CSN asked me to do another review on my blog, and of course, I couldn’t say no. When choosing something to review I started by looking at their cheap bedroom furniture and king size bed sheets, because the bedroom is definitely one area of the house that we are still working on*.
Of course, I was just lusting after beds like this one and this one, and ended up ultimately deciding to review the T-fal Avanté Sandwich & Waffle Maker because:
- I like waffles and cannot make them without a waffle maker
- You can take out the plates and wash them in the dishwasher!
- It makes waffles and sandwiches!
- It can be stored vertically
- My best buddy Erin already has it and thinks it’s great!
So, watch for a review!
But back to the topic of home furnishings – we still don’t have a “bed” and it’s something we would love to have. Of course, we learned right away that when you buy a home, you don’t automatically get to fully furnish it. Furniture. Is. Expensive! Here is our home furnishing time line so far:
- Fall 2004 – Steven moved in to house with all of his old college furniture
- Fall 2004 – bought fridge and stove**
- Spring 2005 – bought dining room table
- Summer 2005 – bought king size bed (woo hoo!) and moved double to guest bedroom
- Spring 2007 – I moved in (yay?), put my new double (and bed) in guest bedroom and got rid of old double
- Fall 2007 – (September) bought new office furniture and bookcases from Target and got rid of mis-matched college crap
- Fall 2007 – (November) bought new couch, loveseat and side table, put covers on old furniture and moved upstairs; bought brand new file cabinet***
- Fall 2007 – (December) bought sweet 50″ plasma, “sold” old TV to my sister
And that’s it! We’d still like a bed for our king size mattresses and maybe some nice dressers for our bedroom. And maybe an ottoman for the living room. Oh, and a new cabinet for the TV. And maybe some more artwork. Yeah. The list could go on and on.
What stage is YOUR home in? Fully furnished to your liking? In between like us? Still using mismatched hand-me-downs (no shame in that!)?
What’s your favorite piece in your home?
(I hope Nilsa replies. I have been in her home and it’s beautiful. She and her husband have great taste and I cannot wait to see their little grasshopper’s**** room fully decorated.)
My favorite piece in our home is actually a framed map that we put pins on to mark where we have traveled (I wrote about it a bit here). We actually got it right after we got back from Aruba in November of 2007 and it was so much fun to mark it out. Surprisingly, no one finds interest in it but us, and more so me.
*Ha ha. That sounds funny.
**The house came with a stove, but it was not stainless steel, so Steven got a new one and sold the other one (brand new) to my parents.
***I would like it to be noted that this thing weighed a lot and I pushed it up the stairs on a piece of cardboard while Steven directed.
****That’s the code name for their baby that’s on the way!
I live in an apartment and I hate my furniture right now. My desk in my room is the newest piece I own and I do like it (from Ikea). I HATE my couch/love seat set though because it’s old and needs to be replaced badly… but it was free about 6 years ago so I can’t complain too much. I’m waiting to buy a house before I replace the furniture (since I live on the 3rd floor and it’s a pain to move furniture in and out!)
I love your map!! I would love to do something like that when I have a house. 🙂
Thanks! 🙂
Did you think about putting a cover on your couch? That really made our old ones look nice!
Our living room is the only room that is furnished with matching furniture. Alt hough I am wanting new end tabels
I would like to do the bedroom it is full of mismatch and broken furniture but, it is not a priority right now.
Our next project will be installing a tile back splash in our kitchen and some cabinet lightening.
I love our art pieces in our living room especially the new photographs we purchased at a local art fair.
When we built this house 7 years ago, we financed the majority of the furniture in it and spent the first couple years paying it off. While I love most of it, some things have been beaten to death (read: ALL the living room furniture) by 4 kids and need to be replaced.
BUT. Our house is still 90% contractor white. Need to work on that…
I LOVE my bed and my bedroom furniture. It’s exactly what I want, even 7 years later.
We JUST finished painting last fall. So yeah… it took us 5 years!
I finally started saying to David we have been out of college long enough to have adult furniture and so slowly over the last 2 years we have pretty much bought what we needed…but the miami condo isn’t really decorated like home to me, I think because i feel it’s temporary
It takes time to get the things you really, really like and they’re worth waiting for.
We have some really nice furniture but most of it is what my parents furnished the house with. Unique situation: The house was given to me so Ted and I naturally made it our home. It’s large and thought of as the “family’s house” since it’s open to my sister and her family, my parents when they visit (they won’t give up the master bedroom!), and of course Ted’s family when they visit.
