Feathering Our Nest (July 16)

When we moved here 20 months ago, I thought I could live indefinitely without all the furniture that we left in the old house to stage it.  Apparently, I couldn't.  Recently it really began to get me down not having a couch or rug and using a mish-mash of mis-matched chairs lined up in front of the TV--which sits in all its ugly glory on a bargain table (since I got tired of it sitting on the floor six months ago!)

Our beautiful TV-hiding armoire is still in the old house and will be for some time to come, but we finally have a living room!  And what a difference it makes!  Just having a couch, with the formerly mis-matched chairs meaningfully arranged around a new rug, creates a restful ambience that was missing before.

Last Saturday, Kara spent the day with me tromping from store to store all the way from Tennessee to Alabama, doing the "groundwork" which Herb hates doing.  We came up with this unusual French style leather couch that we found for less than half price at my favorite furniture store, The Furniture Shoppe in Chattanooga.  At The Rug Rack, also in Chattanooga, we found several rugs so beautiful and different that we couldn't decide between them.  It was time to bring Herb in and get his opinion.

He immediately loved the couch, but the rug decision was harder, until The Rug Rack owners suggested we bring our two favorites home for a 72-hour trial period.

After sponsoring a Facebook "contest" for our friends to help us decide between the two rugs, the arrival of the couch and Kara's artistic insights made the choice clear, and this new Pakistani Chobi is now the center of our living room.  Even the striped chair at right, which I thought I would kick out of the living room, finally belongs.  And when the old house finally sells, Herb's French-style leather club chair will find a home just about where I'm standing.

So thanks to Kara for her inestimable help, to Herb for actually enjoying the process--and writing the checks(!), and to all of our friends who voted on Facebook, this mother hen is contentedly clucking in her newly feathered nest!

For any of our local friends who are furniture or rug shopping, we highly recommend both of these merchants.
http://www.thefurnitureshoppe.net/  Both chairs flanking the couch came from here, too.  They will actually come to your house and help you with complimentary decorator's advice.  They are not like many of the discount furniture places where you are pressured and followed around, but you can find high quality furniture at really good prices on sale.
http://www.therugrack.com/  We were leaning toward buying the more expensive of the two rugs when Mrs. Thompson suggested we take them both home for 72 hours because often the light at home changes which rug you think you like.  We might well have ended up buying the less expensive rug, but they cared more that we find the RIGHT one for us!  That is service you just don't find any more these days!