Hope everyone is back from their long Memorial weekend filled with summer fun and good friends and family time! We did all of that plus some good shoppin’ :) I always have a gradual Ikea list in the works so about once every year or so I can talk Matt into a visit when we are in Houston or Austin. Unfortunately (or fortunately) it is about a four hour drive to either so it’s a special occasion to go. We had a party to go to Saturday afternoon in Houston so we got up early that day to do Ikea and West Elm before it. Luckily the in-laws live about halfway so it was only a 2.5 hour drive that morning.
We can do Ikea in about an hour since I have a list ready and we don’t need to peruse the showroom much. So this is our cart of happiness …
Stocked up on a few baskets, faux sheepskins, frames, a throw, a rolling cart (future post!), a little stool, aaaand a Poang chair for the husband!
We then headed over to West Elm. This was my first visit to a WE store and oh man was it gorgeous! I hit up the Pottery Barns in San Antonio and Houston pretty frequently but there aren’t as many West Elm stores down here, so since we were up on that side of Houston (it is really close to Ikea), I got to go by there too ;)
After about eight laps through the place, my finds there were a cute fish scale pillow for my friend hosting the party later, some coasters, a new bath mat for the master, and a really cool cheese grater. I mean, everyone needs a funky cheese grater, right? There were soooo many other things I wanted but I had to refrain and just leave with alot of inspiration instead.
My favorite purchase by far was the Poang because, as you may remember in my run-down of our man chair hunt tribulations here, we so needed a side man-chair for the living room. I pushed the Poang during our last visit a couple years ago but he didn’t go for it. It’s still been in the back of my mind as an option while trying to find something else for him, to no avail. So on this visit, I showed it to him again and he really liked it! And once I reminded him downstairs that it was only $149 total, he agreed. It is the perfect size for our smallish living room and FINALLY fills in that open space we’ve had there for three years along with our new side table. I know that the Poang is a very popular piece and is not super original but it works so well here and we can always change the cover and use it in other rooms in the future. Pardon the horrible lighting in these pics, cloudy evening.
He settled right in to it immediately after I put it together, it is even PS3 approved apparently:
We didn’t get the matching ottoman, though, because he actually requested I pick out something different and unique. Here’s some preliminary picks from Overstock but have added others (like alot of from Target, and oh man, their Safavieh stuff? be still my heart!!!) to my Pinterest as well. I’m leaning towards the bottom right currently (of course because it’s one of the most expensive, as usual) but a storage option would be a bonus.
Any ottoman votes or other suggestions/advice on what would look good with it? I feel like now that we have the chair, once I find the perfect accent to go with it, all the big components in our living room will finally be done. Only four and a half years in the making! Like everyone says, it’s best to have an imperfect room waiting for the perfect pieces to find you, rather than outfit spaces quickly with imperfect pieces. Easier said than done for us impatient folks, huh? :)