Our story so far: We covered our refinished wood floors in the old Methodist church with rugs of all shapes and sizes.

# # #

My internet-shopping husband tried to get me to choose a rug for the “living corner” of the great room, too. He narrowed the search parameters to a particular size and color and still we could have paged through two million options. Nothing spoke to me. Then I began questioning the color. Then I wondered if I really wanted that size. Every choice looked right. Then they all looked wrong.

We’d already made one rug choice for the corner of the great room that contained the fireplace and sectional. Or rather, Tyler did. During one of his early morning shopping trips (some people shop the internet at night while consuming liquor—Tyler did his damage armed with coffee before anyone else got up), Tyler ordered a special rug.

A very large package of unknown origin (at least to me) arrived one day before we had even moved in. As Tyler unpacked it, he exclaimed, “Oh, it’s the bear rug! Check this out,” as he unfurled a huge, furry, strangely shaped mat.

Indeed, it looked a lot like a bear rug. Only it was made of polyester and didn’t have any teeth.

Early on, after we made an offer on the church but before we closed the deal, we toured a house on a Parade of Homes. I spotted a bear rug (a real one) in one of those million-dollar homes, and I told Tyler we had to have one of those in the church. It was the sort of unique textural piece that would be right at home in a former church in southern Wisconsin, I thought. What’s more cozy than curling up on a bear rug in front of the fireplace? Tyler remembered.

“How much did you spend on that?” I asked, loving that he remembered, that he agreed he should have one, that he shopped for it and bought it, knowing I would approve.

“Only two hundred bucks!”

So when we moved in, we rolled it out in front of the fireplace almost right away. It did look right at home. Only the robot vacuum cleaner, which would get tied up in it every time he vacuumed, protested.

# # #

Tomorrow: The fireplace. Read about it here.