A New Rug

I grew up in an old house -- with hardwood floors and rugs.    Oriental rugs in the living room and dining room -- "scatter" rugs beside the beds (which kept your feet warm on the first step out of bed . . . but the next step  was onto the cool hardwood floor . . .)

Our first apartment had hardwood floors and we bought rugs.    Our first house had hardwood floors and we brought our apartment rugs for the floors.     And then we moved into a new house (what were we thinking?) which had carpet.      

And when we moved to Linderhof, it had carpeting in all the rooms.   (For in the 70's carpet was in and hardwood was out. )   But I knew that underneath the carpet was hardwood . . . it was, after all, a house built in 1920.      And a few years after we moved in, we took up all the carpet and had the floors refinished.      And the rug that we bought for the living room looked smashing on the hardwood floor.

It was a Karastan Oriental.     And it was a perfect size for the living room.    But I knew it would be for it came from a house of the age of Linderhof.    And it was a Karastan!    We got it for a great price because it was such an odd size -- too long to fit into most houses.

We've had the rug for a long while and we simply adore it.    It has that patina that only a good rug can acquire.

In the dining room, however, the rug was another story.      It was an inexpensive rug that we bought at a Salvage Store.  

An Oriental in tones of red.   It looked okay but it didn't have the "pizzaz" that the living room rug had.    It looked like a knock-off rather than the "real deal"!

And then, in December, at the Greenwood Antique Mall, I found a rug -- a Karastan . . . but it was December and Christmas and so, the rug stayed at the mall.

Then last week, I went back to Greenwood and there was the rug . . . . for a good price . . . and so it came home with me!

And it's now in the dining room.    It's a 9 x 12 rug (compared to 8 x 10 of the old one) and those two feet in length and one foot in width definitely does make a difference.   It's scale is much better for the room!

The old one was pretty . . .

The new one has that "wow" factor!

It's really a pretty pattern and looks really good with the living room rug!  

It makes the dining room seem more special!

We've been making an effort to "dine" in the dining room for our evening meal.    For most of our time at Linderhof, we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner in the dining room for we had no "casual" eating area.     Adding the breakfast room 4 1/2 years ago rectified that -- however, we seemed to gravitate to eating all meals there!

So tonight, I set the table again in the dining room

I prefer setting our places at each end of the table but it's Lent and the Easter egg tree is a rather large centerpiece.    Dinner conversation is an important part of our meal and so, during Lent, we sit side by side.

A favorite blog find of mine is A Haus to Call Home.    She's a prairie girl as well -- living in the big city just north of us.    I'm hoping that someday we can share a pot of tea!

Last week she posted on Brussels Sprouts Cockaigne.    Husband Jim and I love Brussels sprouts and I knew that we'd love this recipe.

And it is yummy.     And simple.     We both enjoyed the sprouts fixed Michelle's way.    They were perfect with

Slices of Kansas City strip steak and sautéed baby potatoes.

And as is our custom . . .

Coffee is served after dinner in the living room.     Since it was Sunday, we used cups and saucers instead of mugs.

It's also Monday and time for Met Monday with Susan at Between Naps on the Porch and I'm sharing my new rug.