Saturday, January 23, 2010

Time for a Change

I've had my living room furniture for over 15 years now and I have decided it is time for a change.  I went through this a few years ago, and in doing so, I realized that couches and chairs are ridiculously expensive! 

Three years ago I got the cushion covers of the couch reupholstered in black leather, because I couldn't find anything as comfortable at a reasonable price and so stuck with the same couch.  The leather had started to crack so it needed to be done.  I went to a leather shop and found a piece of leather that mostly matched the old stuff.  I then found someone in the west end who would reupholster them for me.  He did a great job, and I got it at a great price, way less than a new couch, that's for sure.

It has served me well, but the original reason I wanted to change the furniture, is because I was tired of having black in the living room. 

While I was at Ikea with my friend Beatriz a few weeks ago I saw the Poang chair in red, and the idea came to me that I didn't need new chairs, just new covers.  So I bought a red Poang cover to try out.    I put it on the chair and lived with it for a week, but I knew almost immediately that it wasn't going to work.  The colour was wrong.  Plus my chair is one of the very old models and the cover isn't really made for it.  So while talking with my son, he suggested just buying new chairs.  It actually makes sense since the covers cost $60 and the new chair is $99.

So tomorrow I will be returning the cover and looking at a variety of chairs.

Saturday, January 02, 2010

New Years Eve

My plans changed for New Year's Eve.  I was supposed to go to a house party with my friend Beatriz, but she wasn't feeling great because she had a bit of a cold.  So Vanessa and I decided that she would come to my home and we would un-celebrate the new year!  Neither one of us are in a relationship and we both hate the stroke of midnight when we have no one to kiss and hold close, so we would just watch videos and ignore welcoming in 2010.

We decided to watch "Love Actually" and when I tried to use the DVD player nothing happened.  Early this past year Rogers upgraded me to a digital box, and I figure they must have done something or else the dvd player is broken.  So I tried to come up with a solution, which turned out to be just fine.  We watched it on my laptop, but then I realizes that I could hook up my desk top monitor because it is bigger.  Doing that I also figured out that if i hooked up the speakers too, then the sound would improve.  It did and we were happy with the solution.

After the movie we watched the end of another movie on tv, and then I showed Vanessa a bunch of funny You Tube videos.  We had a great laugh!

Vanessa slept on my comfy couch and promised that she would go to the gym the following morning.  I had a hard time falling asleep for some reason, but I think it was about 5:30 am when I finally fell asleep.  Vanessa didn't manage to wake up in time for her class, so we just relaxed.  I made pancakes for breakfast with strawberries, blueberries, clementines and  apple sauce.  We drank tea and spent the whole day doing as little as possible.

What a wonderful way to start off 2010.