve been seeing some great pins about kitchen inspiration coming from you…any remodel planning on your horizon?