One of the great and tricky things about a new house is the need for new things.  Some things from the old house just don’t really fit in, while others you didn’t have in the first place.   Most of these things we will accumulate over time (hello budget) but a few items I recently stumbled upon good options for us online for reasonable prices, so I jumped on the opportunity.

The first one is a rug for our dining room.  You may recall in the old house our dining room looked like this:

With that great jute rug that I LOVED.  The problem with it? Lexie couldn’t distinguish it from grass. A couple of times she went to the bathroom on it and the husband and I were able to drag it outside (ps that sucker is HEAVY) power wash it, soap it down and get it relatively clean.  But after doing it another time or two, we determined we couldn’t in good conscience leave it in our house.  And because that is pretty gross, we didn’t feel comfortable selling it or donating it.  So off to the dumpster it went.

Since I LOVE the way that rug looks, and I had saved up a while to buy it… NOT CHEAP, I was pretty upset. But I’ve learned my lesson… no more natural grass rugs in our house until we no longer have a dog. (Which probably means forever… we love you Lexie!)

So we needed a replacement for this new house.

I found this guy on sale for $400 dollars on AllModern.com (link here).  $400 for a 9×12 rug seemed like a really good price (some of the rugs I liked that size were upwards of $700), so I jumped on it!

Its a little bit large for our space, but an 8×10 would be too small to surround our table, so I’m going to have to deal with it.  Also it reads a little blue/lavender in person with our beige walls, but since we are going to be repainting this room I think it will look more gray once we accomplish that.

The other little addition I ordered were bar stools for our newly repainted kitchen island.  I found these guys from Overstock.com (link here) for $114 for a set of two.  I had been thinking about buying two more of these from Target (and they are on sale now! but they weren’t when I was shopping).  We own one that was upstairs as a side table in our study, but now is the permanent seat for the Galaga arcade game we have upstairs.  But these are perfect for our bar, and also add a much needed 4th and 5th chair for our high top table if we need them!

They were super simple to put together, seem pretty sturdy and are remarkably comfortable! I am definitely pleased with them!

So piece by piece this place is starting to feel like ours and definitely getting more done every day!  Reese and I are working on getting everything settled in this house, we were talking yesterday that we have been in this house just a little over 6 weeks (and with holidays and some travel interspersed in there) and considering that, we have gotten a lot accomplished!!

I did this a few weeks ago and posted a few videos that had intrigued me over the week and I saw another one I wanted to share!!  I’ve been thinking of making this a regular thing on Fridays… but since I haven’t finished my original Thursday post, I’m going to postpone it tomorrow… so enjoy this one today!

This girl’s facial expressions are AWESOME. The story is that she is a hearing child of deaf parents who signed the concert for her parents who are deaf.  Such a sweet thought from a kid who clearly has a LOT of personality!

And since we are going with an awesome kid’s performance, you can’t miss this one.  I’ve watched it a few times and still love this girls heart.  I need a lesson from her on enthusiasm while dancing.

And last but certainly not least… this girl LOVES her life.  I think maybe we should all start our mornings like her.  Its an older one… but worth the repeat viewing!!

Have a great weekend!!