How to Clean and Prepare Artichokes for Pickling and Stuffing

I absolutely adore artichokes. Growing up, we had them on special occasions with my family, and because of that, I have really positive associations with that vegetable. I love artichoke any way I can get it, baked, boiled, stuffed, marinated, in soups, salads, you name it...
I felt like I hit the jackpot when I got 30 lbs of artichoke for 25 cents a pound, but I will admit, I was just a little bit overwhelmed. Much as I love artichoke, the only way I'd ever made it before was boiled or baked, whole; when I'd had it other ways, I'd always started with frozen or canned. I didn't want to just boil or bake all my 30 lbs of artichoke whole, but didn't even begin to know where to start if I wanted to turn my whole artichokes into hearts or to be able to can them.

I did a lot of googling to try to figure that out, and I'll admit, even that wasn't so helpful, since most of the instructions were vague or called for baby artichokes, which I didn't have.

However, I managed to figure it out and turn my artichokes into artichoke hearts for stuffing, canned them, made them into soup, and it's a game changer. I feel worlds of options opening up for me in the kitchen now because of this.

To help explain how to clean and prepare artichokes for pickling and stuffing, I made a video of my sister Lizzy, demonstrating how to do this. If it looks hard, I literally showed Lizzy how to do this only one minute before making this video- it's easy to learn. As that was her first time doing so, note that the more often you do this, the more practice you get, the faster you can get it done.

The Tale of Our Bedroom Vanity

Our new house, while nearly double the amount of living space of our old place, is still quite small for our family of six. Other than the bathrooms, the smallest room in the house is my bedroom. We did design the layout of the apartment, putting the walls and doors where we wanted, more or less, since we bought the place before internal walls were built, and we could have possibly made our bedroom bigger. However, any additional space we added to our bedroom would either make our kitchen/living room/dining room smaller, which we didn't want to do, or getting rid of our second bathroom, not either something we were keen to do. We made the choice to sacrifice bedroom space for the sake of the rest of the house.

Out bedroom is 8.5 feet by 10.3 feet, or 2.6 meters by 3.1 meters. 87.5 square feet or 8 square meters to be exact. Add to this the fact that there are two doors in the room (one from the hallway, and one to the bathroom) and no built in closet space, we needed to figure out how to store everything two people need in the bedroom. This was not an easy thing to do by a long shot.

But we figured it out, by building our own beds and night stands, used some Ikea "hacks" and repurposed some furniture from our old apartment, and we mostly figured it out...

Other than a place to store my makeup, jewelry, hair things, etc... I needed a vanity...

A Happy Garden Update!

You have no idea how long I've waited to write this post!
Growing up in Cleveland, my family had a decent sized house with a relatively large yard. While most of it was grassy, wonderful for playing, and we had a grape arbor/swingset and club house we built, we had many different distinct areas for gardening. A vegetable garden in the very back, where we grew all sorts of things like asparagus, rhubarb, corn, chives, snow peas, zucchini, and tomatoes. A garden along the side with blueberry bushes, gooseberries. A garden along the other side with raspberries and wineberries. Various fruit trees like apricots and peaches. Another little area with mint and horseradish. And in the front a flower garden with strawberries, and on our tree lawn, around our tree, we grew Jerusalem artichokes.

My mother has a green thumb and loves gardening. I've wanted to be like her and garden, growing my own food as much as possible, instead of buying it from the grocery store. But we lived in a rental apartment the first five years we were married, and we never knew how long we'd be staying there, so were loathe to invest in a garden that we would have to leave behind.
Eventually, though, after we'd been there for 4.5 years we said that if we'd been there that long already, we'd probably be there another while too, so why not just make a garden already. We planted tomatoes and swiss chard... and then decided (and rather suddenly, at that) to move, because we'd had it up to there with our hellacious landlord. We gave away our chickens and rabbits, packed up our house, and moved to an apartment that not only was half the size of our previous one, but also had no yard whatsoever.
For the next 5 years we were in that apartment, having no idea when we'd be able to afford to move to a bigger place. I got more and more into frugality and self sufficiency, really wanted to garden, but had very little success. Any gardening I could do had to be in pots and planters.
Most plants that I attempted to grow from seed never actually grew. The ones that did start to grow, overall, did not do well in the planters. We had a few moderate successes, but my experiences made me think I was just a plant killer. The few plants that I had growing that I managed to not kill, and even could harvest from occasionally, were aloe vera and purslane.

