ORC Week 3: A Pet-Friendly Living Room Makeover

It’s Week 3 of the One Room Challenge, and I’m finally making a bit of progress on my pet-friendly living room transformation.  If you’d like to see the room I’m working on and the issues I plan to address, check out my post from Week 1.

You can find the projects that the other Challenge participants are working on here.

My final goal is an elegant, airy, and inviting living room that can also withstand pet hair and pet stains.  After all, pets are family too.

This week, I’ve been busy prepping and priming the walls before I paint them.  But what else has been happening?

A Very Cute Loveseat – Hopefully It Will Work!

If you tuned in last week, you saw that I was considering a U-shaped conversation area for my living room, shown in the circled area on the sketch below.

 

This configuration would draw focus to the room’s largest window and take advantage of the serene garden view beyond.

The new configuration would call for a loveseat instead of a sofa.

And the loveseat must have three important features:

1.  Shallow Depth

Typical sofas and many loveseats have about a 36- to 39-inch depth.  To better fit the space, I needed a shallower loveseat – one that was around 31 inches deep.

2.  Pet-Friendly Fabric

Our old sofa was microsuede, which turned out to be amazingly pet friendly.  For 15 years, various resident cats used it as their go-to place to sleep, shed, drool and, on occasion, cough up hairballs.

Yet it was easy to vacuum, easy to spot clean and, most importantly, none of our cats had much of an interest in using it as a scratching post.

So, ideally, I wanted a loveseat with a microsuede fabric.

3.  Stylish Yet Comfortable

Comfortable furniture is often boring to look at.  I was hoping to find something elegant, stylish, and fun – yet still comfortable.

Since what I wanted was so specific, I’d been browsing loveseat options online.  But then I learned that many furniture sources are currently experiencing very long lead times on deliveries.  You’ve probably already guessed why:  The pandemic.  Furniture manufacturers have been facing production challenges while increased pandemic shopping has created a higher-than-usual demand.

Things weren’t look good, but it finally occurred to me to check a chain import store that has locations near me.

And, there on their website, I saw the most adorable loveseat. Miraculously, it had all the features that I was looking for.  The store closest to me was sold out, and there was only one left within a 50-mile radius – a display model.  Chris and I hopped in his truck and raced to the store!

It was nice for both of us to actually see and test the loveseat in real life before taking it home.  The bargain hunter in me loves that it has a look of quality that usually comes with a much higher price tag.

Currently it’s still in plastic wrap and sitting on its side in Chris’s office until I finish painting the living room walls.

So right now I can only show you the legs.

I won’t actually know for sure if the loveseat will work in this space until we’re able to bring it into the room.  So I could still be in for a bitter disappointment.

But if it works, I’ll have photos and a link to my source in my final reveal post.

Farewell Old Sofa!

The old sofa didn’t go down without a fight.  The legs needed to come off before we could get it out the door.  So, Chris tipped it on its side.

But the screws would not budge.  Those legs were staying on!

Instead, we removed the front door.

This story does have a happy ending though because the sofa did not end up in a landfill.  It’s gone to another happy home where it will be loved, appreciated, and probably drooled on by another pet.

Posts on this website are for entertainment only and are not tutorials.

 

 

 

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