Wood cedar chest

Tags

antique, cedar chest, estate sale, furniture, wood chest

I am a big fan of estate sales and was very excited to see the signs for one just a few houses down from our house. Our neighbor recently sold his house; he is a nice man who has lived in the neighborhood for 40+ but decided to downsize to a condo and needs to sell a lot of his things. We were able to sit and chat with him for a little bit and heard many interesting stories of his time living in the neighborhood. I could tell from his stories that he has collected neat things over the years.

We walked into the house and immediately saw intriguing, older pieces that I loved. I really enjoy older furniture. Furniture used to be made from real wood, with intricate details, that were built to last decades. Nowadays, furniture just does not seem to have the same quality. I was drawn to an old wooden chest that I saw in the corner of a room. It has beautiful detail on the outside and the interior was made of cedar. I learned it was made in 1910, a piece that his family kept over the years. Since he knew us, he was really generous with negotiations and we were able to buy the chest for much less than some ikea furniture.

It was a little difficult to carry and walk it back to our house, but it made it in one piece! After some cleaning, we found a nice little spot for it in the living room.

One of the things that I am enjoying the most about owning our first house is finding really unique pieces for each of the rooms. We aren’t buying furniture just to fill up space, but rather we are finding something that has a story or a little more meaning. It really makes our house feel more like a home!

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New living room set up

Tags

furniture, living room, loveseat, ottoman, sofa

The living room is now officially set up and functional. I was so excited when all of the new pieces arrived and I could put it together. When I first moved to Atlanta 5 years ago, I took my parent’s old sofa and loveseat. I never wanted to buy anything new since 1) I couldn’t afford it and 2) I wanted to wait until I had a more permanent space to work with. Well, I don’t think I have much more money than before but I finally have a permanent space and I think the old couches eventually lost cushion support.

Living room before:

Living room after:

I really wanted to stick with neutral earth tones and I really like the way it turned out! The ottoman even has storage drawers so I can hide any mess. The couches are really deep. Eric likes to enjoy an afternoon nap on them (if he can ever squeeze in a nap). Sura LOVES the new rug! I think it might be the different textures but sometimes I catch her just rolling around happy on the rug. Yay, another room settled for now 🙂

Sunroom

Tags

furniture, patio, sunroom

This past weekend was an ultimate fail in regards to working out and diet (otherwise it was a really fun weekend). I will get into that later. But for now,  I decided to focus on the house since I see a little more progress in that area of life right now.

One of my favorite features when we purchased this house is the enclosed sun-room. I just imagined spending mornings with tea out in this room, watching the sun come up, enjoying the outdoors with the option of enclosing the space given the weather. The windows are really big, bright, and they are screened to keep the crazy Atlanta bugs out! I had been researching wicker furniture to put in the room. This turned out to be difficult. I am realizing that I am super picky with house related items and have a hard time committing to large house expenses. I was excited when I finally found a set that I liked and was in our price range!

A few days ago, all the pieces arrived and handyman Eric was excited for another project…assembling and building up the pieces. Seriously, he really was excited. I’m so lucky 🙂

With all the furniture up, we decided to use it for the first time and it was great. After a long day, we sat out in the sun-room, with Sura, and enjoyed the quiet sunset on our comfy furniture. Slowly, it is starting to feel like home.

(Before)

(After)

Dining room table

Tags

chair covers, chairs, dining room, furniture, table, world market

I like to think there are different stages of furniture owning, especially depending on your age. When I was in college, I had dorm furniture and random cheap plastic containers that I liked to use as furniture. Finally, I moved to start graduate school and my furniture slightly improved to include IKEA pieces and stuff my parents were tossing to get their own new furniture. I still have all of this furniture, mostly because I refused to buy anything while I was still renting.

A few months ago we acquired a wooden (real wood) dining room table and chairs from another couple that was moving. They are much further in their careers and deemed this furniture unusable for their purposes (they are a few furniture stages ahead of me). So I gladly took the table and chairs. The chairs do not all match but I think that makes the set kinda fun. After tightening some screws and giving it a nice cleaning, we have an awesome (and free) dining room table! The only issue is it isn’t exactly the most comfortable thing after sitting for long periods of time.

So my next home task was to get chair cushions. I considered making them but I am not very skilled in crafts, and I realized I do not own a sewing machine! So I went to world market and decided to get solid and patterned cushions to embrace our different styled chairs.

Thanks to the other couple, world market, and some tools/cleaning supplies, I now have a great-sized wooden dining room table and 6 comfy chairs all for under $100!

I would have taken a picture of the table but Eric decided he was going to bury the table in all of his paperwork…

Pickers

Tags

alabama, furniture, pickers

A show that we like watching at home after work is American Pickers on the History channel. They drive around the country buying random stuff  that can be fixed and sold again. They usually come across some pretty unique items that originally look like junk but can be turned into something worth selling.

During our trip to AL, we visited a neighboring town called Prattville. It was pretty small with not too much there. We ended up visiting a giant warehouse building called Prattville Pickers. Basically you can rent a space inside and people sell any item they have found or made. It was like the Pickers show…but all in one spot!

It took quite a while to browse everything. There were a few unique pieces and old furniture. Many of it is affordable since it needs some work but mostly functional.

I saw really cool coffee tables and cabinets but that will have to wait until I have a house that I can fit everything in. I will definitely come back once we buy a house! This was definitely a cool place right outside Montgomery, AL.