Furniture

Since Angelines and I have been together, the only furniture of importance that we have purchased has been

We also bought this lamp for the bedroom.
It's from the same Moroccan emporium as the
wall tiles in the living room. :)

our dining room table with six chairs and a couch.  Granted we have had a few things made, like the table in our kitchen or the sofa in the living room, but my point is we have been living for seven year with mostly gifted, hand-me-down furniture.

For years now, my mother-in-law has been after us to get a headboard for our bed (hand-me-down gift from my sister-in-law).  First of all, this has never seemed like much of a priority to me, and second of all, we just never seemed to be able to find anything we liked.

Last year we found a full bedroom set from Ikea which we both really loved, but just couldn't justify spending the money at the time.  Finally with little Emily on the way, we decided we would buy the bedroom set (bed, night tables and a nice, big dresser) thinking tha the dresser could be for all the baby's clothes.  When we finally went to Ikea to make our big purchase, it turns out they don't make the set in the color we liked anymore!  Now they only have it in either black or white, neither of which works for us. :(  We were quite upset and kicking ourselves for not having bought it way back when.  It was back to the drawing board for the bedroom, but we decided we would at least have to buy some kind of dresser for Emily Alejandra's growing wardrobe.

Our bedroom looks legitimate now!  My
mother-in-law was thrilled to see our
purchase. ;)

Another item on our shopping list was an armchair.  We have a nice big couch, but it isn't very comfortable for sitting on.  It's more of a sprawling type couch; so with the prospect of breast-feeding in the future and the possibility of being very uncomfortable in a completely prone position as my pregnancy reaches full term, we began the hunt for a nice recliner.  At first we were looking for a rocking recliner thinking it would be nice for baby comforting, but a saleswoman at one furniture store (upon observation of my bump) pointed out that breast-feeding can be tricky enough as is at first without the added complication of rocking.  She said she had bought a rocking chair when she was pregnant and it's sat virtually unused in her living room ever since.  It seemed like sound advice.

After all the bother of renting a van to take back and pick up the closet units from Ikea, we weren't keen to find a nice armchair in Malaga.  Angelines suggested we look at the local furniture store.  As long as we were in there, we decided to have a look around at possible bedroom sets (or at least dressers), too.  Alas, they were all too modern and quite frankly, ugly; but hidden away at the back of the shop behind several unassembled bed sets, something caught my eye.  It was a beautiful, rustic-style headboard--exactly what we've been looking for!  I asked about the price.  It is solid teak and valued at 500 euros...my heart sank.  But, as it turns out, it's been sitting there for some time and being a solitary piece--not part of a set--the man was looking to get rid of it.  We took it home for 195 and we were also able to find a suitable armchair!

I'll have to put up a picture of the chair in our living room...this is obviously in the store.

Hooray for supporting local business!

...of course, the dresser has yet to be purchased... Ha!