St. Jude Trike-A-Thon! (Please help donate!)

My son’s school is having a Trike-a-Thon on April 11^th, 2014 as a fundraiser for St. Jude.  The St. Jude Trike-A-Thon is a fun, week-long curriculum that teaches the kids riding-toy safety.  At the end of the week, they get to bring their trikes and helmets to school and practice the rules that they’ve learned.  Your tax-deductible donation will help the desperately ill kids at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital by raising money for research and treatment.

You can make your donation by check, money order or online at:

http://trikeathon.stjude.org/chasechalecki

Thank you for your support!

Poudex F7139 Charcoal Waffle Suede Sectional & Ottoman F7119 (Bobkona)

So I bought my couch from this website called VA Furniture.  They offered free local delivery and it was the cheapest I could find ANYWHERE.  I've seen them sell my couch on Amazon and other websites from $554-$1,100.  I tried to find as many reviews as possible through Amazon and other sites.  I ended up getting my couch for $554 and ottoman for $99, which is dirt cheap.  That way, if the couch gets ruined I don't feel devastated.  After all, I do have two boys that are just starting to blossom into toddlers.

When they said "some assembly required" I thought they meant putting the legs on and hooking the sectional together.  No, they came in 3 LARGE boxes.  I want to say that because you're putting it together yourself and it being so easy, you kind of feel like it's cheaply made.  It isn't as nice of a couch as my old one, but my old couch was $750 on sale, so I think that says a lot.  The assembly took approximately 2 hours for me and Brandon.  We used a drill to help speed up the process with all the screws and wrenching.

The couch did have a moth ball smell to it, but it was gone after a weekend of having the fan on and windows open.  One of the seating cushion already feels like it's softer than the other side.  The ottoman seems the most poorly made and you can kind of feel the springs in there.  Overall, I've received a lot of compliments on it and if you're looking for something cheap, it's totally worth it!  Even though it's not as good of a quality as my old couch, I'm really glad I got it.  It's spacious and it's cute! The color is also A LOT darker than what it is in the picture, but I'm glad that it is.  It comes with these really ugly brown throw pillows that I can't stand so I went out and got new ones.

This is the picture from the website:

Our new living room!

Okay, I did awful so far. I didn't blog at all in February!  So to make up for it, I will write (hopefully) two entries.

So far the MOST exciting thing to happen to me was re-furnishing my living room.  I've spent many nights unable to fall asleep because I redecorate our house in my mind.  It's bad, I'm talking about 2 hours of laying in the dark until it's 11:00 pm on a weeknight.  Ever since we repainted our living home, I felt that the couch just didn't match.  I grew more and more disgusted and just found more reasons why we needed a new couch.  We really do need a new couch.  I've had our old couch since I got my first apartment.  I want to say that was 2007.  That couch has been through a lot and it was time for a change.  Actually, this whole house is furnished with the furniture from when I was 20.  My taste was totally different back then!

 I'm a total bargain shopper and that's a good thing because I love to shop.  I've been hunting for the perfect couch for a long time and did many hours of searching through the web to find the most affordable price.  I finally decided on something that was cheap but I liked.  I figured the boys will tear through this one and by the time we need a new couch, maybe it will be when we are purchasing our first home!

I pretty much changed our whole living room under $1000, WAY under.  For those that follow my blog, you'll also know that I've been obsessing about bench seating.  Well, I finally decided on something in between.  I decided the bench seating was going to take up too much room.

I've received compliments on my living room every time someone has come in!  Especially, when they saw what it looks like before.  I must say, I'm rather proud of myself.  I'm still missing this side table I've had my eyes on from IKEA and a table lamp.  It's very minimalist, kind of feminine, but not girly.  Does that make any sense?

I'm going to review the couch and where I purchased it from in a separate blog entry! Stay tuned!