20% off at Big Lots!

On Sat 1/26 customers with a Big Lots rewards card can get 20% off of their purchase. I love having a Big Lots just around the corner. I purchased my kitchen island from Big Lots the last time they offered the 20% off. It is just like the one below except for mine has a stainless steel top. Another great thing about Big Lots is that they tend to have holiday clearance several weeks after other stores so there is always a good deal to be found.

There are a few exclusions to what the coupon can be used on but not many. Eggs, dairy, and calling cards are just a few if you would like to see the full list make sure to check it out on the Big Lots website.

Living Room Design Ideas

The living room before we moved in. I would never own a leather  sofa.

Let me start by saying I hate the current color of my walls. The picture above is from before we moved in. The curtains and the light fixture are the only thing still the same. This yellow is so ugly and not in the best condition. Before we moved in I planned to have gray walls and a red couch. Easy choice. We have had red couches for the last 4 years or so and I love gray! I had chosen a nice medium gray. Exactly what I wanted. I couldn't wait to have the keys so I could finally have my gray walls and red sofa. Just after moving in I got started on painting the living room. By "started" I mean, I finished ONE wall.  Even though only one wall is finished, I love the way it looks. I planed on painting the other walls, but then I guess I got lazy and unmotivated. You would think these hideous yellow walls and the fact that squares have been painted around all the outlets and switches would be enough, right? Nope. :( It is now 5 months later and I still have 1 gray wall and 3 yellow walls with gray squares around the outlets. Really? Who does this!?! Who does this for 5 months?

But I mean, that's all fine because I can just paint the walls gray whenever I feel like it and just be embarrassed until then. I had people over for Thanksgiving, even with the mismatched walls and the ugly broken sofa. We had been looking for another red sofa to replace the old one almost, since the day we moved in. I also considered choosing a gray or black sofa but really, I wanted red. I mean I HAD to have red; I had already painted that one wall gray. I guess black would have worked too.  

I bought a gray sofa. Not just any gray, the exact color gray of the walls wall. About 1 month ago I became impatient. I was tired of sitting on our old red sofa that was falling apart and stained from our 2 year old. I think the sofa was more embarrassing than the walls. It was my birthday and I could not think of anything else I wanted or had been wanting more (except for maybe tattoos, but that is more of a process). We visited a new discount furniture store in our area and narrowed it down to two couches. A RED one and a gray one. The red one was about $100 less and much smaller. We chose the gray one. Why did we choose the gray one. :(

Now, I am left with this dilemma and BB Muffins is no help. He could care less what the walls or sofa look like. I don't think I can deal with all that gray. I don't like tans, definitely not this or any yellow, not blue (our kitchen and 1 of the bedrooms are shades of blue already and I have this thing where I don't any room in the house to have the same color, is that just me?)not neon green (our laundry room (below) is now painted neon green and that experience was awful) not white (how boring), and nothing too dark (I like to changes things up and don't want to deal with trying to cover something dark). In case you haven't been keeping track that pretty much covers all of the colors except reds, purples (which I think is the only color BB Muffins would oppose), and orange. 

I love the green for the laundry room, but not for the living room. I was thinking a light mint green might look nice or bright red. I don't think I could handle bright red for the whole living room. Maybe I should just do a red accent wall just behind the couch and then do gray for the other 3 walls. I love the modern look but modern is hard to pull off with a 2 year old. There are always toys everywhere. I have recently created a Pinterest board for my living room inspiration. I have only found 2 things I sort of like so far. If you have any ideas leave a comment with your Pinterest name and I can invite you to pin to the board or you can just leave a link below with your image.

I also want to give a special shout out to my Realtor +Judith Loving. She has been so amazing during this process. I messaged her to get her to find the pictures from before we moved in and within a few minutes she had emailed them to me. Not only that but she offered to have a designer come out and give me some tips/ideas. I cannot wait! :) I will be sure to post all the details of that visit; we haven't set a day yet. I will also be sharing more about our house buying story in another post.

tl:dr
We bought a house, painted one wall, then bought a couch the same color as the wall. Now, I need to finish decorating this room. I started a Pinterest Board for living room design ideas. And last but not least my Realtor +Judith Loving is the BEST!