Online Furniture Shopping

Furnishing a home is tough work! It's expensive too, and in a perfect world we would have every piece that we want, when we want (yesterday), where we want it. But, the beauty of not being able to do that is giving us some time to be flexible and realize what it is that we truly want in our house, what we're willing to splurge on, and prioritize those rooms and items that we really want and need. I'd say our priorities have already shifted since we moved in, and we ended up getting a couple of our key items off the list early, so we find ourselves kinda cruising right now. But that's what happened to our neighbors too, they said. They did a lot in the first couple months, and they've kinda slacked off for a bit. We're already in that position, but we're okay with it.

The next items to come in our list of priorities: 

Living room coffee table - right now we have the glass one, which is so pretty! But we're finding that it's not so functional for the space that we've turned our living room into. We hang out upstairs a lot more than I think we planned on. We watch a lot of our shows upstairs (in the living room) instead of going into the basement. We want our living room to reflect more of a comfortable and casual kind of place, so we're thinking a wooden type piece, something like this: 

Coffee Table from World Market

Love the Coffee table - image from arhitekturaplus

Dining Room chairs - we have a set of 4, plus two dining room tables, but I'm not so much a fan of the chairs. They're not the nicest (they're pretty), but just not what we're going to want long-term. I thought about how cool it would be to resurface an older set, if I found some at an estate sale, antique shop, etc. But I'm not sold on that anymore. Instead, here are a few options I thought of: 

Dining Chairs #2 by krista-montes featuring italian furniture

The patterned ones would be the heads of the table (although i'd like something pretty different for the heads, maybe with arms, or semi-arms. 

Also, an accent chair for the living room is what I'd love right now to create a reading nook of sorts with a cute side table and a basket for magazines/blankets, etc. But again, we're needing to find a rug that we love too. All in due time... 

My point really for this post was to showcase the websites I frequent for furniture, and to gather other input as well. What other sites (fairly priced) am I missing out on!?

Joss & Main

One Kings Lane

Hay Needle (love their styleboards)

World Market

Wayfair 

Stores: Target, Kohls, C&B 2, West Elm (sometimes, usually their sale section)

What other ones are good? I'm sure I'm forgetting some off my own list. 

Joss & Main, How I Love You

So, can I furnish my house in everything Joss & Main?? Please? Every day I look forward to my daily sale email, and every day I find myself sifting through dozens of amazing pieces while simultaneously drooling over these gorgeous tables and chairs, all while checking my bank account, wishing and hoping that the headboard, side tables and rugs will all fit into my cart.

Some of the pieces I found today actually weren't too bad. Maybe someday soon I'll actually pull the trigger and buy one (or three)...

So three pretty different headboards (especially the first and second), but each give off a different, yet similar vibe. Comfortable and inviting. I'd probably go with the first or second though (looking at the bottom layout).

Headboards by krista-montes featuring nailhead leather furniture

And then you have some pretty ottomans that would be great in the living room! The only thing I struggle with is not wanting an ottoman to double as a coffee table, so it would have to find a happy place in the living room which I'm just not so sure about.

Ottomans by krista-montes on Polyvore

And then these pieces for the breakfast nook. Now, I know these colors don't necessarily go together, but it's the theme I'm really looking for. The hard, thick wood of a table, with some fun chairs. I don't want anything too fancy, I'm looking more for cozy and comfortable. Notice a theme here? At some point down the road, I'd imagine weeknight family dinners at this table, so I want it to be durable for kids, and super functional and fun.

Breakfast Nook by krista-montes on Polyvore

Be sure to check out my Pinterest Kitchen, Bedrooms & Living Room Boards for more of my ideas and inspiration that I hope to actually put into action one day. 

Our First Overnight Guests!

I had big plans to post updates of our house last week, but it really just got away from me! Monday was Monday, and let's be real, not much gets done that night. Tuesday was the Wizards game so we went across the street to watch it with neighbors, after going to dinner at our neighborhood hole-in-the-wall for some half-priced pizza. I've been there many times before, usually after Christmas tree picking with my family since our go-to place is right across the street. But it was Mr. K's first time there, and he approved. Loved meeting some of the locals. Back to our weeknight plans, my dad came over for dinner on Wednesday  night, and Thursday night we had our first softball game of the season (and we won!). Friday night was happy hour with some high school girlfriends at Rosa Mexicano ($14 pitchers of sangria and Guac on Tap, anyone?!). So now that you know what I did all last week, let's get to the good stuff.

We had to make sure the guest room was all set for our very first overnight guests (hey Becker & Laura)! This is what it looked like less than 24 hours before they were arriving:

Front-facing windows

Paper shades from Home Depot have been a lifesaver throughout the whole house, and we put up in this room and the one across the hall because it's my favorite room (tons of sunlight), so I'm hoping I'll start using it as a yoga room or a zen room or something. maybe. we'll see. Until we get buy light fixtures for all the rooms upstairs (we have the wiring done, we just need to get the actual lights), a tall, standing lamp will have do. That's what we have in our Master for now, and it's been fine.

The bed that's going in there was in pieces in the room next door and the mattress was just on the floor in the room across the hall.

Middle bedroom with the bed pieces

So this bed... it's our Ikea bed with the storage drawers underneath from our old apartment. We took it apart pretty quickly when we were moving out and the directions were nowhere to be found. We were doomed you might think, but luckily we were able to put it back together in less than an hour! So without further a due, the guest room:

Lastly, these end/bedside tables! I love these.

When we were across the street at our neighbor's house, they gave us a tour, I saw these tables against a wall in their master bedroom and commented on how I loved them. My neighbor said, "do you want them? They don't fit with our furniture in here." So of course I had to! We're so appreciative that they gave them to us, they're such cool pieces and I cant wait to really create a room around them!!

And with that, we give you our first guest room! This is probably it for awhile in terms of decorations until we really decide on a theme for the room, but it will come together at some point! Up next, the kitchen and living room updates!

First Home DIY Project

So I try to refrain from using iPhone photos, but I don't know when I'll get around to posting about it this, and I have other things in the queue! So here it is, my first DIY project in the new house. I'm not sure what triggered me wanting to do something so quickly, but I was in the Spring mood and wanted to jazz up the house since the Easter flowers were dying. I've always loved wreaths but really only saw them at Christmas time. I then went on Pinterest and saw so many Spring wreaths so I decided I'd give that a shot. I know I've said it before that I'm really not a very creative person when it comes to crafting, so this was a big thing for me. I looked up a couple ideas online then went to Michael's to see what I could find without spending a lot of money.

I knew I wanted flowers of some kind, and Ashland was having a huge 50% sale on their spring stems, so I bought some. A couple that were in my basket weren't their Spring collection though so they were pretty pricey. "No thanks," I said. So I bought a couple stems, a rustic bow, wreath and wreath hanger. After I return the flowers I didn't use, it probably will have cost me around $12. After I got home, I remembered that I had leftover flowers from our DIY wedding cocktail table centerpieces, so I gathered those up and used those instead. I just cut the stems, stuck them into the wreath, tied the bow and called it a day. I thought about adding the letter "K" to the other side, but for now, I love the way it turned out!