The World is Too Full of Rugs

I feel like I'm referencing a poem with that title, but, if I am, I don't know which one it is.

(a ha! I googled. I knew it sounded familiar! Wordsworth:

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

Yeah, buying a rug is not really much like that. Well, maybe. I feel like I have laid waste my powers with online rug shopping. A little. I still have some powers. And I haven't given my heart away to any particular rug yet. That's what this post is for!)

Where was I?

Ah yes.

Last time I bought a rug, I bought it out of weariness and desperation. It worked out okay; I still like my weariness and desperation rug:

But, as I mentioned the other day, I've been thinking my foyer is looking a little rugless....and this time I thought it might be better to approach rug buying with a bit more intentionality than last time.

To that end, I have taken the extraordinary steps of thinking about what kind of rug I might want and spending some time narrowing down my options. It's been sort of a revolutionary day for me.

And, it turns out, this is a fun thing to do! Particularly when you're not in a rush to buy a rug before your baby learns to crawl. So excited am I by my potential foyer rugs that I've decided to share them right here on my blog and solicit opinions.

This is the what the foyer looks like with a naked floor:

I measured that space between the door and the wall and then over to where the stairs start, and it's around 6 by 7 feet. So I've been looking at 4x6 and 3x5 rugs, mostly.

I didn't really have much sense of what kind of rug I wanted going in to my search. Something fairly flat since the door will have to open over it. But I was pretty open as far as style, color, etc. I just kind of went through different sites and bookmarked things that appealed to me that I thought might work well in the space.

I bookmarked one million rugs, then showed them all to Dave when he got home, and we narrowed it down a bit. I present, in no particular order, the frontrunners!

Urban Bungalow: Rugs USA

I was a little surprised to find myself gravitating toward black and white rugs. This is a wool flatweave rug, 3'6" by 5'6". After the 50% discount code, it would be $103.50. 

Hand woven Moroccan Dhurrie: Overstock.com

This one's a bit of an outlier because it's green! Also might be too similar to the rug in the sunroom, pattern wise. It's another wool flatweave (I think they're all flatweave). $65.99, 3x5.

Amethyst Avira: World Market

I kind of thought I'd wind up going purple when I first started looking. Another 3x5 wool flatweave. I just realized this one is $149, though, which makes it considerably pricier than any other option. But World Market has a lot of sales.

Plum&Bow Amelia: Urban Outfitters

This is one that I like, but no one else in my house does. Because they're all BOYS! Anyway. Only $44. This one's cotton.

Zig Cotton Dhurrie: Serena and Lily

Also cotton. It's clearance priced right now at $78.99.

I won't reveal my favorite. Or my current favorite, anyway. I go back and forth. Which would you pick?

Linking with:

Give Me the Goods Monday

Nursery: The Master To-do List

First a few notes:
*The Advent calendar continues to be a hit. Today we're making giant paper snowflakes.
*I think I need a totally non-fun version of the calendar for me. It would say things like, "mail the property tax check before you have to pay a penalty, you dummy!" "do some laundry," and "get to work on those photo books; it's almost Christmas!" Sigh.

Okay: nursery!

We had big plans to paint last weekend, but then there was that whole hurt back/Christmas Carol/house guests thing. So we did...nothing instead. With the nursery, anyway. I am starting to get panicky again, but Dave has a 2 week vacation coming up, so we really ought to be able to knock everything out then.

REALLY!

The list:
1. hang curtain room divider
2. get everything out of there that doesn't belong in there
3. sort through diapers (yay! did it yesterday!)
4. finishing framing and hanging pictures
5. paint! (paint--Benjamin Moore's Newburg Green--is already purchased)
6. install board and batten
7. refinish the other dresser once it gets here
8. make a whale
9. finish washing, sorting, putting away clothes
10. hang light fixture
11. find a lamp or two
12. paint bookshelf
13. adorable accessories
14. make a mobile?
15. put crib together
16. buy changing pad thing for dresser #2
17. find curtains

See? Only 17 things! We can do that, right?

