Deer Sticks and Home Furnishings

So you may be wondering what can deer sticks and home furnishings possibly have to do with one another? The answer: Minneapolis.

A little over a week ago Matt and I took a road trip up to Minneapolis to pick up our finished batch of maple deer sticks. Yum!!! To make the road trip even more fun we stopped at Ikea. We didn't really have a list going in - although I had in mind a few things that we should check into in case we found something we liked. But really why I love Ikea is because of the showroom. It's hard for me to visualize how fun (or lame) or how big (or small) something will look when incorporated into a room so Ikea is able to take a lot of those doubts away. I feel more comfortable that I can make it work in my house and thus have more fun during the shopping process.

We easily dropped two grand... just kidding - it was only two hundred, on some cool new items. I think Matt's favorite is a new kitchen pot with a strainer insert. (We used it right away to make some pasta.) And my favorite is a new comforter and duvet cover. It is amazing how much difference a new comforter can make. Not only does it completely change the look of a room but it feels like I'm sleeping in a brand new bed!

And I'm pretty sure Gable loves it too!

pillow madness

Because we have fabulous new furniture upstairs, we don't hang out downstairs much. (Plus the nicer tv is upstairs too.) So I hadn't really noticed how terrible the pillows looked until I took the after pics for my post on the basement update. 

See how grungy they look?!? I don't think they looked quite as disgusting when the sofa and pillows were upstairs with a light taupe color on the walls. So I'm going to partly blame it on the new crisp white and grey walls which make the light sea green pillows look bad. 

I bought the sofa and loveseat from a friend of a friend when I graduated from college back in 2006. The family rarely used the furniture so it was in decent condition when I got it. But now we've been using it all the time and it's looking kinda worn down. I bought the pillows when I got the furniture because the pillows that came with it really made it look dated. The other pillow you can kinda see on the right matches the recliner - a hand-me-down from Matt's parents, I believe, so it's got a few more years even than the other pillows. Definitely time to replace those pillows... but what to replace them with?

Pam at BeColorful recently posted this pic when she featured skipper blue as the color of the week. It kinda reminds me of a (much) classier (and more expensive) version of our basement. I think it works because the pillows look good with the sofa AND the pillows tie back into the wall and curtain colors. Our sofa isn't as blue (it's got an 80's green and blue chevron pattern on it) but this pic is waaaay close enough to be my inspiration. So I was off to search for grey pillows with a price point of up to $25 per pillow. Here's what I brought home from Target yesterday...

All of them look leaps and bounds better than the old pillows, but I'm not really sure what I like best. I tried looking at each one on their own, and then I even considered getting 2 different ones for a little mix and match action (this is actually a stretch for my usual pillow buying style).

Hmmm... decisions... decisions... I kinda like doing the two different ones, but my concern is that most are the same size so it looks kinda funny. I also found a couple pillows on Overstock that I like too... These come in both 18in and 22 in which solves my mix and match issue. But will they coordinate with any of the ones from Target?

Help!!! What do you think would look good?