Would love your opinions!

I love our little house, I really do. I have so much pride in her, we own her, we live and love in her, and put our life and love into her. In return she has kept us safe and warm, and provided us a place to call home. I just love her through and through.


She does have a few little drawbacks, mainly that she is less than 1000 sq feet on the main floor, and the basement is only partially finished (actually less than partially finished since the sewer backup on Halloween took out our carpet and half the drywall). But we make do, and it forces us to stay cozy and spend time close to one another.


The most frustrating space for me is most definately the living room. It's open to our dining room (which I do love, makes each room feel larger and less closed in), but its hard to place our furniture due to the fact that there is only one wall we can place the TV on.


Right now our set up includes two (free) leather pieces that we love, a chocolate brown 3 seat couch and a beige recliner. It's enough seating for us, and when needed, we use the dining room chairs for extra seats.

This set up works for us, so I'm happy enough with it. However, the coffee table that we have in the room takes up wayy to much space. I love haveing a table in here though because it completes the room, and it adds extra storage and places to set things in the room. Lincoln likes it because he is able to play with his trains and puzzles on it, Mr. Z says he doesn't like it because he and Lincoln can't play football in the living room anymore. {smiles and rolls eyes}.


I love the look of rooms with ottoman pairs serving as a coffee table because they are functional along with looking nice, because when needed they can double as extra seating. I wish this idea would work for our room, but the idea of having two large solid chunks sitting in the middle of the room swallowing up space, scares me a little. I need something beautiful and functional, but also light and airy as to keep the space as open as possible.





So, here is where I'd like your opinions. I found this bench above on my favorite website (walmart, honestly, I couldn't live without walmart.) and I think it would be the perfect replacement for our current coffee table. It brings in the black from the dining room furniture and living room bookshelf, and the rush seat coordinates with the other oak peices in the space. I could certainly use a pretty tray to place on top for drink stability, but I think it's a pretty good option. And when we have people over...extra seating galore!

So normally I would mill it over with Mr. Z, but as I mentioned before, he doesn't dig the table, but also doesn't think it needs to go, so his opinion would be a series of shrugs. :) So, I would like your opinion instead. :D

The Pottery Barn version - if PB thinks its a good idea...then I think I do too!