Oh, stimulus, how you tempt me.

Our first house that we can put in our own flooring, rip out a wall on a whim, and lay down some sweet sweet sparkling linoleum. No asking, no begging, just doing. It sounds like our previous landlords have been nightmarish but actually it's just been our parents. And they've been awesome. They've let us paint a room kelly green, a kitchen brick red (and badly), get an enormous dog, and ruin new paint jobs with countless nail holes. But now we are fleeing out nest, investing in a 1921 bungalow, and are free to do whatever the blazes we want with 1100 square feet. If that's as big as your master bath, just smile and say it's "cute".

Once we signed the contract for the house, my mind flew to the countless ideas, designs, and color schemes that had lodged themselves into my pyshe from two years of Dwell, Trad Home, and my favorite bloggers. My wish list was envisioned and before my husband could even ask me if we were planning on keeping our cerulean couch, I'd begun packing. With our move in date more than a month away I boxed everything I didn't think we need for that time. 15 packed boxes in, I began to ask myself, if I could live without these things for a month, why in heaven do we need them at all? We have so much stuff. And we aren't pack rats. And we (well, I) aren't sentimental. If we, the modern minimalist couple that has no need for quilted tissue box covers and the like, have boxes full of crap, what does the rest of the world hide in their homes?

Thus begins our promise, goal, resolution if you will. We, The Hires, pledge to not buy one single piece of new anything for our new home. If we have enough and our neighbors have enough to build the storage centers flooding our city then we are going to make a small dent in Tampa's junk by using only used things to fill our bunglow. There are some asterisks as my husband was not exactly thrilled with this goal.

-We have tons of gift cards we can use (why waste free money?) and sadly, not one is for a thrift store
-My husband did not want to buy a used TV
-Personal items will not be used (he was grossed out by another person's towel)
-we are putting new flooring in the house, salvaged was way too expensive
-gifts are fair game, why rob our loved ones from the blessing of blessing?

And so it begins. I will catalog every dollar we spend on either fixing up what we already have or splurging on someone else's goods. Our bungalow is going to reflect not just us but our community.