Home Style

Today, I'm leaving the clothing style to the rest and I'm talking about home decor--it's style, too! We built our house five years ago. I love our house, but we were very young and we didn't have the extra cash to really decorate quite the way I would have liked. We used our extra money for longer-lasting things like wood-wrapping all of the windows, putting ceramic tile in the kitchen and bathrooms (instead of linoleum like the builder used), adding a large window to the half-sunken basement knowing we would finish it someday (which we are in the process of doing now), adding a large pantry to the kitchen. You see, we spent money on things that would last the life of the home. So that left very little for things like nice carpet, hard wood, fancy door fixtures, stylish bathroom vanities, etc... As a result, we have the cheap-ass crappy carpet that our builder uses on all of his builds. I hate it! I hated it from the day it was installed. But now that we have been walking on it and living on it for five years, I really hate it! It's not so bad upstairs because we aren't up there quite as much and guests are never up there. But in our living room and our master bedroom, it's just awful. It's almost white (!*%#!*%@) and it just doesn't wear well at all. Plus they didn't put any stripping down where the carpet meets the kitchen tile, so our cats have ruined the transitions. We are currently saving our money to put bamboo flooring in the living room and master bedroom. Unfortunately, that comes after we finish the rest of the basement!

In an effort to curb my hatred of the carpet, we put an area rug in the living room. I don't love an area rug on carpet, but my friend spilled buffalo chicken sauce on the white carpet and that shit does not come up, so I went with the hub's suggestion of a $15 Ikea area rug. It looked decent, but after being there for about three years, it doesn't look so nice anymore.

See exhibit A to the left. I decided I couldn't live with it anymore... It's possible that decision came after I spilled my Vertical Rush nail polish on it. If you look hard enough, you can see a streak of bright burgundy polish right up the middle of the rug, just to the right of the candle on the table. Shhhh, don't tell hubby, m'kay, thanks. He's on a business trip, so the timing was perfect to blow off half a day from work, grab my mom and head out on an Ikea pilgrimage. The rug was getting old and worn and the cats had picked at it a little here and there. It had a run in it that I filled in with a dark brown furniture marker. It needed to be replaced. And knowing Ikea as I do, I knew I could find another great rug for a similar price. Truthfully, a $15 rug lasting nearly three years, that's a pretty good value in my opinion.

Ikea was a success. I found a fabulous new rug for just $20. It was grey, so I decided to get new throw pillows to tie it all together. It was not going to match my current pillows. I ended up going with throw pillow covers, they were significantly cheaper than actual pillows ($10 for a pair of covers) and i was able to simply stuff my old pillows inside.

See exhibit B to the right. Complete with cat, of course. The rug is still rolling up on the one end because of being rolled for so long, but I think it's clear that it looks SO much better. So for just $40, I totally reinvented the look and style of my living room.

What would you reinvent in your home with fewer than $50?