I have a living room that I never use. Its design is fairly formal. You step down about six inches into it, and while it is completely open to the dining room, it is divided from the dining room by two pillars and a railing to either side of the pillars. The picture shows the view from my living room looking out into the dining room (which I also incidentally seldom use).
One of the reasons I donât use the living room is because the furniture is completely shot. The cats have claimed the sofa and love seat for their very own, and while I donât begrudge them their comforts, the cushions have gotten to the point where they cannot be brushed clean. It had gotten to the point where it creeped me out to even sit on the furniture out there.
But now that Iâm home all day, every day, Iâm starting to feel more inspired about sprucing this place up a bit. Since this inspiration coincides with my abrupt lack of income, I am limited in the ways I can actually express this surge of inspiration. But about two weeks ago I got it into my head that I was getting slip covers for the living room furniture â slip covers that I could remove and throw into the washing machine before they got too groady. Iâve spent several hours cruising the web, looking for exactly what I wanted, and realizing that even slip covers were not exactly what Iâd call affordable. An ad in the Sunday paper announcing that Target was having a sale on slip covers got me out of the house and into shopping mode.
I found the perfect slip cover for the sofa, at a rock bottom price. It was the exact shade of gray Iâd been hoping for, machine washable, and sized for my sofa exactly. As luck would have it, the damned thing didnât come in a love seat size as well. I didnât want to mix and match my slip covers, so I plowed through the other covers, and found something that I could happily settle for and, more importantly, I could easily afford.
Before:
After:
Notice that the slip covers werenât on for more than five minutes than the herd was checking them out. (Little Brown Shit is in the cat bed in the window, but she had already tried the slip covers out and apparently found them wanting).
Iâve rearranged the furniture a bit, so that I can look out the windows regardless of where I sit. The windows are open to let the September day in, my Acer is on my lap, and Caleb Carrâs âThe Alienistâ is by my side waiting for its fourth or fifth re-read. I could really get into this unemployment thing.