My Frugal Produce Cooking Marathon

Yesterday I had a really great shopping trip, bringing home a bunch of produce for very little money. Much as I love a good deal on produce, bringing home that much at once does mean that I need to figure out what to do with it all so it doesn't spoil and gets the most use.

Here's what I did with the produce I brought home yesterday. Of course there is still much more fresh in my fridge to use up at later dates, but this is the food prep I did for now.

DIY Workbench and Tool Storage

To say that my husband has a lot of tools/building equipment would be an understatement. It is an enjoyable hobby of his, and fortunately it is a cost effective one. Building our own furniture and other things we need in the house, and in general doing our own fixing saves us money, in both the short and the long term. The problem is that when you have a lot of tools, it can be hard to keep track of them and find what you need when you need it.

To be able to store his tools more easily and make them easily accessible to him, my husband built this tool storage station of sorts, without spending a thing. We have a small apartment, as we divided a two floor home into two apartments, one to live in and one to rent out. We have "stairs that lead to nowhere", as the division between the two apartments was made by building a wall at the top of the stairs. We use the upper part of the stairs for storage, and my husband made use of the landing in the middle of the stairs, as a place to store his tools. (Eventually we would like to build a storage shed in our yard, either from scratch or prefabricated, and plan to move this work station there.) I like that his tools now have a place of their own, out of the way of our general living area so it doesn't take up valuable room in our small home, and out of the kids, meanwhile utilizing what otherwise would be wasted space, yet easy enough for my husband to use when he needs it.

Homemade Pallet Spice Rack- DIY Makeover

I wrote in a previous post how many spices I use, and how the little bitty spice racks I see them selling all over doesn't hold nearly enough spices for me, and the few I've seen that seem somewhat large enough are extremely over priced. I was overjoyed when my husband made me a homemade spice rack made entirely out of pallet wood. It was beautiful and rustic and perfect and held so many spices....

Homemade Pallet Trash Can

My husband loves building out of pallet wood. I've already shown a couple of projects my husband made out of pallet wood (sometimes with my help, but more often than not without). He likes building out of pallet wood because it's free, easy to find, and you end up with a nice rustic look, of which my husband is fond.
Quite a few times in the past I came home and found my husband with a ready made project built from pallets, waiting for me.

The other day, I came home from teaching a foraging class and saw my husband's latest project- a trash can, or as my South African husband would say, rubbish bin, made from pallet wood. I hadn't known this, but for a long time our garbage can was irritating my husband, as he finds the standard plastic one to be quite ugly, and not space efficient at all. The fact that trash cans are generally either round or trapezoidal makes them leave empty space at the sides, so you can fill up the trash bags less and need to take the garbage out more often.
The covers for most garbage cans tend to be swinging ones, which often get dirtied when you throw in the trash, since even once you pick them up they swing back into place. And at least with our previous one, the hole in which you need to place the garage sometimes isn't big enough, which meant that often when trying to empty the dust pan into the trash can, it didn't fit, and some stuff spilled out onto the floor.

And so, this pallet trash can.

Preserving More Produce

I truly feel blessed whenever I get my hands on free produce. The other day, once my fridge was already mostly filled after my last nearly free "grocery shopping" trip, I was gifted with even more produce, in very large amounts.

It was predominantly extra large sweet potatoes, celery, and carrots, with a smaller amount but still significant quantities of clementines, beets, and purple onions.

