It's The Little Things

We made a few (very) small changes here at the Pinspired Home over the past few weeks.
The first was the addition of some new rugs for our entries and kitchen. And let me tell you, we needed them!

The door into the garage from the family room.

The door out to the driveway & backyard from the sunroom/playroom.

Gross, right? I'm a little embarrassed to even show these pictures. I guess I really should have shaken off all the grass and dirt before snapping the photo. These rugs were falling apart and the non-slip backing was wearing off. I bought them last summer for $8 at Big Lots. Since they took such abuse, I had decided I was going to buy better mats once we updated the family room.
Then, few weeks ago, Aldi had their kitchen mats advertised for $4.99 as part of a "dorm life" sale. I wasn't going to buy them since they were so inexpensive, but I checked them out while I was there.
They were a lot sturdier than our Big Lots mats, had a higher-quality non-stick backing that doesn't look like it will wear off as easily, and were machine washable. So, for $15, I brought home three navy rugs, which I think will go nicely with the color scheme I picked for our future family room update.
Here they are! I know they don't really have any pizazz, but they are such an improvement from the old ones. It guess it doesn't take much to make me happy. : )

The other "little thing" was a somewhat unwanted change. Two weeks ago, Hubby woke me up to tell me that our coffee maker had died. : ( Not exactly a "good morning, honey." This was especially frustrating because it was only about 3 years old.
We talked it over and decided to go with a percolator because they make good coffee and seem to last longer, but we had to order one online. To hold us over until the percolator arrived, I bought a very inexpensive 12-cup coffee maker at WalMart ($9.50, including tax). It will be nice to have an extra coffee maker for company or back-up if our coffee maker ever dies again.
So, here's the progression of coffee makers on our counter over the last few weeks. I left the not-so-pretty outlet cover in the picture for size reference.

I have to say, we really like the percolator! It makes hot coffee that has a smoother taste (not as bitter as an auto-drip), it looks pretty on the counter, it's less bulky so it can easily be put away, and it uses less electricity than our old programmable Mr. Coffee.

So, those are two small changes that are making me smile this week.  Isn't it amazing how the little things can make such a big difference?