party central.

Well well well, look who has a couch, THESE GUYS!

Please ignore that rug. It's not staying. I just like having A rug in here until I pick colors.

So I would like to make some throw pillows and curtains. But I have NOOO idea what I want to do with this grey couch. I mean, yeah I have an idea. Yellow. Obviously I love yellow and grey. But I feel like I'd be overdoing it with the yellow and grey combo. Even the bathroom in this house came in yellow and grey tile. Serendipitous.

I'm not a pink person, but I feel like some pink pillows would be fun (like a blush). I DON'T KNOW. I'm lost here. Help. Help me please. I'm serious, help.

Anyway not much has happened since the couch story so here is some stuff.

Is it so wrong that maybe deep down the driving force behind choosing to live in this house was because I wanted to have a fireplace mantle at Christmas time?

I can't stop daydreaming about how pretty my Christmas tree is gonna be in that corner.  This is the first year in a long time that I have been really excited for Christmas time. I guess it's just aided by having my own little family and our own place.

We got our couch on Friday night and it had CAT HAIR ALL OVER IT. I was kinda hoping they would TRY to clean it off before they handed it over, but they didn't. I have never hated and resented cats more than I did when I tried everything to clean it off. Not only are we both allergic to cats, but I did NOT like looking at it, and getting it all over our clothes. Plus, I didn't want anyone to think that Lux sheds. CAUSE SHE DOESN'T. Anyway, the point to this story is that on Saturday morning we decided to go buy some giant lint rollers to try and get the remaining hair off of the couch. So, on the way to Target we saw a sign for a garage sale down the street and decided to see if we could find any treasures like, rugs, desk chairs or a china hutch for our dining room.

Well, we did find some treasures, just none of the things I just listed.

This vintage suitcase set.

Taylor saw them from the street and knew that he wanted them. "Can I get them?!" He asked me. Yes, I allowed him to spend the money that he worked for on this dope suitcase set. ;) My favorite part of this set is the little make up/vanity case, which Taylor so graciously gave me full use of.

A little mirror and everything! Isn't it awesome?

It was at this point that I believe Tay began to turn into a Garage Sale addict. He wanted to find more and look for more THINGS. We stopped at one other and had no luck, it was pretty picked over, as it was pretty late in the afternoon already. Maybe next Saturday though...

Hmm, let's seeee what else? Oh, we got a TV. It's on it's way to us. I didn't want to have to search for a TV stand on top of everything else so I was just trying to get creative and find something we already had or something cheap. and that's when I thought, HEY how about that Ikea bookshelf? and I think it's actually gonna work out pretty good:

Ha, that's not our TV though, that's just Tay's desktop screen which is our TV screen substitute for now.

Also, you probably don't remember but we (mostly Taylor) like to refer to things as "party central" like that time we were at Cardiff Bay in Wales. and there was also this house (which I haven't blogged about)  that we would drive by all the time when we were in Oxford and they had a bunch of Christmas lights hung up flashing all the time that we could see through the window and we referred to that place also, as party central.

So anyway, as I was meandering through hell (aka WalMart) trying to find cheap plastic drawers. I found this doormat for 2 bucks and HAD to get it because I knew it would make Tay smile when he came home from work.

ISN'T IT AWESOME?

Okay I need some suggestions for color combos... aaaaand GO!

The Couch Story aka My 1st REAL Redneck Experience

Just to clear the air before we get started, this is NOT the couch that we are picking up today.

This is a story all about how our life got flipped, turned up side down.......... For a couple of hours.

So as I said, I was in --what felt like, a never-ending search for a grey couch.  So you can imagine my delight and excitement when I saw a grey sectional posted on Craigslist on Sunday night. Normally I skip over the listings without pictures, but I had to see it. So Taylor called and the guy emailed the pictures to me.

Sometimes I have to consciously make an effort not to be a photo snob, because I've been spoiled by Tay's DSLR. But these pictures were taken on a cell phone and they were pretty bad. Anyway, no matter, I was still all amped up about it being grey. So Taylor asked the guy where he lived, "near Hinesville" he said. Which is about, 45 min -1 hr away. Which is where they have a lot of trailer parks. And I said to Taylor, "Oh, he probably lives in a trailer park." To which Taylor replied "No, he said he has the couch in his shed. People who live in trailers don't have sheds." And he is more of the trailer park expert so I listened. Anyway, we made plans to go see the couch Monday evening after Taylor got off of work.

[The guy posted the couch, again (for about the 4th time) and this time with the *high quality* pictures along with it. So this isn't the listing that I initially saw, but I thought I would screen shot it for visual aid purposes.]

Okay, let us pause and analyze for just a moment, so the couch here is listed as a REMBRANDT sofa. Go Google Rembrandt couch and see what comes up. Go ahead. I'll wait. Okay, see how there is nothing?? So I knew from the start that couldn't be right, I knew that Rembrandt makes teeth whitening products, and I was pretty sure they hadn't ventured into the furniture business. But anyway, more on that in a minute...

