At The End of My Rainbow: New Living Room Furniture

I know I haven't posted in a few days, and for that I am sorry. Its been a crazy past few days. (Let me tell you, working 12 hours and driving an hour each way to and from work on an hour's sleep- NOT fun. I seriously came home and unintentionally slept for almost 17 hours.) BUT I am (hopefully) back to normal now, at least as much as possible!

I think my lamp may have to be put on the back burner as being the very first project I do (aside from the one I have in the works that will be completely FREE). Every piece of (sitting) furniture in my living room is crap. Broken. Or just wholly uncomfortable. (Ok, let me clarify that any of these are fine if you just want to SIT. But I am a creature of comfort, I like to lounge, or recline, or lay. Plus I have an undiagnosed bruised tailbone, or something that makes it wholly uncomfortable to sit for more than a minute or two, along with a bad back from 8+ years of working in nursing. Yes, I bought a donut pillow, but I haven't had it long enough to tell if its helping.)

First off, there is the recliner that was given to us by my in-laws when they got new stuff. It was functional at the time, fast forward to more than a year later and when you recline it you end up lopsided because the arm is broken in half (or so Jess tells me, I haven't bothered to flip it up and really get into the details. But she tells me its beyond repair). And then there is the HALF of a (faux?) leather sectional that we got free when it was abandoned in an apartment (benefit of being the office manager's daughters!). We actually got the whole set, but we couldn't fit it all in our small living room and still keep the recliner. And Jess refused to give up her beloved recliner. So we gave the sofa side of it to our sister who had recently found herself with a huge almost empty living room. We kept the loveseat and the middle piece. If you don't want to sit in the dysfunctional recliner, then you have to sit on some part of the sectional. There is the middle piece, on which I have to contort into crazy twisted positions to be comfortable, which in turn kills my back. (I know, I know, I'm too young to be falling apart like this!) The end piece used to recline, but something is wrong with the metal support that should pop out the footrest. I have no idea what's wrong with it. I know Jess tried to fix it, to no avail.

So here I go, scouring Craigslist like I always do, hoping like hell I'll get lucky really soon. (I almost got a GORGEOUS chocolate-brown chaise the other day, the guy had listed it for free! He said he'd just bought new a few months before for a couple hundred bucks. I spotted it about an hour after he posted it, and emailed him immediately. He told me that people were already offering him over $100 for it. So I politely conceded to them, secretly hoping he'd decide to give it to me anyway for being so sweet, but of course he didn't. Sad face here.) And if I end up getting something really hideous (as long as its functional, I don't care at this point) I'll have to suffer with a blanket covering it until I can afford a decent slipcover, because re-upholstering a loveseat or recliner is still a bit out of my skill range.

Until then, I'm dreaming.

I'm not entirely crazy about leather or faux leather, but you have to admit this set is beautiful. Clean, simple lines, a bit of curve to it... Just my style.