Apartment 528: Extreme Livingroom Makeover, Part 1

While cleaning the apartment Saturday, I noticed that my favorite red couch wasn't as nice as I thought it was. Sitting in the sun, it looked...not so great. I'm not home during the day and I spend my weekends busy with projects so I rarely get to see how things look in the afternoon light. Prior to this "enlightening" discovery, I thought the red couch was my best craigslist find. Though I was having a hard time finding furniture to match the couch, I was determined to keep it. Now, I'm happy to get rid of it!

I've been looking at the same living room set on craigslist for two weeks now. It's an orange vintage 60's couch with teak arms and a matching chair. They were listed for $500 which was more than I wanted to spend right now. Of course, after seeing the red couch in it's true light, I decided to make the splurge. Sunday afternoon, Jerome and I headed over to see the couch and chair. As gorgeous as they looked online, they looked even better in person. The orange fabric has a great crosstitch patern and looks great in the sunlight while the teak arms are in fabulous shape. This was DEFINITELY coming home with me!

We were able to get the guy to come down to $400; he travels a lot and doesn't have the time to show it to a lot of people. Lucky me! Clif, the guy selling the couch, was great...very funky with a great house and a funky sense of style. I would have bought the whole place if I could have! Unfortunately, that wasn't included in the $400 price tag. He did however let me take one of the cushions so I could better match my new curtains to my new furniture.

I can't tell you how excited I am! He's out of town all week but Saturday we'll be swinging back by Clif's place to pick up the couch and pay him for the awesome find. I'll be sure to have TONS of pictures up for you to see.

In the meantime, if anyone wants my couch, it's for sale. As much as I talked down about it, it's really not in bad shape, it's just not as awesome as the orange couch! We're also selling a pair of red and white cabinets, our coffee tables, and a dresser. The black Ikea chairs are going back to Ikea and white rug and navy curtains are being moved to the bedrooms. The living room is getting an Extreme Makeover!

While searching around the web, I found these cool sites offering the best in retro design: