Hubby and I are by no means impulse shoppers. My bonus mom once took me purse-shopping and it took me eight hours to decide I would buy the first purse I had seen.
Hubby and I work hard for our money and we want to spend it well; we want to make purchases without emotion, with practicality and intentionality.
But instead on Saturday we walked into West Elm on a whim and bought a settee.
“Can we pop into West Elm?” I asked as we walked to Whole Foods to pick up some trail mix. Yes, trail mix, we are white people who live in Seattle and eat trail mix. Am I a Walking Stereotype? Possibly. We once bought an entire giant bulk bag of rolled oats. That’s when I realized we are officially Granola Eaters.
Anyway, back to West Elm. We walked in, just because I wanted to look at pretty things. Then we saw a blue settee. That was tufted. And small enough to fit comfortably in our small living room. And pretty. Did I mention it was pretty?
This is the West Elm photo of it, not our own home. Someday our home pics will look that good.
Okay, I’ll back up and admit that we weren’t that impulsive. For months we’ve been talking about what size our next couch should be, and whether it should be a sectional, and I have all these Pinterest pins of tufted couches, and there was a sale and it was ending the next day, and we had the money in our Rainy Day fund.
Is a settee really a “Rainy Day” expense? No. But what is our savings for, if not for jumping on a good opportunity?
So we looked at each other and “conversed.” The “conversing” went like this:
ME: Should we get it?
HUBBY: Yes.
It was an unconventional choice, it’s smaller than our old couch, which means hubby can’t nap on it, but he gets a bad back even on our bigger couch anyway.
Its smaller size gives us a little more room in our small tiny living room.
Also, did I mention that it is the most beautiful shade of blue?
I love, absolutely love the color.
I’m all in a blue tizzy right now.
(Hm, “Blue Tizzy” would be a good name for a label or a collection. Or a band.)
After we bought the settee, which won’t come for awhile but still,
I got excited and started cleaning our condo.
I proceeded to clean for the entire three-day Labor Day weekend.
I was on a roll, I was on FIRE.
I moved furniture, thought outside the box, made the invisible visible, purged a few things, brought our collections out into the open.
I’ll talk more about this whole decor process at some point,
because I learned a lot about home decor as I was experimenting, and subsequently re-arranged a friend’s entire apartment as well.
But in the meantime, just feast your eyes upon that beautiful couch.
I spent $5 on FabricWorm to purchase a fat quarter of Charley Harper cotton, enough to make two napkins.
That’s all I wanted.
Just two.
I plan to have a whole set of non-matching but coordinated napkins.
Blue, to go with the new home decor color scheme.
And a dash of mustard yellow to make the blue pop, because even though my decor is going to embrace Seattle’s stormy weather (why fight it?),
we do get a bit of lovely sunshine around here.
I shot this photo with the blue chairs I re-upholstered, so you can see the two working together.
A long time ago, I was talking about home decor with my stepmom.
I was telling her I had always wanted a bottle of Savon de Marseille soap in our bathroom, because I like the packaging. I told her I was waiting until we remodeled our bathroom before I treated myself to the soap.
“Why not get a bottle now?” she asked. “It will constantly remind you of the look you’re going for, and in the meantime it’ll give you pleasure every time you use it.”
I’ve slowly come around to her way of thinking.
Why does my whole home have to be planned out before I make napkins?
Sure, maybe the rest of my home doesn’t match the napkins yet,
but at least I’m one tiny step closer to the look I want.
It’s like making a declaration: This is the direction I’m moving in.
One of the things I love about purchasing a new home decor item is that once you’ve figured out a place for it, it usually causes a chain reaction of other tweaks to your home.
That’s what happened when I purchased our chinoiserie lamp.
I put it in the living room, and then was able to take the lamp that used to be in there and put it in the hallway, on a dresser.
Before, our hallway was impossibly dark.
So purchasing a lamp improves not one, but two corners of our home.
Of course I’d love to put all our money towards the home and do BIG changes and overhaul everything and make it instantly gorgeous,
but instead I’m saving for NYFA.
We make choices with our money based on what we value.
What do my money choices say about me?
That I value education and sewing just a little bit more than home decor.
I’ll be patient, make small changes in the home here and there,
until my certificate program is done and we can spend more on the home.
In the meantime, I’m quite happy with evolution, rather than revolution.
What choices do you make with your finances?
What do your finances say about what you value?
Have you had to be patient with some things,
in order to acquire something more important?
CUP AND PENNY 