We noticed a weird smell in the house mid-last week, shortly before leaving town for the holidays. Since we were busy with that whole leaving town business, we didn’t take much time to investigate – meaning that when we got home late Sunday night, we were immediately confronted with the mysterious smell and OMG MUST FIND THE SOURCE NOW.

You know what is generally not a good idea? A full on game of “what’s that smell?” after 4 hours of driving in shitty, snowy weather. Regardless, we soldiered on, and in the process decided that the smell might be in the raggedy pink carpet sample that a previous tenant had used as a living room rug.

With the rug removed, we were free to investigate other smell sources* and, in doing so, we COMPLETELY rearranged our living room/dining room area. This included completely unloading bookcases and a hutch, multiple trips to the basement for fresh mop buckets (I swear the previous tenant never cleaned), and a lot of cursing as we wondered why we thought this was a good idea.

After all of that, though, we’re totally, TOTALLY delighted with the end results – a space that feels both more open and cozy, room for the turntable, and shelves and storage in places that make sense.

Living room

Dining room (pt 1), featuring the amazing prints Shane had custom-framed for me for Christmas

Dining room (pt 2), and dig the beautiful mid-century hutch from Shane’s momma!

*Oh and the smell? Totally the trash can, which took a good scrubbing but is now devoid of mysterious odors.