Parson Me

Remember when we told you guys how we used our AMEX Membership Rewards to get our hands on something for the house that we have been craving for a while?  Well, we finally took the plunge and we couldn't be happier with the end result.

In our house, we are always looking for ways to maximize our space.  Don't get me wrong, the size of this house puts our apartment in NY to shame, but we seem to continually accumulate stuff and that stuff needs a place to go.  That couldn't be more true now that James is in our lives!  We started creating more storage space on our main floor when we installed the bench under the front window.  The bench not only dresses up this room, it also adds a ton of space for us to store things like toys, blankets and other things.

To the left of the window, we had a bookcase that housed all of our DVDs - we have a TON of them.  Let me rephrase ~ Ed has a TON of them.  He used to buy one a week back in the day which created quite a collection that just took up lots of space.  There are 2 things we hated about this: 1.  They didn't look so hot in the bookcase and 2. It wasn't really a great use of space.  I mean rarely would we reach into the bookcase to grab a DVD and watch it ~ especially since we have a Netflix streaming subscription to satisfy our movie needs.

So we brainstormed.  What would work best in that space and satisfy our needs right now?  We thought of going this route and create a pseudo mud room area for us to store coats and boots and bags.

But knowing us, it would just become a dumping ground and start to look really messy.  So instead, we decided to create a work space.  Not only can Ed use it now to conduct his at-home Sprint business (and I can reclaim my kitchen table for meals!), but it will come in handy down the road when James has all that homework to do.  

I knew immediately what piece of furniture I wanted there.  It took a little more convincing for Ed, but after he saw that we could buy the coveted Parsons Desk from West Elm using gift cards, he came right on board.  Between some Christmas gifts, some store credit and some AMEX Membership Rewards, we ended up only paying $88 for this classy desk that we dressed up with a Pier 1 lamp and a beautiful chair from World Market.

We are SOOOO thrilled with this update to the living room that already being used on a daily basis.  We still need to hang some art on the wall (we have a few things in mind), but other than that, we are good go with this new spot.  We even managed to find a great lidded basket to house James' growing toy collection that lives under the desk.  It actually plays double duty by holding all of the chargers as well! 

And where are the DVDs you ask?  Not too far away - thank goodness for that bench! :)