Finally grounded

Our contemporary house has its series of design challenges.  Among them are tall cathedral ceilings and a bay window with the mouldings about 1 inch from the soffitt.  As I consider various decorating options, I keep running into obstacles and make little to no progress.  As a result our house looks like we just moved in.  And that was over 15 years ago.  Now my decorating budget is very limited and I prefer to do things myself because I am not quite sure how I want things.  Decisive I am not!  Our dining room is coming along, but the living room is another matter.  It has taken on a variety of functions.  Storage unit.  Playground.  Toy box.  Sick room.  Its current incarnation is more of a music room with projects regularly filling the floor space.  It didn't even have furniture for years!  And some would argue that it still doesn't because the sofas that were hand-me-downs over 20 years ago need to go!

Now I can't very well just go out and buy furniture for sitting on because someone around here has a bad back (and it's not me).  I keep hoping.  But I think I stumbled upon a solution, a way to nudge someone to bite the bullet and go shopping.

Buy a rug.

We stopped by Costco on Saturday and their area rugs that I have been eyeing for years were on sale!  We have a smaller, Costco rug in our dining room (it should be bigger for the size of the table, but the heater vent limits how big one can be) and we loved how much it did for that space.  For about a tenth of the cost of a true oriental carpet, we were able to be able to afford something that also looks rich and it is even made in the USA.

So ignore the sofas (yes, I know the patterns clash!).  The rug is the new focal point for this room.  The ceiling no longer looks so lofty, the room feels full and warm, and we love the pattern.  The pattern is bolder than I originally thought about getting, but we both really liked it.  And now it will be much easier to pick out a color to paint that barn of a room.  I must admit that I didn't really think about how big the rug was when I bought it and it is bigger than I thought.  It really fills the room.  But I think it will give us more flexibility and let us add additional chairs to define the space.



Before



After

It is so nice to finally have the front of the house more welcoming.  But somehow we always end up in the kitchen!