I did not have room in my fridge to store all of that produce, and fortunately it was mostly in very good condition, so it was great for fermented produce. (When I get my produce from the reduced rack, unfortunately, it usually is not good enough quality to be used for fermentation- it'll likely mold if I attempt to ferment it, so when I have good quality produce, I am extra tempted to ferment what I can.)

I chopped up some beets and am fermenting them into beet kvass. a probiotic beet based drink.

I am making fermented Moroccan style carrots using this recipe (only with no oil, since I've since learned that it is a bad idea for fermented), and then I pickled celery three different ways. Once was stalks in brine with homemade Cajun seasoning. I thought that might taste extra awesome since celery is a standard ingredient in Cajun dishes. I made one of celery leaves seasoned like kimchi, with ginger, garlic, and got pepper flakes, and the other was just super simple, in brine with caraway seeds.

I dehydrated a bunch of produce as well, and am still dehydrating more. Celery leaves got dehydrated, separately from celery stalks. I dehydrated both cubed sweet potatoes and sliced sweet potatoes, and will be making more dehydrated sweet potato chips. I dehydrated cubed carrots and also sliced purple onions, which I will then use as a spice, and also grind to make onion powder.

Lastly, I cleaned out my freezer and found room to store some things there as well. 

A reader sent me instructions on how to make Indian masala in bulk to freeze, and while I haven't gotten around to doing that yet, the instructions included tips on putting one cup of the sauce in a ziplock bag, and then flattening it and freezing it that way, allowing you to break off as much as needed to use, instead of needing to defrost the entire thing at once. That inspired me to saute up a bunch of the purple onions, and freeze them in bags, flat, so I can break off what I need each time to use that. 

I chopped up celery and carrots too, and froze them separately, and I also froze a few bags of celery and carrots already combined, to be used as a soup base.

I still plan on dehydrating more carrots and sweet potatoes, but essentially it'll be more of the same of what I already did.

It's nice that by preserving this produce, I am able to lengthen its life so that once my fridge is no longer packed to the gills, I'll still be able to have and enjoy this produce.

I love food preservation!

Have you done any food preservation lately? What was it?

Homemade Corn Tortillas Recipe- Gluten Free, Vegan, and Easy

I wanted to make enchiladas, and my friend Amanda, hearing that, offered to give me the masa harina she had in her house, which I could then use to make some great gluten free corn tortillas. I was really excited about this, because I'd wanted to get my hands on masa harina for a while but wasn't sure where to buy it locally.

Masa harina is a corn based flour used for making tortillas. It should not be confused with corn meal or corn flour or polenta, since masa harina is made by grinding corn that had first been soaked in a lime (calcium hydroxide- not the citrus fruit) solution, which then completely changes the texture of the corn into something that makes a wonderful workable dough.

Using this masa harina, also known as maseca, I then made some corn tortillas very easily- with just two other ingredients- water, and salt. When I say easy, I don't mean that there wasn't any work involved- I had to roll out each one, but rather, it didn't flop and was relatively straightforward to work with, not a finicky dough at all. It reminded me a lot of making gluten free vegan chapatis, an Indian flatbread.

So, how do you do it?

Homemade Cooked Tomato Salsa Recipe, Restaurant Style- Cheap and Easy Salsa Roja

Growing up, my dad used to buy these giant bags of tortilla chips in bulk, and as a family we'd enjoy them dipped in salsa, whether mild, medium, hot, or volcanic, depending on what my dad bought that time and our moods. Recently I've been getting a hankering for chips and salsa, so I bought some jarred salsa and it was really delicious and hit the spot, but the price was outrageous. $5 for the small jar of salsa, and $5 for a medium sized pack of tortilla chips. As much as I loved it, the cost for this snack- $10- was quite ridiculous. 

