New Couch: Ikea Adventure

Don't you just LOVE a good deal?  It is one of the best feelings!  Another thing we have been working on this summer is selling some of our current furniture and getting new pieces that fit better in the space we have (to create more space and organization).

So on Wednesday, we sold our 5 year old couch and love seat.  I loved them and they were super comfy but we need more space in our small living room.  We had our eye on the Ikea Manstad couch.  The "L" shape provides more seating than a regular couch, it becomes a bed for guests and has storage underneath!  We planned on buying it...until we got to the "As Is" section at Ikea and saw a Moheda for sale. It's basically the same couch with different pillows.  It was a floor model so there's nothing wrong with it.

The only challenge was how were we going to get it home?  We brought the minivan but left the seats, bass amp and other stuff in it as we were planning to buy a new couch in compact boxes.  We decided to take the risk to save $250.  The Ikea employees helped us disassemble it into 3 sections and talked us out of taking it apart more...like it'd be too much work.  :(  After we checked out, no one helped us since it was after closing time.  Once we got it down to the van and tried every possible way to fit it in, we thought we'd have to put part of it on the roof.  Hot, sweaty and getting desperate, we started looking around to see if anyone dropped an allen wrench on the ground we could use.  If we had just taken it apart more we could fit it in!!!

I called to an employee who was getting in her car to leave.  She said to go up to the employee entrance and ask if they have a wrench.  I did and when I asked two employees if they had an allen wrench, they said "No.  Well...not on me."  I didn't give up and said, "Your store is FULL of them!  Can you pleeease look?"  So they came back with 4 different sizes.  :)  One of them worked so we were able to disassemble it more and fit this entire couch in our van like a puzzle.  WOOHOO!  Such a satisfying feeling!!!  It only took an hour to figure it out.

Sorry for the bad photo, it was dark outside.  This is the couch in our van. 

New couch in the living room.

Can't find a "before" photo but here is an "after" photo!

The next step is to mount the TV on the wall opposite the couch and put a bookcase on the wall opposite this photo.  Oh, and after selling the old couches and finding the new discounted one, we only paid $81 for the upgrade!

Summer Project: New Floors

I am posting one of our summer projects that actually started a few months ago...  We I wanted to move our bedroom into a different room of the house.  The room was previously being used as an office (aka put all the junk we don't know what to do with in that room).  But before we could make it our bedroom we wanted to redo the floors.  We did all the work ourselves (with the help of family) to save money.

Here are some photos of the change:

The "Office" in the midst of clearing out the room.

The yucky brown carpet we really didn't like.

The good looking floors underneath the carpet!
No, we do not want to refinish the original hardwood!
(Many people asked us about that including a random guy
who apparently used to live here, but you can't believe much of what he says.)  

Putting subfloors down.

New laminent floors are in thanks to Sean and Ryne for installing them!!!
Nala approves.  :)

Next step was the trim.  I learned new terms like shoe molding or quarter round and learned how to cut angles using a miter saw.  I also learned to use a nail gun!  I enjoyed using painter's caulk and painting to finally make it look finished.

Here you see 3 different photos.  Far left, the floor with a gap between the floor and wall.  
In the  middle, a shot of the shoe molding installed.
Far right, trim all done after caulking and painting it white.

I found that the cheapest way to buy an area rug is getting a pre-bound remnant.
This one was from Bob Wagner's Flooring America for $119.

We have moved our bed in but are still working on the rest of the furniture.  We have been considering buying some new furniture but it's not a huge priority right now.  We mainly need to get a wardrobe so we have enough closet space.  Hoping I can score a deal on Craigslist!

We also did the hallway floors and have one other bedroom to do.  Hopefully I'll be posting more updates soon!  There are multiple projects going on.