So, when a man travels all over the world to exotic locales and the holiest sites in Creation, you would think he’d have a lot on his mind; history, philosophy, anthropology, war and peace. There’s so much out there to see and experience- lives, cultures, civilizations… it’s truly overwhelming.

That is to say, it can be overwhelming if you bother to think about any of it, and for most of this trip, we didn’t. We spent the bulk of the last four months thinking about furniture.

We started this blog just a few weeks after we bought the Chophouse, and since then we’ve thought a lot about furniture. When we moved in here, we had practically nothing. The few old pieces we did bring with us were in urgent need of replacement. We’ve gone through several cycles of going abroad to work, saving up money, and coming home to blow a few grand on furnishing a room. Rinse. Repeat.

A visual approximation of how our living room will look. Except, you know, a little more modest.

Although we’ve only touched on home decor in a few posts in the past, furnishing our house has been an ongoing obsession with us. We’ve never blogged much about it, partly because we weren’t sure if people really find it interesting, and partly because it seems a little too show-offy to put up a bunch of pictures of your dining room saying “Oooohhh. Look at all this nice stuff I bought. Pat me on the back for my wonderful interior design skills now!” So we’ve refrained from that. Even though It’s been tempting. Even though our little Chophouse is coming along quite nicely.

All that changes now though. Today marks the first installment of the Couch Chronicles, our new weekly series in which we’ll document in detail the transformation of our living room space from a completely bare and unused room into the modern, cozy, heart of the house. We’re going to talk in detail about pulling together aesthetic elements, honoring our location and lifestyle, and choosing and purchasing actual furniture and decor pieces and fitting them all together into a cohesively designed living space.

There’s one more big piece of news to go along with all this: We’re excited to announce that we’ve been chosen to participate in Su Casa Furniture’s Test It, Blog It, Win It contest.

Here’s the deal- they picked a handful of local bloggers who each get to choose and take home a piece of furniture to keep for a month. You blog about your furniture, and if you write real good and all, you win and get to keep it for free. Here’s the part that’s really interesting: even if we don’t win we get to buy a couch for 50% off the retail price, (!!!) as well as receiving a discount on additional items, which we may also win. So even if we lose, we win.

It’s almost as if they designed this contest specifically for the Chop. The timing couldn’t be better, either. The winner is set to be announced July 1, which is right around the time we ought to be just putting the finishing touches on our new living room. Check back with us here every Saturday, and we’ll let you know how it’s coming along.