For the sake of a rug, the sofa was lost.

For the sake of the sofa the wall was lost.

For the sake of the wall, the curtains were lost….

Recently I found myself caught in the centre of a retail vortex, utterly unable to get out.

A year or so ago, I had my floors done downstairs, and replaced all that cat-piss stinking carpet with beautiful engineered oak, making the downstairs lovely and clean and cosy and inviting. However, having not actually lived in my house much over the last two years, what with being in the Philippines and Iraq, I hadn’t realised how much I would miss the warmth of carpets in the winter!

“That’s easily fixed”, thought I….. “I shall get a nice rug for the living room”.

I began the great online rug hunt, searching for the most perfect, the most fetching, the most reasonably-priced occasional rug that the internet could provide.

Soon I stumbled upon a perfect rug – neutral colours, nice simple pattern, just the right size and a BARGAIN at only £30!

“Ikea, you have done it again!”, thought I. However, just as I was about to click on “purchase”, I spotted the sofabeds in the corner of the page…..

Now, to backtrack slightly, my two inherited sofas, while terribly cosy and well-loved, are becoming somewhat shabby (and shabbier still since the cats decided they prefer it to the scratching post….). They have been in my family forever, (at least 25 years if not longer), and I’m about due for something slightly newer and shinier. Also, I recently stayed with a friend in Edinburgh, who had a new Ikea sofabed, which I had the pleasure of both sitting on and sleeping on, and it was possibly the only sofabed in the world which was comfortable both as a bed and as a sofa…. Also I’ve been wanting to get a proper sofabed for my living room for ages, as it would allow me to have guests come to stay more easily, and so on.

But enough of my excuses, and on with the story at hand!

There I was, poised and ready to purchase a £30 rug, when the very sofabed I had coveted appeared as if by magic, tempting me from the far corners of the webpage. I was forced to click on it of course, and hungrily read all the product specifications, while drooling a little onto my keyboard….

There is was, the Backabro Marieby, all clean and new and in two slightly-different-but-almost-identical shades of beige. It’s L-shaped! It has storage! It converts to a bed with barely a hint of effort! It can have the chaise longue part on whatever side you like! It’s so pretty!

I had to get a tape measure, and was forced to check if it would fit, and it would…. but only if I rearranged all the other furniture in my living room. Which I promptly did.

Once sure that the shiny new sofabed would fit into my living room, and after I had rearranged all the furniture, I thought once more “What a bargain! Only £720!”. For a large sofa AND a double bed, it couldn’t really be a better deal.

But then, as I sat in my newly-arranged space, I noticed the wall, so deep purple, a colour I had adored when I first moved in four years ago. But would it still go with the new beige couch, new beige rug, and new wooden floors? I fear not. And so off to Homebase I went to sample some paints, and browse the colours, sheens, and finishes…. Oh how I love Homebase with it’s aisles and aisles of peculiarly-named colour choices. White Feathered Mushroom? Why not. Dirty Linen? Perhaps not. Happiness? But of course.

But Lo! “How can this story not be over yet?” I hear you cry! Too bad, dear reader, for there is more, and I do love dragging out a good long yarn…

Having settled on a delightful Sage Green, which I am assured by my dear friends is a terribly mature and grown-up colour, and will certainly go beautifully with the new floors, I prepared to click “buy”. But just then, my eyes alighted on my funky purple curtains, purchased specially to go with the aubergine wall! Oh no! This will not do! This will not do at all. And so, as I hope dear reader you will understand, I was forced to undertake a search for new curtains, deep in the retail forest of the interwebs…

Up they came, the perfect ones, the curtains of my dreams, only the best quality, but sadly not the most reasonably priced ones (John Lewis – you pay for class). So they will simply have to go on the wishlist until I have the cash…

During this journey, I realised I simply couldn’t buy a rug until after I had painted the wall, in case the colours didn’t go, and so I found myself crippled and unable to buy a rug until I had completely redecorated the entire room.

I have made a little gallery of pictures to document my living room’s makeover as I go along. And I have obviously been forced to issue a self-imposed ban on all websites involving home decor. Although I did allow myself a pinterest page, as there’s also a lamp I’d really quite like…

March 2016 – Postscript

I feel that in the interest of honesty, I should finish the story….

I finally finished my living room – new sage green wall, new comfy and functional sofabed, gorgeous new curtains, and I had the rug I set out to buy in the first place. However, sadly for some inexplicable reason the cats decided to pee on the rug, and no matter what I scrubbed it with (and believe me, I threw every carpet cleaning product known to man at it!) – the smell only got worse,

So the rug had to go.

Luckily it was only £30, so I didn’t feel too awful about throwing it out, but it did seem ironic that all of this was for the sake of the rug, and in the end the cats rejected the rug!

However my newly-redecorated living room looks stunning, and terribly grown up and mature, so I love it all anyway! 🙂