My little sister, Lizzy, came over and discovered chips and salsa through me (she is many years younger than I am, so didn't grow up in the US with these foods as I did) and wanted to buy some. I told her not to waste her money on salsa, because it is so easy to make it yourself. Which reminded me that I should probably do the same.

I had a bunch of tomatoes that were getting soft in my fridge, some that needed spots cut off, and some onions that were getting old. I realized that making salsa would be the perfect thing to do with them- I get some delicious salsa for next to nothing (something like 25-50 cents for the jar, depending) and I also get to use up some produce before it goes off. While the peppers I used were nice and crisp, it works just as well with peppers that are beginning to soften. 

This batch made a large pot full of salsa, which then got transferred into 5 large jars and canned, which is the equivalent of 6 or 7 of the store bought jars they were selling for $5 a pop, or what would cost $35. And instead it cost me about $3.25 to make the entire batch, so 1/10 the price. 

Best thing- it really is not a lot of work at all. 

Now I need to whip up another batch of my sweet potato chips to eat with this salsa, because that is so much cheaper and healthier than tortilla chips. 

Though I love salsa best with chips, it is wonderful so many different ways. I like topping chicken and fish with salsa (either before or after cooking it), putting it in tortillas or wraps or sandwiches, cooking vegetables (especially green beans) in salsa. Pretty much any place you'd use condiments, you can use salsa and it will be great.

While my recipe calls for cilantro, you can play around with it and use other spices in it as you desire. If I don't have cilantro, I sometimes add parsley or field eryngo instead, or just leave it out entirely. Whatever herbs you add will change the taste slightly, and that is fine- it'll be good regardless. If you like, you can also add a drop of cumin to the recipe.

Because I make my recipe with produce that is about to turn, often that needs parts cut off, I've listed the ingredients both in total amounts of each vegetable, as well as in cups, so that if you aren't using whole tomatoes or peppers or onions, you don't have to do the guess work- just measure them by the cup.

Homemade Cooked Tomato Salsa Recipe, Restaurant Style- Cheap Salsa Roja Dip -- Paleo, Vegan, and Easy

Making Homemade Miso- Recipe and Cost Breakdown

My new homemade lentil miso

Growing up, my mother did much of the day to day cooking in our home, introducing me to various dishes and cuisines from around the world, but it was my dad that did the funky stuff. The earliest memory I have of him doing interesting kitchen stuff was making port wine, and us stomping the grapes for it. Around the same time, we started tapping our neighbors' trees (with their permission) with sap to make maple syrup.
At some point later, my father started making sake, miso, beers (mainly stouts, but the occasional pale ale), and meads. He loved biochemistry in school, but became a doctor, and considers this brewing of his kitchen chemistry.
Since moving abroad, my dad hasn't really been making much wine, beer, and meads (I make the wine, and my brother Josh is the beer maker), but he's been on a miso kick, making miso like there's no tomorrow.

Making Homemade Miso- Recipe and Cost Breakdown

The Amazing Back to Basics Living Bundle is Live Now!

The sale of the Back to Basics bundle has begun! The following ebooks and e-courses are valued at $814.94, but for the next week (and not a second more!) you can buy all of these for only $29.97, including my brand new book, Penniless Foodie in the Wild- an adaptable cookbook whose delicious international recipes can be made with foraged plants or store bought plants, whatever you have in your house, and adaptable to many different specialty diets, all on a strict budget.

Here's a list of the amazing ebooks and courses you get as part of this bundle. Additionally, there are some great coupons and discounts you get on a bunch of natural living and homesteading related products when you get your bundle.