Favorite piece of furniture: … it’s actually a decoration and is a large carousel horse that sits on a musical stand in our dining room.
I’M REPLYING!!!!! Thanks for the condo-love. When I bought my first condo before meeting Sweets, I began to take pride in my home unlike any rental before it. But, you’re right, furnishing is expensive. So, it’s been an ongoing process. And that process has continued now that we’re in a bigger condo. I just got word our latest purchase (nursery furniture) has arrived, so we need to clear out the furniture in the guest room and make way for delivery of the nursery furniture in a few weeks.
I love your map and love that you keep track of the places you’ve been! I think my favorite art piece is a painting I purchased about 4 years ago … it’s an abstract of a pregnant woman … I love the bold colors. You can see it, along with some of our other art pieces, here:
http://somispeaks.com/2008/01/15/art-2/
Thanks for sharing your collection! Again, great taste. And thanks about the map 🙂
I think if I could buy it all at once, I would be too overwhelmed anyway! So this way is fine. Piece by piece!
I think I’m done buying furniture for awhile. It’s one of the few things I hate shopping for and right now we actually have extra furniture in our attic because it doesn’t all work in our current house! Does my house look like a magazine cover? No. Do I care? Nope. It’s comfy and functional and that’s what matters to me.
In terms of a headboard/footboard, I highly recommend Craigslist. That’s where I got the headboard and nightstand for the guest bedroom. Sure, there’s some seriously ugly stuff out there but you can also find great deals.
Buying furniture is really stressful. It took us forever to find our couches!
I have never been on Craiglist… can you believe it?!
Furniture IS expensive! Thankfully, we have some family in the furniture business, so we get everything at cost (which is way cheaper). In 2006, my grandma gave me some money to furnish the condo, so many pieces match, but we still have some weird, hodge-podge furniture. Our couch is inherited from my parents and is like 20 years line and totally destroyed by the cats. The office is a mix of Ikea stuff. Ha. I don’t really care too much. It’s all functional 🙂
PS I want a waffle/sandwich maker! How cool!
My husband’s last job started selling furn and when he saw the cost price compared to how much we had been spending… whoa!
I love the idea of your map! My son has a travellers journal with every country in the world and room to mark down visits and travels, you can even get stamps in it. I think I like it more than he does!
Aww, that is so cool! I would love to see it!
I have that waffle iron and it’s great. The nicest thing is that because the waffles it makes are toaster-sized, I can make extras and freeze them for weekday breakfasts. I have never made sandwiches on it, though. It is just easier to do them in a frying pan. But I bet you could also use it to make thar campfire pies, if you weren’t on Weight Watchers. Unfortunately, I am!
What are campfire pies?
I like the idea of freezing waffles!
I love your map, I met a lady at my sheep job that had visited 109 countries and I told her about your map she was very excited about it.
Aww, thanks Mom.
P.S. I wonder if anyone thought it was strange that my mom has a “sheep job” when they saw this comment. LOL!
Mmm waffles!
We’re in the process of decorating our cohabited home. We just got a new rug, our new couch arrives tomorrow, we bough some office rolling cart/storage and set up a “new” desk (an old table of his we are using as a desk). I think we need a new TV stand for the new flat screen, throw pillows for the couch (Mr. D doesn’t understand the necessity of throw pillows), nightstands for the bedroom, coat rack for the entryway, and a craft desk or comfy chair for corner of bedroom AND a new chair for the living room.
Yeah, it’s a lot. And once we get it all perfect, we’ll buy a house and have to start over! 🙂
I still feel like my house is too college-y. Sigh. I have illusions of buying furniture some day.
I love your map idea! That’s so cool! You should have colored pins to indicate where you’ve been to run RACES!
I have my mom’s old waffle maker, which has some sentimental value. (Though I don’t know why. I remember her using it…once in my childhood.) Since it hasn’t killed me yet or made weird waffles, I’m sticking with it for now. However, I am envious of your newfangled one. I mean, all mine has it a light. I’m not even sure what the light indicates.
The different colored pin for races is a great idea! 🙂
I know that this one I am ordering does not have a timer. Maybe that is what your light is!
I am SO looking forward to your review of the waffle maker! Plates you can remove and wash in the dishwasher? I’m sold!
Furnishing our house makes me crazy. As in, I know it needs to get done, but I hate to part with the money. Anyway, my wish list includes furnishing the formal living room, getting a runner for the upstairs hallway and getting a frame for our bed. And maybe some matching dressers one of these days.
