my dream couch

Hopefully I am moving out of my parent's home with my boyfriend within a couple of months.

I may eventually blog about finances, savings, things like that but this post is about my dream couch!

My boyfriend and I have been looking around stores like The Room Place, Value City Furniture, Ashley's, Ikea, Macy's Furniture, etc and we'd gone to soo many and NOTHING struck me. Sure there were couches that would have been acceptable. An okay design, a nice black, or other generic color. But nothing made me go "OMG THIS ONE" until we walked into Value City Furniture and right by the entrance we saw this:

I love the look of leather couches, but have had multiple people tell me they don't last well. That they wear out, stretch out, cave in, and damage can't be fixed. So I resigned myself to accepting a fabric couch, until we found this. It passes my boyfriend's comfort test and he likes the fabric cushions and I am just in love with the leather look and "nailhead trim" as they call it.

It IS a really nice completely black leather looking material, my camera phone just isn't the greatest. Here are photos from the website:

In the store, I even saw a bit of a greenish-hue (that I liked) on the cushions but that may be because of the lighting. I think they look more brown in these photos than they looked in person. It was more grayish in person. I'm not in love with the fabric, but I just love the frame so much I can accept the cushions. I even wonder if we get this couch and keep it for a very long time, if we could replace the cushions if we found something that fits or could get something made. They're not attached at all and easily are removed.

We're not in love with the pillows but we may keep them I think just depending on how we feel like they fit our living room. They come with the couch so there's no way to not purchase them. I've thought about replacing them with green or black pillows maybe.

Ideally, we want a 'sectional,' basically a big corner couch. We hope to have friends over a lot, right now my social circle has problems with hanging out because we all either live with our parents or in very tiny places not good for entertaining. I hope for a place with a living room that can fit this huge couch:

 This is actually the brown version, the leather is brown, the cushions are brown, and I think the studs were gold/brass rather than silver. The cushion you see in the lower left corner is from the black version we want. So you can see the color difference.

I'm 100% committed to buying the black/gray version- but we need to find a place first to make sure we can fit it.

I'm just glad I finally found something I LOVE and know if we buy it, I will feel really happy in my living room.... we just need our apartment first!

my dream curtains

"Fancy-ish" curtains are another thing on my list of items I really really want in my new place. I am soo sick of blinds and boring window coverings. The boyfriend and I have agreed on black curtains, and surprisingly there are PLENTY available in any store that sells curtains. I thought it would be hard to find, but many curtains have a black option and stores carry a sample so its really nice to be able to see it in person.

We found really nice subtly patterned ones at JC Penney that I think are my goal to get, I just couldn't get a good photo and they don't have the black version pictured online.

Our main problem though is we either want a 'window curtain' or 'waterfall valance' in a rich green color. However, this color seems to not exist in window treatments! So much googling and looking in stores has resulted in nothing.

Here's some TERRIBLE crude color changing photoshops I did - I know they suck, but they were done just for something to help me visually in my curtain search.

This is the green we can't find anywhere! These are curtain scarves, and this is what I prefer visually. I also want to be able to tie the curtains back like in the photo on the right.

I like the set up here too, the double scarf fold/loops and curtain to the side but I don't think you could do that with heavy curtains. We want light blocking opaque black. But the green I think would look nice in sheer like in the first photo.

Last, here is a "valance" which is what I see used in most homes. Usually people have the cut straight across country-look (IMO) valance which I'm sick of too... this is called a waterfall valance and I like it, but I prefer a window scarf because those drop down to the sides and seem more loose and airy.

I also love the texture on these curtains, I'm hoping the JC Penney ones I want end up looking similar to this.

I just can't believe no one sells any window treatment that color green. I don't think its that weird of a color. Something has to exist somewhere...

I've had friends tell me we could try to dye white curtains a deep green - but I just worry whatever material the curtains are made out of may not soak up the green enough. I've read synthetic materials are really hard to dye. I also have no sewing skills and am not sure where we could find someone to sew us a curtain scarf or valance. Here's to crossing my fingers and hoping I figure something out by the time we move.

Home Decor - Design Toscano

Somewhere, years ago I saw this table and I fell in love with it. Current price is $300 and I can't remember how much it actually was back when I found it, but I remember thinking it was "crazy expensive," by now though the price doesn't seem so unattainable when you go shopping for furniture and see how good quality things are in the hundreds/over a thousand! So I'm pretty sure this will be one of my big purchases once I move out.

So this table had me discover Design Toscano here http://www.designtoscano.com/ and I've drooled over their website and have been waiting until I can move out to buy up some of their items. Here's a few more items I love:

I doubt I'll ever buy ALL of these, but the table and the light sconce are things that are top goals...

Aaaand this is a fun item:

 But I think I would only get it if it actually matched the rest of the bathroom. I think that needs to be the difference between a tacky/gaudy/LOOK AT ALL MY RANDOM STUFF type of home versus something actually adult and put together. I want my dragon furniture to actually match the room its in (I already have a shelf full of dragon figurines) so I envision the dragons in the living room, having dark fantasy/dungeon theme/decor but in the bathroom I really have no idea what it will end up looking like.

I want it to match- the cups, soap holder, shower curtain, whatever else so sadly this little dragon probably won't fit... unless maybe the bathroom has green it and no other objects that clash... but being on a budget I have a feeling the bathroom will be the last place we'll care to decorate or paint so I'll probably have to work with whatever colors it already is.