Must-Haves for the New House

Let me just start this blog off by saying WE CLOSE A WEEK FROM TODAY!!!!

I feel like every time I buy something for the new house, my list of things I need keeps growing! We already purchased our washer, dryer, fridge, morning room furniture, and family room furniture last week. You can read about those here. This week I picked out a rug for the morning room, a dehumidifier for the basement, a new light fixture for the study, an invisible fence, and a battery backup for our sump pump! I also bought new toilet paper holders, if you want to know why, read my last post.

I literally looked after over 1,000 rugs for the morning room and only found 3 that I liked. Apparently I am extremely picky. Who knew? I was looking for a neutral rug since I haven't even picked out paint colors yet. We aren't going to paint for at least another year so I'm not even going to stress myself out about choosing colors. We already have a color picked out for our family room but that's because we worked with an interior designer to pick out our furniture, artwork, and paint at La-Z-Boy furniture for this room. I wanted to make sure our morning room rug looked good with the family room rug since the space is open and you can see them both at the same time. Here it is!

It is 8x10 and will fit our table and chairs, even with the chairs pulled out.
This is from Overstock.com

I felt the need to replace the light fixture in our study because the one RH provided is too small for the space. We also accidentally ended up with a tray ceiling in the study and I felt that we needed something a little nicer for this room. The lady at the light store said I should get something larger and a semi-flush mount instead of a flush mount. If you want to see the fixture that RH installed,  read my last post. We are going to move the fixture that is already in there to the laundry room so that we can replace the hideous mushroom light RH installed. Then we are going to move the hideous mushroom light to our rental property. It's musical light fixtures! I haven't purchased it yet because I'm still looking around, but I like the one pictured below.

Found it at Lowes.

Here is the toilet paper holder I picked out. I ordered four, one for each bathroom. I am very detail-oriented. I don't like the holders that RH installs. I guess this just goes back to me being picky. Seriously though, if you want to read my story about my TP holders, read my previous post.

Found this at Home Depot but it's only available online.

Since RH pours their basement walls, they strongly suggest that you use a dehumidifier in your basement for at the least the first year. You should leave it running constantly. Make sure you buy one that can handle the size of your space. Also, get one that you can connect a hose to so that you can drain it straight into your sump pump. This will save you from having to constantly empty it out! I don't know much about dehumidifiers but we found one that had good reviews, is energy star compliant, and  is quiet. It even includes a 3ft drain hose. Most of them do not and you have to purchase them separately.

DeLonghi 45-Pint Dehumidifier

Model # DD45

We decided to purchase an invisible fence after talking with our future neighbor about them. I never realized how inexpensive they are and how easy they are to install. Our neighbor put one in and he said it was pretty simple. We aren't getting our sod until about a week or two after closing -- that was per our request -- so we will be able to get this into the ground before we have grass. Our neighbor already had his sod when he installed his but he said all he did was lift the sod up and put the wire under it. Our PM also installed a pipe under our drive at the bottom so that we could fish the wire through it. If you want to see our pipe, click here. We chose the High Tech Pet Humane Contain Electronic Fence Ultra System - wow, that's a long name! We chose this particular system for many reasons. It had great reviews, the dog collar is much slimmer than most others, and it has a tone-only mode. We are going to try to train our dog with the tone-only mode first. We want to avoid using the shocking method if possible. She's a pretty smart dog so hopefully she will catch on. This system covers up to 50 acres but only includes 500 ft of wire. We had to purchase an extra kit with more wire and flags because our lot is larger.

Home Depot Model # HC-8000

Extra wiring and flags. Model # BE-500

Now for the battery backup for the sump pump. Your sump pump pumps excess water from your house. It is operated by electricity. If your power goes out and it is raining, the excess water will not be pumped from your house. It will end up flooding your basement if there is enough water. A battery backup is a little pricey but it's much cheaper than repairing any water damage to your basement. Our sump pump failed in our condo and now we have to replace a 2-year-old floor down there due to water damage. We are not going to let this happen in our new house! This sucker is getting installed within the first week of living there! I was under the impression that it was literally just a battery that you somehow connected to your sump pump. Wrong. It is actually a whole other sump pump that you install. Also, when you buy the kit, the actual battery isn't included. Say what? Yeah, it's weird to me too. The kit is about $140 and the battery itself is $94. We chose the Basement Watchdog Emergency Battery Backup Sump Pump from Home Depot. We love Home Depot, can you tell? It helps that we get a 10% military discount on all in-store purchases :)

The kit: Model # BWE

The actual battery: Model # 24EP6

First Furniture Purchase!

