Claim Your Prize

The new Pottery Barn catalog came yesterday. Fun! I have a mini-obsessions with looking at furniture catalogs. The furniture is just so beautiful and the little set up rooms are just so beautifully arranged that it is hard not to salivate over each page. I have already scoured the pages of the Pottery Barn catalog and narrowed down my favorite I GOTTA HAVE IT pieces. Of course, this isn't enough for me. After picking out the ones I really loved, I had to cut out the little pictures and so that I could see how they would all work together. My wishes are:

Bench with storage compartments to go under the window in our bedroom. We have a desk there currently that we inherited from the previous owners of our condo. Neill wanted to save it, but I have never really liked it and it has always been something I wanted to replace. While in the picture, the cabinet is storing random stuff, I would want to put books in there.

Weird piece of wall art. The colors in this faux folk art piece would look good with our walls and the piece is big enough that it would help fill in some of our sprawling empty space. I'm imagining this piece somewhere in the bedroom (like across from the bed), but it could also go in the office.

Chair and ottoman. I'm not usually a huge fan of wicker furniture, but there is something about this chair that I really love. I like how it has dark and light tones in it. I've always wanted a chair in the bedroom and I think this would really tie together the light wood of our bed (pine) and the dark finish of our dresser (mahogany or espresso stain, I think). Plus, its sort of neutral enough to not add another competing color pallet.

Green buffet piece. Pottery barn is selling this as a buffet, but I think that it could work in a lot different rooms as a nice storage cabinet. I really love the green color they use and I think it would look good in any of the rooms we have because they all have a bit of a greenish hint to them (minus the kitchen, which is more of a burn burgundy). We definitely need more storage in the bedroom and so this could go there. But, I would say that of all of the pieces that I picked out this is the one that I would easily give up. We are more in a need of a dresser than just some random storage piece that we would probably end up stuffing clothes in.

Exercises like this are all part of my love/hate relationship with furniture magazines. Love because I want want want stuff. Hate because I can't can't can't afford it.

I've always wanted to live in what my mom always called "magazine houses". In case you are not familiar with this term, magazine houses are 100% clean with absolutely no clutter. Everything matches in a perfectly artistic yet homey way. There are no scratches on the furniture (that aren't meant to be there). Beds are always made and floors are always clean. All the towels in the bathrooms match and they might even be monogrammed. They are very well organized. They are expensive. And overall, they are unrealistic. Even though I know that magazine houses don't really exist in the world I live in (and if they do, they take a ton of work/money/cleaning staff), I can't help but let the magazines make me wish for what I do not have. Yuck. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it--I don't really love looking at these magazines. It's fun while I'm flipping the pages, but afterwards they usually just leave me feeling unsatisfied with the things I have (which are truly wonderful, so I also end up feeling unappreciative). It's kind of like eating a piece of cake when you are on a diet. It is delicious when you are eating it, but afterwards you just feel kind of guilty. Except, that I don't feel guilty. I feel greedy.

And I'm trying to remind myself that it is okay. I think that greed is just part of being human. I'm okay with admitting that sometimes I want more than I need. While I try not to act on these desires, it would be dishonest (and totally obnoxious) to pretend that I am above emotions like that.

Poo.

But, maybe we really do need the chair? And the storage bench? Right?