With the exception of my $20 couch from Craigslist, all of my furniture came from my parents house. Fortunately, my moving out happened only a couple months after they bought all new living room furniture, and I was smart enough to ask for the old stuff before my brother did. 🙂
However, because my place is so small, I do not have a kitchen table and chairs, or really anything other than very basic living room stuff (couch, chair, TV) so when I get an actual house my furnishings will be very sad!
Also, I want that waffle/sandwich maker!
Oh my gosh….I want that waffle maker!! It’s like the SnackMaster – remember that infomercial?
Hmmm…my house is….a work in progress. 🙂 Some is borrowed, some is old that I’ve redone myself, and some is new. I’m pretty happy with it for now! It’s hard because I have a roommate, and it’s SO true that no one will ever treat your furniture like YOU treat it (aka I’m a little anal about it). My favorite piece (or, pieces) is my dining room table. It has 6 chairs and is real wood, and I got it DIRT cheap on Craigslist. Several months and hours of work later, it’s black with new upholstered fabric on the seats and I love it! But, damn, it was a lot of work and I won’t do that again. 😉
I LOVE the map idea, too. I want to do that! Only….I’ll only need about 10 pins right now.
What is the SnackMaster?
Did you share pics of your table and chairs? I think I remember them but cannot recall.
It would be hard to share furn with a roomie who didn’t care as much as you!
Thanks 🙂
We have a map like that but it’s woefully out of date. 🙁
I really like our dining table and chairs, but I’m not sure I’d call it my favorite. (Certainly our most expensive furniture, though.)
We really like our bed. More accurately, our mattress. Pretty much the best part of returning home after a trip is getting to sleep on our mattress, though the feeling is more siginifcant for my wife than it is for me.
I’m pretty partial to the new office furniture and new breakfast table that we got from IKEA earlier this year, though it’s difficult to judge how much of that is because they are new and so much better than what they replaced.
Discounting our TV — which I love — on the premise that choosing it would just be wrong, I’m tempted to say that my laptop table is my favorite.
I need to go back to IKEA! I have not been there in years!
The laptop table is great! I need one. Or two 😉
I’ve been thinking about doing a map in our place as well – even if it is just for us. You’ve inspired me to get one now. 🙂 Sadly, since we are living in an apartment right now, most of our things are in storage. But, it’s nice to make do with what you have and be grateful. There are so many people that don’t even have clean drinking water let alone all of my kitchen gadgets and appliances sitting in my basement all boxed up!
I’ve actually been thinking about this recently b/c we just upgraded to a king mattress(delivered last week…yay!) and bit the bullet and bought a bed as well. The bed matches the rest of the bedroom furniture now (we’ve been gradually acquiring piece by piece all from different lines but the exact same color wood).
We’ve spent so much $$ renovating this house (bringing it into the 21st century from 1960s/70s glory), so the furniture is coming along gradually, but I don’t want to acquire any debt from furnishing the house, so it’s a tradeoff. 90% of the furniture we have is all stuff we’ve purchased though, so at least I like most of what is in the house…haha!
Do you LOVE LOVE LOVE your king?!
You bring up a good point – I didn’t even think about the people who have to renovate! We are lucky we bought our townhome new and got to pick the finishes.
Hope you do your map!
The bed/mattress was worth every penny…I only wish we had done it sooner! Heaven!
I wanted to add, we’ve been wanting to do a map for a long time…I feel re-inspired to get one and add it to the wall!
oh i LOVE your map – i have a secret (ha, well not so secret now, i guess!) plan that once i’m married, my hubs and i will hang a map like that and have 3 colors of pins: one for where i’ve been, one for where he’s been, and one for where we’ve been together 🙂
Yay! That is how our map is – I’m red, he’s blue, and we’re black 🙂
This is another thing that goes on my ‘it’ll all change once I live alone’ list! I’m excited to have my own things that I like! (I actually ordered a couch from CSN that will hopefully be here in the next 1-2 weeks.) My favorite thing in the house? probably my Communist Party print – it always makes me smile. http://www.society6.com/studio/tomburns/The_Communist_Party/prints
What a neat print! I love red 🙂
Can I see a pic of your map?
oh and i’ve just started coloring in a map for all the places I get to travel (have traveled to). It’s taking a long time to fill it in to where I am already!
Our house is SO far from being furnished. The only thing we’ve purchased since getting married is a queen mattress set and a desk. The rest consists of our college chic belongings.