For Love of Shabby Chic

My mother-in-law teases me because almost every time they have come to visit in the last six-ish years we've lived in our house, the living room furniture has changed.
And they visit pretty frequently.
First, we had no furniture. I think we borrowed a couch or stored a couch for someone and had a super bare living room the first year. The person loaning us the couch moved and needed their stuff back.
Next Mr., seeing my frantic state about bringing home a baby to no couch (because that totally matters, right?) surprised me with big, comfy, lovely couches. We still dream about them.
We sold those to get out of debt.
Friends donated couches to us and our get-outta-debt cause.
We got outta debt.
Then we got back in with...new couches. Ugh. And not even good new couches. Sure, they were lovely. But they were cheap. My mom sat down and got stabbed with a nail that was sticking out. Lovely. We sold them.
My sweet parents gave us their couches when they moved and bought new ones.
Phew. That's a lot of couches.
A lot of our furniture switching (we've had dining room table blues as well) came from selling all of our things to get out of debt...only to need those things back again. We didn't quite follow the Dave Ramsey plan the way we should have. Still trying to figure that one out.
So. My point. My laptop broke, but thankfully we still have our family computer, but it was upstairs at a not-so-functional desk. I work in the morning while the kids play or watch cartoons, so I needed to be close to them. So yesterday, we measured the small nook in our hallway --that used to have a desk table built in, but that I had insisted we take out to create a reading nook...yeah. Heard about that one a time or two yesterday. We also took out some cash, and loaded the girls in the van.
We stopped at one store that I love in the town next to ours. I left the family in the car and just ran in real quick. I took pictures of what I liked, and we went shopping for Five More Hours before we came back to the original store and bought the desk I had fallen in love with first thing that morning. Oops.

Here are some of the photos I took the first time. Don't you love those book letters? Makes me want to buy a bunch of books from the Youth Ranch and cut them all up. So precious.
We had to stop for pizza to keep the kids happy. Mr. says this made the entire day worth it for him. He really is so loving and patient.

We bought the desk, a gorgeous shelving unit to hang above it, and a chair.

Who says you need a truck?! Mini vans unite!

And the finished product. Sigh. I sat and wrote/edited all evening once we set up. The shelving unit will go up today, and you better believe I'll upload another picture.
I may or may not have paused periodically from work to gaze at photos on my phone of the desk I was sitting at.
And the best part? Paid for in cash. Absolutely no guilt or regret. No wondering if we will be able to make the payments. Just cash. Ours. Done and done.