So the guy gave us his address and we put it in the GPS to see how long it would really take us to get there. Remember that he said he lived near Hinesville. Let me show you where Hinesville is in comparison to Savannah (where we are):

So, it is quite a drive, but worth it for a grey couch for me. So we go ahead and put the address his gave us in the GPS, and this is where he actually lived:

As you can see, the B marker is where Hinesville is, and the C marker is where he lived, outside of a [horrendous smelling] town called Jesup.  Just so we're clear, that is almost TWICE as long of a drive as the drive to Hinesville. So I was starting to feel like maybe the couch wasn't really worth it.

When I woke up on Monday I kept feeling like I should just forget about the couch. It was too far, and we don't have a truck to get it here so it would probably cost us a buttload and a half just to get it home. And it would have to make a SECOND trip there and it didn't look THAT great. So I had decided we were not going. And then I got a call from Taylor at work, who was trying to figure out a plan to go look at the couch that night after her got off work. "I don't want to go. I don't think it's worth it." Then Tay was like, "Come on, we have to try. You might love it!! and it's a lot cheaper than a brand new one. and if we get this cheaper couch we can get a new mattress."  I told him I didn't care. But after we got off the phone I started to feel guilty, I thought about how I had been acting like a brat all week and maybe it would be the best couch ever. So against my better judgement.... we went.

So we're driving along and Taylor is tired so he's boring and Lux isn't doing anything particularly exciting so I just started yelling things and laughing about how stupid we were for driving almost two hours to go look at some redneck's old couch, that he bought used from Craigslist.

FINALLY, we get there. And it's dark and as we pull up we can see that they do in fact, live in a trailer. There's a very butchy woman in the kitchen window, and at first I'm not sure if it's a man or a woman. Taylor gives the guy a call to make sure we're at the right place and the guy is at Wal-Mart [of course, a town with only 700 people, still has a Wal-Mart...... ugh.] and says he'll be there in 5 minutes. So we wait in the car.

About 2 minutes later, a truck pulls up. So we get out, and go introduce ourselves to the man who gets out of the truck, who looks like he's 65. As soon as he opened his mouth I could hardly stand myself. I've heard all sorts of southern accents, but his sounded exactly like the way me and Tay talk to eachother in jokey southern accents. I mean EXACTLY. Well it turns out this guy isn't the guy with the couch, but his BFF. So the butchy woman then emerges from the trailer saying "Ya'll come on in here!!!" and we obeyed. We go inside and meet the butchy woman, who is couch guy's mom.There is a toddler sleeping in a car seat by the TV. Upon entering the light I can see that couch guy's BFF is not 65, he is young, in his early twenties. So we sit on the couch (not the couch on craigslist) and wait. Normally, in awkward situations Taylor is very good at chatting with people and diffusing the situation. In this particular instance, Tay was extremely tired and not up for chatting. So I am forced to make conversation WITHOUT laughing in this guys face. I ask him about the town and if he's lived there his whole life, he has, of course. He tells me there is about 700 people in the town. I tell him I grew up in a town with about 2000 to make him feel like I'm on his level, but he is more impressed than anything.

FINALLY, couch guy pulls up and we go out to meet him so we can go look at the couch.....in the shed. Behind his trailer. Couch guy is also, young, and is with his anorexic scraggly smoking girlfriend, who walks by, ignoring us, heading for the house. Which is totally fine by me, I don't think I can handle anymore stereotypes coming to life in front of my eyes at this point. Couch guy is a real nice guy, he is explaining to us how he lives with his mom and his girlfriend just moved in with them so they have a couple of couches to get rid of. He pulls the car up so that we have some light shining on the shed. I think that was when the reality of everything really hit me. It literally took everything out of me to not start LAUGHING. and I MEAN REALLY LAUGHING. There's what looks like 80 couches piled on top of each other in the shed and I see a roach scurry off. They pull out one section and the cushions and we sit on it. It's kind of romantic, sitting outside on part of a sectional, in the light of car headlights, just the two of us, and couch guy and his BFF.

So I know what you're really wondering, how was the COUCH? Well, it wasn't that bad actually. I'm not really sure what fabric it was but I know it wasn't microfiber, or anything that would ever be stain resistant. And the cushions were very obviously sat in and used. But it wasn't the worst couch ever, and I don't think it smelled like pee, sex, or cigarette smoke. Which is always nice.

While they were putting the cushions back I saw the tag with the brand name on the couch which was BERNHARDT. not Rembrandt. But I didn't say anything because I didn't want him to feel like I was patronizing him. If he even knew what that meant. And when Taylor asked him the brand while we were there he seemed so confident. He said "It's Rembrandt. Yep. Rembrandt."  HE SAID IT TWICE.

We tell couch guy we appreciate him showing us the couch and inside I'm thinking, "These guys probably think we are the dumbest idiots, driving 2 hours to LOOK at a couch for 3 minutes." Then I think, "I can't believe I've gotten to this point in my life where I am worried about what people, let alone rednecks are thinking about me." He tells us he's no rush and he'd deliver for us if we pay for gas. He tells us he's not busy but he's in school all day. Then Taylor asks where, and he says the technical college down the road. Couch guy then proceeds to tell us he is graduating in May and can't wait to be done cause he's been there for a year and a half. And if I were Taylor, at that moment I would have been like TRY GOING FOR 6 YEARS!! But he ain't even like that. Anyway, it's not like I can talk, I'm a college drop out.

So then we part ways and spend the entire drive home laughing and I keep yelling,

"THAT JUST HAPPENED!!!"

I like to yell in the car.