Furnishing a New House

When we relocated to the Middle East, we got rid of several "big-ticket" items: living room furniture, bedroom furniture, television, etc. That is, normally these would be big-ticket items, but since I bought them before and during graduate school, none of them cost terribly much (i.e. my living room sofa, loveseat, and chair were $1,500 total). We planned to save our money here to purchase new home furnishings when we returned to the U.S. in part because it made more sense (the furniture and bed were getting old and worn) and because we felt like it would be a nice sense of accomplishment to work hard for our money, save it for nice things, and be able to own items we could enjoy for many years (as opposed to buying something that will just get by for a while).

Now that we've done the hard work and savings, I'm finding myself a bit distracted by the planning for home furnishings (a.k.a. browsing and shopping)! We've already selected a lovely bedroom suit with mattress and boxspring set, and this is the living room suit we've chosen:

I love the neutral palate with just a touch of paisley, and since there's only a small amount of blue in the pillows, I can pull it out by painting the living room a similar shade (it's sort of an antique silvery-blue). We did keep our coffee tables, but we really have little in the way of decor. And now that we'll be in a house with hardwood floors, we'll need to get some rugs. Luckily, the living room suit came in under budget, so there's still some room there.

I should really be working on revision to this essay nonstop, but I can't help wanting to look at the pretty things I can put in my new home! Ugh..so materialistic and shallow, I'm sure. But finally, we can afford to do this. We worked hard for this, don't we have a right to finally enjoy some fruits from our labors? I've never had matching bedroom furniture before, and isn't that something you get to have when you're all grown up?

Okay, back to work....seriously.