Long term projects always get longer and longer

For some time now we've been going to redecorate and refurnish the lounge. It still has the wallpaper; paint scheme and carpet from the previous owners, which we didn't change (even although it's really very, very blue), because we couldn't justify doing so as the quality was good. Even although the artex on the ceiling is dastardly. Actually, I think Handsome has always secretly rather liked it, because even 'though he's nine tenths colour blind, blue is one of the colours that he's absolutely sure about.

The furniture is a mismatch of things we brought with us, and things that we bought cheaply when we needed them, and nothing in the room really goes with anything else. Don't get me wrong, some of the furniture is gorgeous - there's the bookcase that Handsome made for our first house, which I treasure, but it was made for a very different room, and doesn't really work with the Ikea corner table and TV stand, and the general blueness of the rest of it.

Have I mentioned that it's blue?

So, we've got the money put by, and we've been looking for inspiration... and failing. I have come to the conclusion that my absolute ideal is to have three bits of designer furniture and nothing else in the room at all. But this probably wouldn't be even slightly practical. We have to keep the two settees, because we can't afford to replace them, and Handsome is going to make a coffee table (in exchange for the one he made me nearly twenty years ago, which is showing it's age) and a fire surround and mantlepiece. We'll move the bookcase to somewhere else in the house (still to be decided), and then we have to decide what we're going to put in the corner that'll be left...

And what colour to paint the walls (not blue), and what to do about the awful ceiling (squint lights and barbaric artex), and  what kind of carpet (not blue either) and all that stuff.

The thing is, that we've looked everywhere for furniture and we can't find anything that we want at all - we've looked at cheap stuff and expensive stuff, we've looked at mass produced and handmade (and today we very nearly bought six dining room chairs instead) and we can't find anything that we don't find boring. Actually, that's not strictly speaking true - there was a gorgeous table at Harestanes today, but it would have been a complete waste to put a television on it.

I guess we'll either have to keep looking, or accept that we'll have to do the lounge piecemeal. And as we're nearing the end of Handsome's over-generous summer holidays, and I've been back at work for a week now, piecemeal is what looks practical. But I suspect it won't be as good, or that we'll run out of energy/ambition/money halfway through, a common failing for us. I wish I could just hire a designer, tell them what I want (which doesn't seem to be available) and leave them to get on with it.