Bookcases

It isn't often Brent and I find something we BOTH love. In fact, when it does happen we are usually shocked and keep asking each other "YOU like that?!!" over and over and over. Brent is SOLIDLY grounded in Modern/Contemporary styles and although Brent is trying to convert me to Modern, I still lean towards more Traditional styles. It is kind of fun having such different tastes because it makes it so much more exciting (and surprising) when we find something we both like.

We have really needed... ok, WANTED... bookcases for a while. I dreamed up the perfect bookcases to match our house and was SHOCKED when Brent had a different idea for bookcases... a VERY DIFFERENT idea. I think I posted pictures of these differing ideas earlier on our blog (like last Christmas-ish). But just so you get the full effect of our different styles here are the pictures again.

We had books coming out our ears and I was having trouble finding a good place for them in our "office"... so I finally told Brent that I would be willing to get him WHATEVER bookcase he wanted for his birthday. I figured some bookcases (no matter how crazy) would be better than no bookcase. After looking around at different bookcases for a while, Brent found some he liked at Ikea... and the AMAZING thing is... I liked them TOO! I have decided we need to do more shopping at Ikea, they have such a good mix of both traditional and modern things; this way Brent can run around and look at all the Modern things, and I can enjoy looking at all the traditional furnishings. (Seriously, Brent is like a kid in a candy shop in Ikea... he runs from Modern item to Modern item getting more and more giddy.... and out of control.)

We bought a bookcase, a desk, and a storage thing all on the same day. I seriously don't know how it fit in our little car. At one point while we were in the Ikea warehouse picking it all up we both started to panic and question whether it would fit in the car. Brent ran out to the car and measured the car to see how much room there was from the tip top back of the trunk to the front seats... he did this scientifically by laying down in the car. He then ran back into Ikea and laid down (very scientifically again) next to our cart in the Ikea warehouse. He determined that we had EXACTLY enough length in our car to get our supplies home. Boy was he right... Every square inch of the car was filled! In fact I had to drive home because we had to move up our front seats so far Brent's knees were touching the dashboard!

Our AMAZING car... who needs a truck when you have a corolla?! (Notice the paint on our bumper... yah, that was also a funny story involving hauling paint to the dump in our "truck" and not realizing the paint lids weren't tight... we ended up with a SWIMMING pool of paint in our trunk...)

The backseat of the car... you can see Brent sitting in the front seat.

This was Brent's SUPER COMFY position riding home from Draper...

And this is Brent once we got everything in the house. I think he thought this was better than Christmas! He was jumping around and riping open boxes he was so excited!

This is our old computer desk... it really was a fantastic set up with lots of space. Unfortunately the desk was getting worn and every time we moved it another piece of the desk would be in jeopardy of falling apart. We had to move the desk just a few feet away from the window (we got new windows this summer) and when we tried to move the desk back it was just falling apart. Actually when we got rid of it we had some nice neighbors help us carry it to a dumpster (our neighborhood happened to rent a dumpster)... we had already dismantled a lot of the desk to make it easier to carry, but as our neighbors were carrying pieces of the desk to the dumpster the poor desk pieces kept breaking apart! It was pretty entertaining to watch the neighbor's surprised faces every time another piece of the desk would crumble!

Our new desk and bookcases... pretty good Modern/Traditional compromise huh?!

We had another AMAZING house decor moment this fall. We have been looking for a painting for our living room ever since I can remember. Several years ago when I had roommates, one of my roommates had a BEAUTIFUL painting of the SLC Temple. When she moved out we had a hook in the middle of our wall so I hung up the picture below... I purchased this picture about 15 years ago for less than $15 when I was living at home. It is pretty warped and dusty, but at least it helped to hide our empty wall. Brent found some FUN artwork online and we decided to make the splurge and get it!! I love poppies, and the artwork is kind of modern... so it was once again a good balance of our styles and something we BOTH loved!

The artwork came in a cardboard box wrapped in TWINE. When I drove down to the post office to pick it up the postal workers told me it had been many, many years since they had seen boxes wrapped in twine. (It was also well wrapped in bubble padding!)

Our new living room picture (before Brent hung it up on the wall)!

We really haven't bought anything for our home since we have been married because we have such different styles... so it has been SO FUN to have a painting in the living room and a new bookcase and desk in the office... all within a few months! I'm guessing now it will be about 5 years before we buy anything else for our house... but you never know, maybe we're on a roll and we'll be able to find more stuff we both like! I guess another good thing about having such different opinions is that it saves us a lot of money... until we finally find stuff we both like.