This Is This Week

It all started with a couch…

My mom gave me her gently used sectional this past week because she was preparing to get a new couch and she absolutely could not have two couches in her house at once.

The couch is in really great shape, but I have some minor improvements planned to bring it back to almost new condition.

Minor issues: some of the cushions were a little deflated and saggy from frequent use. Plus, the fabric had gotten a little “pilly.” Is that a word? You know that texture that fabric gets when it has tiny little balls of fabric? That’s what it had. And it had way too many throw pillows for my three children to beat each other with.

My solutions?

1. Destuff the throw pillows and use the filling to fluff up the back cushions.
2. Add 2″ foam to the seat cushions that need a boost.
3. Buy an inexpensive fabric shaver and treat my couch to a barbershop-worthy shave.

I’ll be sure to post the end results later so you can see how my TLC helped the couch.

On a slightly related note, a week after getting the “new-to-me” sectional, Robyn and I decided to completely rearrange my living room on a whim.

There’s a back story here.

The back story.

I found a whole array of amazing plants on clearance at my local Lowe’s recently and went overboard buying all the green things.

But then my cat ate one; it just gnawed on the ends of several leaves on one of the snake plants, and apparently this is one of the houseplants that are toxic to cats.

We discovered that the plant was making the cat sick because Robyn and her kids were over and her six-year-old randomly announced that there was cat puke next to where they were playing “family.” When asked where they were playing family, 6 replied, “Next to the litter box in this cardboard box.”

So of course Robyn had to ask, “So your family lives in a cardboard box?”

I think they missed the humor in this.

But I digress. So the cat ate the plant and got sick and Robyn told me I needed to move my plants up high. And I looked around my house and said, “Up high where?”

So we decided to rearrange everything.

Rearranging the furniture

We started out by turning the couch around to create a more defined living area and separate the entryway from the rest of this large open living space.

We then had to flip the entertainment center to the opposite wall so that it would work with the new couch layout. I expected this to be a bigger undertaking….

See, the entertainment unit is really large and heavy, so when we first got it, my husband, J, said he needed to bolt it to the wall. Robyn and I weren’t sure we could even move it, but we decided to investigate anyway.

I went hunting for screwdrivers to remove the hardware attaching the unit to the wall, came back with three different size screwdrivers…and then discovered that it was just zip tied to the wall.

I wish I had taken a picture of this contraption.

Snip, snip. All it took was a pair of scissors and presto!

We flipped the entertainment unit to the shiplapped wall and then flipped the IKEA Kallax unit that I had been using as a vertical shoe tower horizontally so that it became an entryway bench!

Eventually, I’ll add shelves to the wall above the new, repurposed shoe bench and be able to move all the plants and create a plant wall.

The end result

So to recap, we rearranged my entire living room and entryway in an effort to protect the cats from the deadly houseplants.

And ended up with the couch in a position where the cats could still jump up and eat the plants. #facepalm

But my living room is now beautiful and because my couch isn’t against a wall, I look rich. At least according to the YouTube interior design vlogger, Kristen McGowan.

Plus, I have been inspired to complete an entirely new home improvement project! On my newly open wall, I’m planning to wallpaper before I mount the plant shelves to add interest and create a true accent wall. I’m still selecting the wallpaper and shelves.

I’ll be sure to update you when I finish my plant wall, and in the meantime, I’ll be keeping the cats far away from the living room!

I’d love to hear from you. What accidental house projects have you stumbled into?