As I sit here waiting for Dave to get back from Sherwin-Williams with my next round of paint, I have come to the conclusion that moving into a new home during the COVID-19 craziness has above all, been a BLESSING. It has given us time to think and talk about what we want our new home to look like. If home furnishing stores weren’t closed, our story would be much different. We would have rooms full of stuff, but will no flow or design. We are totally compulsive buyers who never seem to learn our lesson, until now.
Nineteen years ago when we bought our first home, we didn’t have anything other than the clothes in our closets. I was renting a townhouse with college roommates and Dave still lived at home. We couldn’t imagine moving into a naked house without furniture, lamps, pictures, etc. So a few weeks before settlement we drove to Raymour & Flanigan and dropped a ridiculous amount of money on furniture for every room of the house. I’m talking like THE WHOLE HOUSE. Kitchen, dining room, master bedroom, family room…We weren’t even sure if some of the stuff we purchased was going to fit into the rooms, because we never took measurements. Without giving any of it a second thought, we scheduled to have it delivered the day of settlement.
Luckily, it all fit where we had planned to put it. It was all nice and served its purpose for many years, but given the chance to do it again, I would have made different choices. We never really talked about what style of furniture we liked or what colors would look good in the house. We just bought things, and it was like that for 19 years. There was no plan, just purchases. I would decide to paint a room Wool Skein and then I would go into the paint store and start looking at the paint chips; it was all downhill from there. Sea Salt, Dovetail, Tango…How can you not pick a color named Lemon Twist? Ugh.
Fast forward to today. Having owned this home now for two months, I will say that somedays are a struggle looking at empty rooms (because furniture stores are closed) or at paint color that hurts my soul (because we have decided to complete one room at a time, from top to bottom before moving on to the next). But we are getting there. We have looked at a bajillion photos of homes on Pinterest and Houzz.com and we KNOW what we want our place to look and feel like. We have decided on a color palate for the entire house and thanks to the pandemic, we are sticking to it.
Having to call Sherwin-Williams for curbside pickup, keeps me from browsing the paint chips and making random choices without thinking things through. Not being able to walk into a furniture store and buy the first sofa I see, has been hard, but worth it. Because in the end, these two compulsive buyers, will have a home that looks and feels how they envisioned it. So while I may spend my days browsing Wayfair.com, adding and removing things from my cart, I will wait until I can walk into a store and find the perfect pieces to complete our new puzzle.
-Amanda Ashbee
