Reno and Deco (II)

Our mini project of renovating and re-decorating our house due to WK's moving out is finally done. Lynn has been sleeping, on and off, in the room she shares with WK's mum. She's actually relunctant/ half hearted about not sleeping with me, but we manage to negotiate with her that she can sleep with us 3 times per week (Fri, Sat and Sun). For the past 3 nights (Mon to Wed), she kept to the agreement and had slept in her room with WK's mum.

As for the living room, the furnitures were delivered during the week that I was in Atlanta.

Firstly, we got a new sofa. For the past 20 yrs or so, I always have full leather sofa. This time round, we(I) made the (painful) decision to try a bonded leather sofa. I'm still trying to get use to it. I don't know if it's just my prejudice against it, or it is really less comfi than full leather. And black colour is not as easy to maintain as the red and orange colours that I use to have.

I got some nice cushions for the new sofa:



Secondly, we got a new TV console and coffee table. So far, I like them very much. They are nicer in design/look, and the quality are good. What I didn't like about my old ones are the watermarks between the glass top and the wood surface. The new set also have glass top, but should be easier to clean if water really seep thro'.

WK wanted to "cover" the socket points beside the TV console. I told him that I want to get a big vase and fake plant. This is what I got:

They look a bit strange right? Haha, I actually think it's (the round plant) quite unique. Instead of putting a colourful arragement of fake flowers (which I will get sick of in no time), I went for this cos its special, and I have some "fun" ideas of how I can "change" it's look as often as I like:

Ha, those are real roses! I had the idea that if I have gathering or celebration at home, I can buy real flowers and stick them into the fake round plant. So I experiment on this idea last weekend, with 2 bunches of roses. Next time i will try other flowers.

This is how the whole TV console area looks like:


Lastly, we had the contractor built a full height shoe rack!! It's my dream to have BIG built in, rather than (a small and squeezy) purchased shoe rack. I wanted a lot, a lot of space, for a lot a lot of shoes. I know that its the dream for many ladies too. Ha, so far, I have no time to go shopping for shoes to fill up the whole shoe rack yet...

My "dream" is tinted by the fact that shoe rack built by the contractor is not nice. Like what WK's mum say, it looks like a wardrobe in the bedroom. Since it's already done deal, I can only find ways to make it better. So I scouted for wall decal to decorate it.

Anyway, the shoe rack is beside a door for the storeroom. I got 2 sets of wall decal. The first one (on the shoe rack doors) are very nice and suitable:

The 2nd one is translucent, and thus not suitable for dark background:

In all, we spent about $7k. Overall, I'm very happy, cos other than the new furnitures, we did a lot of other improvement such as replace faulty doors, lights, wall fan, rusty dish drying rack and change the position of a lighting switch. The living room, has a "floral" theme, so its very me. If anyone of you come across a wall decal that you think will suit my design (to replace the translucent ones), let me know!