2017: The Good, The Bad, Would We Do It Again

Every year we like to revisit a few things in our home - things that we get asked about a lot - and talk about how we feel about them day-to-day. We think it's a good way to hopefully answer some questions for our readers and keep things real for all of us. So let's kick it off with one of our more well-known pieces.

Living Room Coffee Table
The Good: We loved the look of this coffee table, and the construction of it is very sturdy and heavy. It's a classy piece of furniture that would work well with several types of design.
The Bad: Scratches. The  metal top is very scratched up from our girls sliding things across it over the past fifteen months. People without kids may have better luck with it, but the finish was not meant for our home.
Would We Do It Again: Probably not. It's been great, but had we known how scratched it would become, we probably would have gone with something different.

Family Room Craft Table
The Good: This table is perfect for crafts, drawing, or even a quick snack break while the girls are playing. The top is smooth, and the table overall is very sturdy, especially for how inexpensive it was. For just over $200, this table was an amazing find.
The Bad: The one possible reservation would be the edges, which may sound silly. But they're pretty sharp. We've had our fair share of worries about kids running into the corners, but no problems so far (knock on laminate particle board).
Would We Do It Again: Definitely. The girls love this table and they spend time at it every day.
Natural finish pictured above - no longer available as of this writing

Master Bedroom Ceiling Fan
The Good: Looks and function. We really love how this light looks in our room, and it pushes lots of air without making a sound.
The Bad: The blades are not very durable. The fan was running and one of our girls threw a small plastic toy figure into it and it took some pretty big chunks out of a couple blades. It also doesn't come with a light (the wiring is there, but you have to buy it separately), so our room is pretty dark now and we're very dependent on our lamps.
Would We Do It Again: I don't think so. Even though it looks great, we're finding that the loss of light is effecting us more than we expected, and the damage to the blades has already made us want to swap it out, either for just a light or another fan with a light. Either way I think we're going to add some can lights in here sometime this year.

Family Room Toy Storage
The Good: Almost everything. The way they look, the amount of storage, and definitely the price (on sale right now for $279!). Each drawer is jammed full of little toys and games that would otherwise be covering our floor. But our girls have gotten used to taking the drawers out to play with whats in them, and putting things away before getting more out. They keep things organized while making our girls feel like they have plenty of play options.
The Bad: I would say the only bad thing is the stability of the unit as a hole, in terms of tipping over. It definitely needs to be anchored to the wall, in studs, because kids will climb on it.
Would We Do It Again: 100% yes.

Downstairs Office Chairs
The Good: They look really great and are the only chairs we found that could adjust as high as we needed them to for this standing desk.
The Bad: You have to wear shoes or something, because the foot rests are just narrow bars that may as well be sharpened knives, as far as my feet are concerned.
Would We Do It Again: Jury is still out on this one. I think I'm going to try and make some foot rests out of some spare wood we have in the garage and see if that helps. As-is, not great. But the height is perfect for what we need in the office, so they're worth a little DIY to at least try and make them comfortable.

Master Bedroom Bed
The Good: The style of this bed is really great. Honestly, it's just a sharp looking bed and we love the design.
The Bad: The construction of this bed is not great, and let me explain what I mean. The holes for the fasteners are way too big, so the boards on the two sides tilt downward over time. As the edges tilt down, the mattress slopes. I always feel like I'm going to roll off the bed, which may sound extreme, but it's about a 1.5 inch difference from the center of the bed to the edge. That may not seem like much, but it drives me crazy (Chris). One of the legs also gets bent from time to time, which slopes the bed more in that corner.
Would We Do It Again: If you average Jules and I together, we're probably somewhere around a "No, probably not." If it's just me - I would rather put our mattress on the floor, even if I was required to show every person who visits our home that our mattress is on the floor.

Family Room Couch
The Good: The quality of this couch is really something special. The fabric has held up amazingly, the design is impeccable, and the comfort is as good as any couch I've ever experienced. The cushions have not lost any of their cushion, and the fact that we were able to give Interior Define the exact dimensions we wanted the couch to be, and they did it for us? That's incredible. And they didn't just do that because we're bloggers. That's what they do. For everyone.
The Bad: That's a toughie. I guess I find myself sitting on the couch more than I probably have time to? In all seriousness, I can't think of any negative thing about this couch. It's the greatest.
Would We Do It Again: Nope. Psyche. Yep. And we plan to. In case you're wondering, our sectional is the Ainsley, found on interiordefine.com.

Faux Wood Tile Floors
The Good: We've talked about this one in the past, but we still get asked about it every day. The things we love most about this flooring are the durability and aesthetics. The tile looks as great as it did the day we finished putting it in, almost 2 years ago. No scuffs, no scratches, and we do not treat those floors kindly. We live on them, as do our daughters and as does Charly.
The Bad: Probably the temperature. We're lucky that we have heating vents that run through the floor and that keeps them warm in most places, but if you are thinking of putting these floors in a basement or directly on concrete, get an in-floor heating system. Because they will be uncomfortably frigid. They're also really hard, which, duh. But it's not like wood. It's harder on ankle joints, knees, and even backs to spend a lot of time standing and walking on tile vs. wood. We have slippers and rugs that help.
Would We Do It Again: No question. Putting them in was an astronomical amount of work, but that work has paid off, major.