As you may have read in my previous post about shopping for furniture - you can find it here - my husband and I have been looking at La-Z-Boy. You can pick whatever couch you like best and then choose from over 1100 fabrics to personalize it. You can even personalize the accent pillows. We decided on having two full-size couches facing each other with a coffee table in the middle. There will be a rug under the coffee table. We will have two accent chairs, one on each side of the fireplace. There will be no television in our family room. We wanted this room to still feel "open" and have plenty of seating for guests.

Here is a rough sketch of the furniture layout we chose:

There is no wall on the right side, it flows right into the kitchen.

Here is the couch we chose. It is called the Collins and it is sooo comfy and soft! The best part - it's made in America!

The color is called Brown Sugar

Here's an up-close shot of the fabric with the accent pillow

Here is what our accent chairs will look like, they match the pillows:

This chair is the Charlotte. It's a recliner! Can you believe it? If not, look down!

IT RECLINES! I am excited about this because I look forward to reclining and reading next to the fireplace. I'm so glad that this chair is a recliner but still has a smaller profile.

I also mentioned in my previous post that La-Z-Boy offers free in-home design. We are meeting with their interior decorator later this month. She is going to help us pick out a rug, coffee table, accent tables, decor, and paint colors! I am so glad they offer this service. I would be lost without it! I really want this room to have a complete look. We won't be painting for the first year but at least I will know what color goes best with our furniture choices! We also weren't planning on buying any furniture until after we close on the house. La-Z-Boy was having an awesome sale that we couldn't pass up. It also takes at least two months to get the couches delivered since we personalized them. We only had to make a down payment and won't have to pay the rest until we are ready for them to deliver.

Furniture Shopping & A Suggestion

I have been to so many furniture stores in the past week and I have been having a hard time finding couches that I like for my great room. I found some couches with patterns that I like but then I didn't like the feel of the couch and vice versa. I went to La-Z-Boy last night and found out that you can pick any couch that you want and then you have 1100 fabrics to choose from for the couch and for the accent pillows! You can even purchase extra fabric to make your curtains match the accent pillows! They also have these really cute accent chairs that recline! Only they don't look like recliners because they are much smaller! Just when I thought I was already in heaven...the sales guy tells me that they have an in-home design consultant!! She comes out to your house -- or in our case she's just going to have to look at the floor plans since our house doesn't exist yet -- and she makes sure the couches you have selected are a good size for the room. She also helps you coordinate accent pieces, rugs, and decorations! It gets better, they are in partnership with Sherwin Williams so she even helps select paint colors that compliment your room and the furniture you pick out! Oh, and did I mention that this is all FREE!!

So if you are having a hard time choosing furniture, I HIGHLY recommend La-Z-Boy. They even have a 3-D room planner on their website. The sales rep also told me that you can purchase a protection plan on the furniture that protects you from stains associated with food and beverage spills and bodily fluids for 10 years. If you get a stain, they will have it professionally cleaned for you and if that doesn't work, they will replace it! This is perfect for those of you with children or for those of you who are worried about stains in general!

We made some preliminary choices last night but we went in to the store too close to closing time. We will be going back this weekend to finalize our selections and then I will post some pictures on here of course!

I have already fallen in love with a dining room table and chairs for our morning room. I found these at Ashley Furniture -- I LOVE LOVE LOVE Ashley. Most of our current furniture is from there.

The table comes with a leaf in it (not pictured). It can sit up to 8 people. Our morning room is 19'3'' long so I want a long table to go in there.

I love the design on the back of this chair. It's super comfy too! I wanted to get matching barstools for the island in the kitchen, but my husband wants something with a smaller profile. We'll see.

I don't think I would get the top piece of this. I might put a picture or a mirror above it instead. The hutch looks SO much better in person. This picture does not do it justice.

The table and hutch together

As for the formal dining room, my husband picked out a set that he really likes. I think it's a little too expensive but he had a good point, you only really get one set of formal dining room furniture in your life. I'm also not a huge fan of the two end chairs but I love the hutch. The table is 9.5' long but it has two leaves you can take out of it, which brings it down to about 6.5' I think. We aren't 100% set on this set but I thought I would share some pictures anyway!

I'm not a huge fan of the design on the back of this chair. We might get just the ones above.

This shows only one leaf, but there are two.