Living Room Rearrangement... Again.

I know, I know. It's getting quite ridiculous how often I show you pictures of our living room. I promise, we do have other rooms in our house. Pinky swear. But because this is the one room where we spend most of our time, it means a lot to us to make it ours.

After we had our floors put in, we used a scrap piece of carpet (really, it was a piece we cut into a square) and put it in the middle of the room as our "area rug". It did the trick for a while. Then, it started fraying, getting dingy and thanks to our newest addition, Pepper, it started looking a lot like a rag doll as she would grab pieces and run with it, watching the rug unravel as she went. Awesome. So we were in need of a new rug.

(picture from last spring)

Problem #2 was we didn't have a whole lot of moolah to put into said rug. I try really hard to put natural materials in our home. Curtains (showers included), I prefer all cotton or linen. Bed linens, all cotton or flannel, and for rugs, wool, cotton, or jute. I don't trust the off-gases of cheap, man made materials.

Let me explain why.

I've never mentioned this on this dear blog before, and I dont want to make a big deal about it, but my mom was diagnosed with MS (multiple sclerosis) 9 years ago. Along with her diagnosis, came a lot of changes to our family. And a BIG one was getting rid of and not putting anything (within reason) into our bodies that isn't 100% natural. No Splenda. No aspertame. Fresh fruits and veggies. No artificial flavors (except for the occasional Cheetos, good golly, I love some Cheetos). And surrounding ourselves with only natural materials. The reasoning behind this is that there really isn't a lot of long-term research showing the effects of man-made chemicals. Cancers, lead poisoning, asthma, COPD, and many other health issues can be directly linked to the materials you bring into your home.

So when it came to our rug situation, we were stumped. We needed something 6x9' or 8x10'. And a rug that size that's comfy, natural AND a bargain is few and far between. Enter Mom. My hero. Mom and Dad went to a neighborhood yard sale last fall and found a rug. They purchased it (for 15 buckeroos!) thinking that Annie, I, or themselves would one day need a new (to us) rug. It was in great condition and who can pass up a 100% wool rug? Luckily, when I mentioned to Mom our delima, she had it solved for us in about 5 minutes flat. Yea Mom! And it looks a heck of a lot better than our scrappy carpet :)

 I have to say, I'm loving how our living room is evolving into one of our favorite spaces. We are still moving things around and I'll give you an update on all our re-arranging in the next post.