A lot of the things will lead to their very own blog entries, but a few explanatory notes in the meantime....

I mentioned our childless trip to Ikea awhile back, which was mostly for nursery stuff. We were there at the tail end of their Black Friday sales, and all the plush toys were half off. Normally this would be of only slight interest to me, except that we discovered that Ikea is currently embracing sea animals in the same way we are! What luck! So we picked up this guy:

And these ocean friends:

There's also, I just discovered on the website, a shark. But we didn't see him. And sharks are a little scary for a nursery anyway.

A good portion of our Ikea time was spent staring helplessly at the overwhelming Kvartal curtain system display. More on that later, but we did not purchase any Kvartal components in the end. We bought other things. And we're still not sure how that's all going to work out.

We also went ahead and bought a rocking chair. I wanted something a little more exciting and original than the Poang rocker, but....well, it was there, and it was not too expensive, and it was comfy when I sat in it. This is the one we got:

And then there is this pillow. We actually bought the same pillow a few months ago, then returned it when we were leaning toward woodland animals instead of sea creatures. So we bought it again, and this time I'm keeping it:

What else? Oh, perhaps "make a whale" requires a little more explanation. I have a good number of smallish framed things in mind for the walls, but I wanted something big and exciting, too. I kept looking at this map:

It has sea monsters, you see! But the sizes available all seem to be really wacky and irregular and I could never figure out how I'd manage to get it framed without spending a fortune. So I finally moved on.

Last night I came across a really cool wooden whale cutout for sale on Etsy....for $89. And then I thought that it didn't look like it'd be TOO tricky to make ourselves. I can sketch it, Dave can break out his jigsaw, then I can paint it. I think. I found a blog that confirmed that I should be able to do this on my own (though it was a little sparse on details). So, like this, only bigger. BIGGER!

Source: Completely Coastal

Do you want to know something? Trying to get a blog entry written while simultaneously doing school with children is a little more multi-tasking than I can handle. So I will stop now! 

Bargain!

How about a post that doesn't require me to wrestle with my card reader problems, because the stuff it's about isn't in my house yet!? Yay!

I've been holding off on ordering the bunk bed for Milo and August's room, but I checked Target's website the other day and discovered that the set I was eyeing was on clearance.

It's the "Wrangler Bunk Bed" in espresso. The material is listed as "wood composite," so it's not the nicest bed in the whole world or anything, but it looks good in the picture, and the one review on the site has positive things to say.

The two other bunk beds I considered were this black metal one, also from Target:

This is pretty much exactly like the loft bed Milo sleeps in now, only bunk beds. It's on clearance for $107, so it's main selling point was price. But I really wanted something that at least looked like wood for the forest room.

And then I thought about this one from Ikea:

The price ($159) is good, and it's real pine....but I would have to paint or stain it, and I already have a pretty big line up of things waiting to be painted or stained.

So when the Wrangler, with its awesome cowboy name, went on clearance I was sold. It's marked down to $169 from $199, so not a super dramatic price change, BUT! Target.com was also having a sale wherein you got 15% off if you spent over $125. And on top of that I could use my Target card for 5% off and free shipping. So my final price after tax was $146.87. Cheaper than the Ikea bed! And close enough to the cost of the metal bed to make me feel good about paying a little more for the one I wanted.

And on top of that, I can still Craigslist the loft beds. The metal one is almost brand new is for sale on Target's website right now for $150, I think (it was on sale when we bought it, so we didn't pay that much). I'm thinking I'll try listing it for $90 or so and see what happens. And then maybe $75 or so for the one with the slide. It's older, but it's still in pretty good shape...and it has a slide! If I actually get close to that for them, I'll be breaking even on trading them in for the bunk bed.

Busy weekend

I have not one, but TWO weekend projects to blog about this week. One of them I need to finish up before I can take the pictures (I would normally be too impatient to wait and just go ahead and post it as is, but it's a small enough project that I feel a little sheepish about not just FINISHING it already). And a Home Depot trip is required in order to finish it, so that one will wait until closer to the end of the week, I'm guessing.

