I have a tendency to buy furniture on vacation. It’s either making placing an order while we are away or actually buying something in a vacation town. The most recent was a bookshelf in Lake Geneva, WI while on a company retreat with Dan. The biggest was an 8ft leather sofa in Union Pier, MI.

Dan and I had just found out we were pregnant and that spurred us into action on buying a condo. I was convinced that our 800sqft lofted one bedroom would be plenty of space for two new parents and an infant but Dan was convinced otherwise. We started looking at places and then inherited a 6 seater dining room table from Dan’s parents that we put into storage. So we informed our agent that we needed a “formal dining room” set up which isn’t really a feature in Chicago condos.

Then we went on vacation with my parents to southwest michigan and I made us stop at a second hand store. We walked in and just off to the left was a beautiful brown leather sofa. Clean lines but not too mid century. Plush without being overstuffed. It had been in a woman’s second home and so there were a few scratches from a dog but we had a baby on the way and I, rightfully, expected this sofa would take a beating in our home.

Luckily, Bari, our real estate agent is the bomb dot com and she found us a condo that had room for both our dining room table and our new leather sofa!

Fast forward almost 8 years and the sofa cushions are in a sad state, the leather is wearing and there’s a pop when you sit on it sometimes. The tell tale sign of a broken frame. Seeing how our kids have used it as a trampoline for most of lockdown I’m not surprised.

Now our backs hurt a little after sitting on it for too long.

And we’ve decided to purchase new furniture for the front room.

I started with gathering inspiration. I have always admired rooms with facing sofas. And for us, in our home I mix formal and traditional lines with comfort. Our home is lived in. Cozy.

After filling up a Pinterest board I subscribed to Spoak – an online interior design tool that has ways to create inspiration boards, color pallets, floor plans and room mock ups. Then I tapped into my ADHD Hyperfocus abilities and knocked out a front room plan.

Once the inspiration was compiled and a color pallet was made we went to our local Interior Define store to sit on the sofas. We inherited an ID sofa in our basement when we moved into this home and it has been comfortable and so easy to clean!

Knowing we could customize everything about our sofa at Interior Define was the main driver for me. It is so much easier to create the piece we need instead of searching every corner of the internet to find the perfect couch.

That is reasonably priced.

Don’t get me wrong. I looked at a lot of sofas across the internet and inevitably the ones that I was most drawn to were the most expensive or vetoed by Dan. Once we sat on the Interior Define Alexander Sofa we were ready to make that our top choice.

Then it was time to floor plan.

This last one with the facing sofas being my personal favorite. A solid argument was made for just one new sofa (less expensive, floor plan flexibility, testing/quality assurance before we bought a second one) but ultimately… we dove in and picked facing sofas!