Buying with intent, and the excitement of it all.

I purchased a comforter cover.  A brand new, custom printed comforter cover from DENY designs.  It came yesterday, and I've been excited about it for a solid 24 hours now.

Which led to a bit of navel gazing: why on Earth is this blanket cover such a thrill?

It finally hit me.

Every other bit of furnishing that I've ever owned has been one of these:

Free. (Either discards from relations, friends moving, or clever curbside rescue.  I sleep on Chevy Chase's old mattress - but that's another story for another time.)

Thrift/yardsale.

Semi disposable.  You know the stuff.  Plastic, cardboard, pressboard, usually found in big box discount stores, ubiquitous denizens of college dorm rooms; purchased with the understanding that once one graduates, that stuff will be replaced.  Um.  Some of my plastic drawers date to the college years.

If it weren't for the cat, much of my furniture would be inflatable.  It's cheap, fuss resistant, and incredibly portable.

With the life I've led, that last bit used to be incredibly important - between travelling a great deal and moving about once a year, there's a lot to be said for not being tied down to a lot of nice furniture.

This summer marked the first one in over a decade that wasn't spent frantically shoving things into boxes, which in turn were crammed into my twelve year old hatchback to be carted to the next location.  Not moving is a thrill in itself, and we celebrated.  But it also marked a subtle, if deep change in our lives.

Roots.  For the first time, we started thinking about chairs that didn't double as rubbermaid bins with fabric draped over them.  But the thought of building a 'proper' home space, with decor, and thought, and (eek) money put into it, was more than a little off putting.

Our old comforter died.  It was fairly horrid to begin with - some nasty synthetic fabric that pilled almost immediately, sewn together with what appeared to be fishing line, a pattern that would have felt at home in a 1970's log cabin, lumpily filled with some polyester spin that did absolutely nothing but remind one of how cold the room actually was, and think about getting a new blanket the second that time and money have met.

We didn't actually know that it was sewn together with clear, stiff, nylon 'thread', until it started unraveling.  The cat helped.  So in addition to the pilling, fading, and other attributes, the blanket now sported lots of little pokey bits that had a supernatural power in regard to finding sensitive flesh.

The new comforter itself was a sort of impulse - we found it on clearance after a mark down, and it came with two pillows! So I gulped and paid for it.

It changed the whole bed - suddenly, we felt like our little sleeping alcove had been transported to some luxury B&B.  So I highly recommend not waiting as long as we did on a new blanket.

However, it didn't come with a cover - that proper comforters even needed one came as a bit of a surprise.

So, began the quest for a cover to protect the new investment.  This would be the second non essential purchase related to building a home that I've ever made, and I was determined to do it right.  For weeks, I scoured every place I could find.  These things were either horrible, or insanely expensive.

Seduced by thread count, frazzled by reviews, I came upon the Deny site randomly after weeks of searching. They had some nice looking designs, not too expensive...then I saw it.

Custom design - you send them an image, they put it on the item of your choice!  If I was going to do this 'making a home' thing, I'll do it exactly how I want, and see exactly what I want to see.  Honestly, if I'm paying anything above a thrift store price, I just can't settle.

So I gulped, paid, and waited.

The results are even cooler than anything I'd imagined:

For the first time in my entire life,  I'm turning a living space into a home.  I'm decorating!  Oh yes, there will be more of this in the coming year.