Reno post #43 - a pre-housewarming/post-birthday gift to myself >> a peek inside the fishbowl

07 Oct, 2012

Reno post #43 - a pre-housewarming/post-birthday gift to myself

Posted by andrea tomkins in: Home/reno| Oh! Things!| Ottawa

We are having a lovely and quiet Thanksgiving today. YESTERDAY, however, was a hectic and desperate mess of couch* shopping. We went to:

Sofa World (which was quite promising actually - do check it out if you are looking)
Suede Interiors
Blueprint
Polanco
Luxe
The Modern Shop
Elevenfiftyfour
Mikaza (both locations, egads)
Alteriors
Not to mention a few antique stores along Bank Street South
… and the Life of Pie
… as well as a quick visit to Ten Thousand Villages for coffee and a much-needed Camino chocolate bar (or two).

We’ve recently scoped out Structube, Sears, Urban Barn, EQ3, Mobilia, Ikea AND we brought our children along for the ride to most of these places too.

I am EXHAUSTED, but what made this all a little easier was the fact that the lovely Nicole from Solace Interiors had given us three scaled room layouts to work with, along with measurements and a whole bunch of incredibly helpful advice. We had her info in our hot little hands while we looked, which meant that we were able to eliminate all kinds of things at the get go.

I am happy to report that we’re close to making a decision. We scoped out an amazing Canadian-made sectional at Alteriors. I was really happy with my experience there. The good news: The service was great, the price was only marginally over what we had wanted to pay (gah) but the service was The Best and we have the option to customize our couch to make it our own. The bad news: we will have to wait 10-12 weeks before delivery. The lesson here is that we should have started looking AGES ago.

I’m going back next week to look at it again.

Anyway, yes. Yesterday was a challenging day. But partway along our route we stumbled into that treasure trove known at The Ottawa Antique Market, where I found THIS BEAUTY. It’s in great shape, and it WORKS (!).