Some Successes!

So yesterday we went to Iowa City, and had some successes as far as stuff for the house, and then I went to Ottumwa today hoping to find a few things I didn't find in IC.

So here's my list from yesterday, and then what actually happened:

-Dark "bamboo" type blinds for the bedroom
* We found one beautiful green bamboo shade on clearance in the right size. It goes fabulously with the new wall/trim colors. There weren't any more at the Ottumwa Target either, but I found some online that I am pretty sure are the same, so I ordered those today.


-New wall sconce for the bedroom & guest room
* Didn't find either one in IC in a price range I was hoping for. At the Ottumwa Menards I found a pretty one for $20. They also have just some glass globe/shades etc. So I'm thinking to put the new one in the bedroom and put the one from the y bedroom in the guest room with a new glass shade. Would have rather used the bottom from the light in the laundry room, but it doesn't really hold the shade, so it has to be the one from the bedroom...

-AREA RUGS:
-Bedroom
-Living Room
-TV Room
-Guest Room
* Sorta struck out on the area rugs... They're a bit more expensive than I was hoping for I guess, not to mention most of the rugs in the department stores only go to 8x10, and we needed more like 9x12 for the TV room, which was my first priority. We DID get a new front entryway rug, brown with tealish blue flowers, and a pale green mini foot rug for G to have by the side of the bed.

-some sort of thingy to soften the drop from the stupid pine floor of the living room to the nice oak floor in the TV room.
* We found something at Menards yesterday, but it wasn't deep enough. I found a deeper one at the Ottumwa Menards today, so now I'll have to return the first one. I hope the second one actually works!

-Turquoise accessories for the living room (throw pillows, vases, etc)
* Yippee! Pier 1 rocks! Got these 3 little tribal looking masks things on sticks, a small pillar candle and base. Got a reed diffuser in the turquoise color too. We also decided to finally get a new cushion for the papsan chair, also in a lovely deep teal blue. Target rocks too! I found two pretty turquoise pillows there for cheaper than Pier 1, and one more pretty candle and a silver plate to go under it.

-New floor lamps for the living room
* Didn't find anything super inspiring and/or cheap enough to get for now.

-new drawer pulls for the bathroom
* Tried to figure out if I should get the cutesy starfish & seashell shaped ones, or plain silver or whatnot. Couldn't make any decisions in IC, but found some 79 cent silver swirly type circles in Ottumwa and decided to get just 3 of them for the sink cabinet and drawers, and wait on the rest.

-new bathroom towels
* Decided to wait on this since we already have towels, and I still haven't decided to go with our current shower curtain or get a new one.

-possibly a new shower curtain
* See above, still not sure which way to go.

-bathmat
* Got a pretty aqua colored one that matches the paint job, and can go with either way on the theme.

-vinyl wall decals for the bedroom?
* Sort of an expensive/luxury thing so far. Haven't done much research in to finding them for cheap, if they exist for cheap...

-stencils for the bathroom and kitchen?
* Well, got two possibilities for the bathroom, since yet again, as I have mentioned many times before, I have not decided which way to go on the bathroom. Got a seashell stencil, and these rub-on "insta-stencil" star things. The star things would go with the shower curtain as it is, and I imagine would be a lot easier to deal with as you just rub them on, rather than paint...

-An attractive file cabinet that we can keep downstairs and file stuff from the mail right away
* We saw a pretty one at Target for $99 that goes with all our dark wood stuff, but we were feeling a little maxed out for the moment with all our other purchases. It's also frustrating because they have file cabinets for $30, but they are either ugly, industrial/officy metal beige, or light colored fake wood... Saw a similar dark wood one at Super Wal-Mart for $79, still a bit more than we were hoping for...

And of course, what would shopping be without a few non-planned great finds?
Got some fun little wine bottle jackets and jeweled brads and ribbon from the one-spot place at Target, and found some sun and moon shower curtain rings for finally! I've been looking for them forever, but they seemed to be not making them for a couple of years, so I just grabbed them, even though yes, I'm STILL not sure which way to go in the bathroom - stars or shells...

My mom volunteered to buy the starry shower curtain from me to put up in J's house, since they just have plastic curtains over there, and then I could go with something totally new with less feeling of guilt for not using the star curtain till it was all worn out or something like that...

I mean, we DO need to get new towels since ours are just gross... So it's not like we'd have this new turquoise curtain and all these dark, not matching towels... I DO have my starry accessories though - the box for cotton balls, and the box I use for earrings, and the ceramic cup I made that has the darker blue with stars on it... They wouldn't look horrible in there even if I did give up the shower curtain, but they were the kind of things that made it that much cooler and coordinated... sigh. I guess I don't have to rush into anything, it just seems like that would have been an easy room to be just DONE with in a short amount of time. Ah well.

The TV room is feeling pretty good, although not finished at all, it's nice to have the nasty old carpet pulled up, and it's pretty much just our stuff, and no boxes or crazy mess in here.

So I guess you could call it a productive weekend of sorts. Made a peach crisp out of the tasty peaches from L at work. Got to take naps and such, although didn't do very well AT ALL getting to bed. Saw Nandi a couple times. Saw an awesome concert and still got to do some ArtWalk, including a few good purchases there on Friday. I also got a couple more boxes unpacked today downstairs, so it's starting to open up. Little bits at a time! I want to elaborate on the concert more, but it's really past time for bed... Feeling good about the progress and the little things we're doing to claim the space, even if it's mostly symbolic.