Furniture Shopping or Marriage Building?

Thank you Jordan for posting about our first update on our house, we got the internet up and working finally!

Today I want to touch on the wonderful world of furniture shopping. Kyle and I have successfully purchased two chairs and a console table for our new home.

I might have mentioned it before, but Kyle used to work at Mathis Brother’s Furniture store, which trained him on all the styles and brands of furniture. This has been very helpful but also a little challenging when I like the look of a piece, but he doesn't like the quality.

Also, our styles are pretty different but we have learned how to find things that make us both happy.  I would say I like more quirky, eclectic, very open things and Kyle likes more traditional, solid, darker things. I would describe our combined style as rustic-modern. I am trying to think of a different name for it since sounds like such an oxymoron, but I think that suits us best.

When moving into our house, we knew we wanted a chair for each of us, and we didn’t have anything to put our tv on (it was mounted on the wall in the apartment).

Kyle has always wanted a recliner and I was very weary of the traditional style of recliner.  Big pillows of shiny leather consuming whoever sits in it was not really what I had in mind for my dream living room. Amazingly, we found a very sleek, track arm chocolate brown leather recliner that was soo comfy. It even matched the couch we hope to get in the future. Later, when we got it home it did not recline very well so we ended up getting the same style of chair only not a recliner. Kyle compromised on his recliner but he has promised me he loves his chair and ottoman just as much, ha.

Then it was my turn to find a chair. I thought I wanted some sort of smaller, sleek, fabric recliner but apparently only super expensive designers make those. We looked around Mathis Brothers and while Kyle was talking to someone he knew, I sat down in a modern armchair with a tweed-like material and decided this was it! It didn’t have an ottoman or the reclining factor but I decided I could make my own ottoman (which I’m in the process of doing, I’ll post when complete).

Our console was also randomly found when we were wandering around Mathis Brother’s. I first saw the matching end table and noticed the color of the wood and modern look, and when I looked around we saw the console. It is very open and we plan to make a shelf for the cable boxes and things, but it was a quality piece of furniture for a good price and a beautiful color!

Please excuse the crazy amount of cords, I'm working on that :)

To each their own when buying furniture, but Kyle and I have found it can be a marriage building experience when compromise is involved.  I am one to want to build everything (like a console table) but I realize I don’t have time for all of it and as long as we have budgeted for these things, we can spend a little money on quality furniture we will use for years to come.

Good luck out there couples!

-N