The books I am most excited about are:
Easy Paleo Instant Pot Recipes- because I love my pressure cooker!
The Broke Bladesmith- because knife making seems really cool!
30 Essential Oil Recipes for DIY Beauty and Skin Care- because I have essential oils in the house but often I'm not sure what to use and for what and how.
The Swiss Hills Guide To Cheesemaking- because it has a recipe for Brie in it!!! and I'm addicted to that stuff, and it costs a fortune here, and I've long been looking for how to make my own Brie!
A Cabin Full Of Food- because nearly 1000 recipes???
Get Growing- because I'm not experienced with  gardening and want to start a garden soon.
Natural Beauty From Head To Toe- because homemade perfume and makeup? Bring it on!
One Second After the Lights Go Out- because I am curious about the topic- would I have what it takes to manage if the power went out long term?
The Organized And Efficient House Spouse and How to Get Organized- because I'm anything but, and really need to learn these skills.

These are all ebooks, because it is not possible to give print books this low of a price.

And here is the complete list:

My Foraging Book- Available to Buy

Many people have asked me where they can buy my adaptable foraging cookbook, Penniless Foodie in the Wild, filled with 65 delicious recipes, that I've been talking about and describing for many months already. Unfortunately, though I tried to get it up on Amazon in time for Christmas, I had technical issues with Amazon, and it now all needs to be reformatted before it can be purchased from Amazon.

However, fret not, because in a few hours, from precisely 12:01am CST, January 16, for a complete week, you can purchase my book, Penniless Foodie in the Wild, and 72 other books, all related to frugal and natural living, and more, as part of the Back to Basics book bundle!
Yes, 73 total, valued at $814.94!

But I am excited because I like saving my readers money, and for one week only, you can purchase the entire thing at more than 96% off, for $29.97! That's pretty insane and impressive savings, and since the books are all such good resources, they will be well worth your money and will end up saving you money in the long run with your newfound knowledge. I stand behind this book bundle as a frugal woman and consider it a frugal purchase and money well spent.

This is how many books there are in each category:
Simple Living: 8
Cooking From Scratch: 9
DIY: 9
Frugal Living: 5
Gardening: 7
Homesteading: 7
Natural Remedies: 6
Natural Parenting: 8
Food Storage: 9
Preparedness: 5

Tomorrow I will share information with you about each book, but for now, here's the description of my book:
Update: Here's a full list of all the books and a description of each. 

Learn how to make sumptuous meals from your available ingredients, foraged or inexpensively purchased. Enjoy 65 deliciously frugal recipes from around the world, appetizers to desserts, written with adaptability in mind.
Real food and kosher, and free of most of the top 8 allergens, most recipes can be made without the other top 8 allergens, and to suit Halal, vegetarian, vegan, low carb, low fat, and Paleo diets.

I'm so excited to be able to finally share this with you!
But remember, after this next week, you'll have to wait until my book gets reformatted before you'll be able to purchase it.

Only 11 hours to go!

DIY Easy Fancy Wedding or Prom Hairdo Tutorial

For the past week different family members had a stomach bug, which was far from perfect timing (ok, not sure there ever is a perfect time for a stomach bug) since my little brother Dan got married Tuesday night. (Second brother's wedding- my brother Josh got married this past February.) Next post will be about how I dressed the family frugally but beautifully, but for now I wanted to share how I, who is not super talented with hairdos (I have a hard time with a french braid, even), managed to make my 5 year old daughter Anneliese a beautiful, fancy hairstyle for her uncle's wedding quite easily, and without it taking so long. I didn't use fancy tools other than a curling iron (that I've had for years), and the only thing I bought for this hairstyle were the two flower clips that matched her dress, which cost me $1 for the set. I forgot my hairspray at home, so that would have been an extra cost, and it would have made the hairstyle last longer, but it was fine without it.

If you aren't super talented with hairstyles, you probably can still make this easily enough. Anneliese's hair is a little past her shoulders, and I'd say that this hairdo would work with medium to long hair, and with either straight or wavy hair (Anneliese's is wavy). If your child already has curly hair, you probably can do this too, just skipping the part with the curling iron.

Upcycling, Reupholstering, and Plastic Covering Our Chairs- A Tutorial

All our newly reupholstered and upcycled chairs

Chairs have been the bane of my existence since we've been married practically...