Project #2 I could post about right now....except that I'm waiting on a new card reader to get here from Amazon before I can deal with pictures, so I'm operating on a bit of a delay. Truth be told, although I'm writing this post right now, I can't actually post it until said card reader gets here, because there is at least one picture that I need. Oh, wait, two. I forgot about project #3. It is tiny, so I'll put it in here.

Now let's randomly talk about blog traffic, because I find it fascinating. The picture of the metal chair from World Market that I posted back in my "kitchen musings" post? That seems to be my biggest single source of page hits. I have no idea why. I have no idea what people are even searching to get directed here. I wonder if it makes World Market sad that people come here to look at their chair and then I just talk about how much cheaper similar chairs at Overstock.com are....

And then I also get to look at the search terms that bring people here. Right now there are four things listed:

*gray hex floor tile
*use a dining room as a library
*nantucket fog benjamin moore
*old house fire pit

I must be a big disappointment to people searching the first two, since I don't HAVE any gray hex tile and I have only posted about deciding NOT to use my dining room as a library. I'm glad I'm coming up with searches for nantucket fog, as I spent a long time looking up other people's nantucket fog pictures before I picked it. And I'm a little perplexed by the last one...what difference does it make if your house is old when you make a fire pit? Are people concerned about building a fire pit that fits in aesthetically with their old house? Or are they worried that they need to take some extra safety precautions so they don't burn down their old house while toasting marshmallows one night?

(since writing that, another one showed up: "mood board octopus." awesome).

At any rate, if you have wandered here because of chairs or hex tile, feel free to leave a comment and tell me all about it. For, as I mentioned, I'm fascinated. Also, I like comments.

Okay, that little detour took longer than I expected. Moving along. Things that kept us busy this weekend, in addition to projects:

*wedding
*archery for kids
*shopping expedition
*dinner out with friends
*kid friend sleeping over Saturday night
*math club for Ari/Dave

And still! Projects! We are awesome. I am just going to keep pretending like we're going to maintain this level of accomplishing stuff-edness after the baby is born. Yep. Even though this is my 4th kid and I really should know better, I'm going to be one of those "this baby won't change our lives at all!" people. The baby is going to sit around cooing and gazing adoringly at us while we paint and build stuff. It's going to be GREAT. Ahem.

Shopping excursion included a trip to TJ Maxx. I haven't been to TJ Maxx in awhile and apparently I should never go again because I want everything they sell at TJ Maxx. I might have even bought a sweater for The Beagle.

Oops. Busted. I DID buy a sweater for her. Fiesta is a great dog because she doesn't mind wearing clothes.

I also looked at sheets and comforters and whatnot for the guest bed, which needs such things because it will be occupied by the in-laws come Thanksgiving. But I didn't buy anything yet, because I am indecisive.

Mostly, besides Fiesta's Halloween sweater, I bought stuff for my new.....fall centerpiece!

In the kitchen! I moved that twiggy pumpkin in after I decided it didn't work in the dining room. And then I added the pitcher (which a friend of Dave's family made for us for our wedding. Pretty, isn't it? There used to be a matching bowl. Alas, some child broke it at some point) and part of my too big haul of Trader Joe's gourds. But it still looked like a random collection of stuff on a table. And that made me sad. Also, I wanted a more generic fall/less Halloween display (it will probably/maybe move into the dining room after Halloween). So I added the table runner ($12.99, I believe) and the little leaf shaped rice bowls ($7.99) from TJ Maxx. Then filled the rice bowls up with Target dollar section acorns and pinecones. And now I'm not sad anymore! I'm still a little sad, actually, because they had a few nice leaf shaped placemats, and I wanted to get them for Thanksgiving, but they didn't have nearly enough left (we'll have 9 people for Thanksgiving, and I'd probably want 10 for symmetry purposes). There were maybe 3 or 4 there. Oh well.

As you can see, my new card reader arrived (yay cheap one day shipping with Amazon Prime!) so I'll get to work on recapping weekend projects soon!