Put a rug on it; now with better pictures!

You guys know my dog, right?

Silly me, did I say dog?  I meant horse.

*Who are you calling a horse?  I'm a teeny cuddly lap dog.*

Sure Maya, keep telling yourself that.  

And I'm still 29.

Maya and I have had our ups and downs, but for better or worse she's a part of our family.  We've come a long way together and after I outed myself, there was really no going back.  Maya is a very good dog, but she's still a dog.  I still hate picking up her poop, and I still very much hate all the dog hair that I have to vaccuum just about every other day.  I'm also not the hugest fan of her stink.  No matter how often you bathe your dog, they just have a smell.  It's not so much the fur as it is the dander and I hate it.  Which brings me to our latest decorating foray.

As long as we have Maya in our lives, we will have hardwood floors.  Carpet grosses me out anyway, but smelly dog carpet is the absolute worst.  Therefore it's all area rugs, all the time in this house.

This was our old rug.  We got it from Overstock about two years ago and it fit perfectly in our old house.  We had lots of light, so the muted colors were a nice balance.  However, our new house doesn't have as much light so the living room looked kind of dark and depressing.  Additionally, the rug was Maya's hangout spot and much like our old sofa, it stunk.  I regularly vaccuumed it, Febrezed it, sprinkled baking soda, but it didn't eliminate the doggie smell.  It was gross and I'm always paranoid about my house smelling like dog.

I'd been saying for months that I wanted a new rug to brighten the living room and because I couldn't get the stink out of the old one but Drew wasn't sold.  We actually bicker over it all the time:  The man can smell the slightest hint of oak or berries or what-the-hell-ever in a glass of wine, but can't smell 110-pound dog stink.  I'm always like "HOW can you not smell that?!  Are you nuts!?" 

Dog?  What dog?

All I detect is a hint of blackberries soaked in lavender,

 then sun-dried near a field of strawberries with a slight

oak-y texture and a buttery finish that lingers

with a whiff of licorice. 

One beautiful day, he relented and faster than he could change his mind, I ordered a new rug.  Now, rugs in our house have a shelf life of about two years, so I don't spend a lot of money on them.  I wish I could find a decent looking large rug for $100, but that's pretty much impossible.  So I try to keep it under $300, which is still more than I want to spend for something that's going to get thrown out in a relatively short amount of time.  The waste hurts my feelings but even professional cleaning doesn't get the stink out.

So far, we've gotten most of our rugs from Overstock, with the exception of the rug in Sofia's room, which came from Ikea.  That one is the next to go - we've had it cleaned twice and the shag just holds that dog smell.  It drives me nuts when Sofia rolls around on it and I hate getting on the floor to play with her because if I turn my nose in that direction, the dog smell assaults my poor nostrils.  But changing Sofia's room will have to be another post, because we've done some switching around in there too.

I finally got the fancy camera to work.

It might help to change the camera battery when it's dead.

This bad boy came from Rugs USA and I'm super happy with it. The navy is really rich and the stencil part is a soft cream that doesn't smack you in the face.  The bold pattern really changes the look of the living room too, which of course meant that we needed new pillows for the sofa.  Of course. 

 I raided Target's pillow section and came home with a little 

Nate Berkus bling.  The subtle chevron pattern echoes the pattern in our yellow pouf ottoman thing.  It's like I did it on purpose.  Which I absolutely did not - I just liked the sparklies.

It also pairs nicely with my sofa, which is now stained beyond belief.

I will never again buy a velvet sofa - they are not at all kid-friendly.

If I could do it again, I'd get something slipcovered but you live and learn, right?
The others are randoms that I thought might look good on the sofa.

The buffet also got an upgrade, of sorts.

Drew got a pretty major promotion at work and the new TV was his congratulations

gift to himself.  The damn thing can practically read your mind; it's kinda creepy

but I do appreciate being able to sit anywhere on the sofa and see it.

With the old TV, you could only sit in one spot to have a good view.

Oh, and how about the zig-zag ottoman?  Cute, right?

My girlfriend Shunta was getting rid of it because it was too big for what she wanted

and I was all, NO!  Sell it to me!

Sofia loves it, and it was originally for the basement playroom but Drew

loved it too so it lives upstairs now.

Also, the mirrored buffet is a complete hit.
Sofia loves to watch herself make faces and dance around.
Yeah, she puts her hands on it and it gets smudged, but it's no big deal to clean it.
Sometimes I can even get her to clean it, so it's all good.

We still have a super long way to go towards being able to say any room but the kitchen is 'done' but getting a new, non-stinky rug was a major win.  Now if we can just get the balls to pull the trigger on that brown chair and ottoman and get it reupholstered.

Our chair could look like this and I would sit in it 

every day and tell it how beautiful it was and how much I loved it.

I wouldn't even care that it's too big for the room.

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Because really, doesn't she look so pained to have to be laying on 
such an unfortunate looking ottoman?
Also, you get an idea of how big they both are if 
my 110-pound dog can sort of sprawl on it.

I'm kind of feeling like the front door needs to be painted too.
I'm thinking some shade of blue?

Unfortunately, reupholstering the chair is kind of low on the list as we have also rearranged all three bedrooms in preparation for The Situation.  PS, I really didn't think that name all the way through, as I am NOT okay with referring to it as Snooki should it turn out to be a girl.  I'm going to have to come up with something else.

Anyway, I'll show y'all the bedrooms next because I think you might be pleasantly surprised with what we've done - I know I was.

OH!  Do y'all know where I can get some more pillows for cheap?  I feel like I need more pillows on the sofa but I've maxed out Target's selection and I'm sure as hell not paying $80 for a throw pillow like I see on Joss and Main all the time.  Or do I even need more pillows?  I'm not sure.

Also, I'm still obsessed over what to do with the TV wall.  Do I do a shelf over it like Young House Love did?

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Or do I do pictures around it?

I love this picture - the symmetry soothes me.

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Refreshing things around the house always makes me happy and it has done a lot for my mental health to be able to feather our nest.  It makes me feel safe and secure and besides, who doesn't love to play with pretty things?

OH!  One more thing!  Would you leave your Pinterest URL in the comments for me?  I'm scouring for house ideas and I'd love to see what you guys think is pretty.  

Thank you!