When we were furnishing our home from scratch ten years ago, our budget was really tight. We ended up buying a set of 4 matching chairs second hand, and another chair from a second hand shop and dumpster dove 1 chair, so we started out with 6 chairs, only 4 of them matching. After about 5 years, the four matching chairs got really yucky looking, so I reupholstered them very easily.
As our family grew we dumpster dove a few more chairs (and tossed one of the original four that ended up breaking entirely), and then bought some second hand Ikea chairs as well (that I ended up hating because they aren't stable...).
By the time we moved into our new home, we had 10 regular chairs and a few folding chairs (plus some stackable outside chairs) which were functional, but they were not only mismatched, but they had really gross seats. It was embarassing. We'd have guests over, and we'd offer them a seat and they'd avoid sitting down since the seats were gross (and make comments about how they heard its healthier to stand). We really wanted to buy new chairs, because in our house with a new, polished, and put together look, these chairs were a big eyesore. And it didn't help that people kept telling us to throw out our chairs.
I looked into pricing for chairs, and each set I saw being sold second hand only had 4 or 6 chairs, so it still wasn't enough chairs to be a matching set to give the place a uniform look, and they weren't in the colors I wanted. I looked into pricing of new chairs, and the cheapest half decent chair (not even in a color that I wanted) was $75 each. I really struggled with this, because my chairs bothered me immensely, but I didn't want to spend a fortune on replacing them. The thought originally crossed my mind to reupholster them, but I didn't take that idea seriously because the chairs were all different colors- some light wood, some dark wood (veneer), some black, some white, not to mention most with different shapes and designs. However, I spoke with a friend who suggested painting them as well as reupholstering them, and I was sold.

Our New DIY Pallet Shoe Rack and Tiny Useful Mudroom

We have a lot of shoes in our family. Six people, each at least with a few pairs of shoes... It adds up quite quickly.
Before we moved to our current home I tried to declutter as much as possible, and in doing so, got rid of all the pairs of shoes that people refused to wear or no longer fit, because we had so many shoes in the old house that we needed a huge amount of space to store them all. And when space is at a premium, it is silly to allot so much of your limited space to shoes.
But even after going through the shoes and getting rid of what no one wore, we still needed a place to store our shoes. We don't have an official mudroom or similar in our current place, but right next to our front door there is a narrow area that is dead space, because it is too small to put any regular furniture there, but it seemed too big to not be used.
Pinterest showed me many ideas of compact and useful mudrooms and I decided to use that as inspiration to design our entrance as a good storage space for shoes, coats, gloves and hats and umbrellas and all other seasonal weather gear that we'd need right near the front door.

I love how this came out so far.
It is still a work in progress, but thus far it is loads better than how it was before.

We Signed With Tenants!

I wanted to apologize for being a little absent from the blog the past few days. There was a lot going on here what with the holidays, construction, and unfortunately most of the family having a virus of some sort or another. I'm still recovering and a few of my kids still are as well...

However, that said, we have some great news! We found renters for our rental unit upstairs from our apartment, and signed today.

I knew there'd be a large demand for this apartment, since there is a shortage of apartments, especially three bedroom ones, where we live. Two weeks ago I posted one short blurb in a local whatsapp group about the apartment, and despite it being under construction we got non stop calls and visits and people interested in the apartment, but we were looking for specific types of renters, and I am happy to say that I think we found a family exactly like what we were looking for. And that is just with posting a short blurb, no pictures, while the place was under construction.

I'd love to write more in depth, but as I said I'm still under the weather. And we still have more to do. Today they installed the granite counter-tops in the rental unit's kitchen, and only recently they finally installed a front door. Between now and the 31 of December we still have more to do- attach the plumbing in the sink, install the cabinet doors, and hang the upper kitchen cabinets. But that is totally doable in a day's work.

But for now, I just wanted to share the good news!

Since January isn't a popular time locally to move, we had the contract end one year from this July, so that it ends at a more reasonable month to find renters.

Any landlords out there? Any tips to give to new landlords so that we can be the ideal landlords? We have experience with bad landlords and we want to be as good landlords as we can possibly be. Or any tips, coming from the perspective of tenants, of things we should make sure not to do as landlords?

How To Overcome An Unexpected Financial Crisis

Image courtesy of jesadaphorn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A reader, Heather, reached out to me, and mentioned how she had cancer and she went from being financially stable to in a big financial crisis, because of all the expenses involved in the treatments and being unable to work, and more. She asked me if I'd be able to write a post about how people can overcome an unexpected financial crisis, and I said that I'd be happy to.

In my adult life, I certainly did have an unexpected financial crisis, but I can't say that it was following a period of financial comfort.
Rather, about a year after we got married, some financial mistakes of one of our pasts' caught up with us and gave us a huge jolt, causing us to feel like we were drowning financially, instead of the just barely making it through the month that we'd been doing until that point.

This post will hopefully address people in both circumstances- people who started off financially comfortable and then found themselves in financial hell, as well as people who weren't doing well beforehand and then found themselves in an even worse situation.

Steps to Overcome An Unexpected Financial Crisis

Our Kids' Free Upcycled Quadruple Bunk Bed

I had all sorts of plans for beds for my kids in our new home. We specifically designed the outlets and doors in the bedroom with the plan that we'd have a set type of beds that would be able to sleep all four of our kids. We were going to have 4 beds, in the shape of an L, with the ends overlapping each other- a four tiered bunk bed with two beds along each wall. 

We got to the new home, and for a few days, my kids slept on mattresses on the floor while we brought over the furniture and slowly got it put together. However, when we went to put it together, my kids didn't want what we'd planned, and I wasn't sure it would work so well either.

Instead, we ended up making beds for four (or even five if you want to get technical) all on top of each other, which saved even more room. The kids are loving it, and I'm loving how space efficient it is, but the biggest perk was the cost.

We spent nothing.

Our New Beautiful and Frugal Small Living and Dining Room

In the past few days a few different people asked me questions about living situations that brought to mind some things that were at the back of my mind for much of the duration of my marriage, and especially in the last 5 years where we lived in 484 square feet, with a family of 6 the last two years...

Namely, how hard it was, and not just physically, but also emotionally. Because by nature I want to be able to host people, have guests over, invite friends and family to chill out at our house... but our last home was simply too cramped. And for the first few years there, we didn't even have a couch since we couldn't find any room for it. When we finally got a couch, it was a tiny little Ikea Solsta couch, which made me very happy at the time, and was the best we could do then, and it did allow us to have guests over a little bit more, since they had where to sit down that wasn't just around the table, but it wasn't really enough.
I wanted to be able to have an area of my home designated for lounging around. Even though I probably wouldn't ever have enough space for an entire room dedicated for that, I wanted to have room to comfortably have at least a small crowd hanging out together. On couches.

And I wanted prettiness. I have had such a hard time with feeling like I'm just living with somebody else's cast offs, never really being able to make my home mine since everything in it wasn't too my taste, but rather it was whatever we could get cheapest or free.

About a year ago, I decided to give our current home an interim makeover, to at least have the colors in my home, as much as possible, be ones that I liked, and I got rid of all the things whose colors bothered me, and replaced them with things more to my taste, just by making pillow covers and couch covers and replacing the tablecloths. You can read more about my super frugal home makeover here. It really made such a huge difference to my overall happiness, that my home at least somewhat felt more me, with colors I liked and in styles I liked.

But in our new house, I felt that wasn't enough. Now that we finally had the space, I wanted to have a real living room. Real couches in colors I liked. A rug. Pillows. And not with covers, but the actual thing. And we splurged. But not too much.

The only new things we purchased for the living room were these two couches, on sale at a Black Friday sale. A two seater and a three seater in the colors I liked.