@MMarciano,
All you really need in the guest room for your mom is a bed/mattress. Even a high quality aero-bed might do in a pinch. You're right, your mom mainly cares about seeing you, and being with you, and the decor doesn't matter.
I'm with osso on this one. I think rushing out to buy furniture is a mistake. I think it's better to live in the house for a little while and get a sense of the space, how you want to fill it, and how you both want it to look.
There are so many decisions to be made when furnishing and decorating rooms. Color schemes, furniture styles, lighting needs, floor coverings, the size and scale of individual sofas, chairs, tables, and chests/storage items, so they are appropriate for the dimensions of the room, and, since children and pets will be involved, durability and ease of cleaning upholstered fabrics and floor coverings might be a consideration. And then there are the wall and window treatments. It's a process that involves a lot of thought, a lot of discussion, a lot of shopping and browsing, a lot of careful measuring and planning--all of which is best done slowly. You want to feel really comfortable and pleased with those rooms when you're all finished.
I'm a fairly good amateur interior decorator, judging by the positive feedback I've always received with my efforts, particularly my more recent efforts. But, early on I learned some important lessons, the first one being that, just because you fall in love with a piece of furniture in the store does not mean it will look good in your room, even if it seems to work on your floor plan diagram. Looking at a piece of furniture in isolation in a furniture store is not always the same as seeing it in your particular room surrounded by other items.
I once bought a pair of beautiful wing chairs to flank a mantel in a room. They were exactly what I was looking for and what
I thought would be perfect, given my decor and seating needs. Then, after they were delivered, I realized that that particular style of chair was just too bulky given the somewhat narrow dimensions of my room, and visually the chairs just overwhelmed the room. I sold them almost immediately, fortunately, and replaced them with high-backed arm chairs which had a much more open, less bulky look, and the effect was perfect--and these chairs were even more comfortable to sit in than the more heavily upholstered pieces they replaced.
My second big mistake was buying a fairly large patterned sofa as the first item of furniture for a living room in another home. I loved the pattern and colors of the sofa fabric and they went beautifully with the color of the carpeting which was already installed. And the sofa looked great in the room--as long as there were no other items, beside tables, in the room. The pattern on such a large piece of furniture made decorating the rest of the room difficult, and very limiting, something I just hadn't realized in advance. I just couldn't bring in anything else with a pattern--it was too distracting to the eye. Had the same pattern been on chairs it would have worked, but on a large sofa it just didn't. This week, I was watching the Nate Berkus show, and one of his decorating tips was never to buy a patterned sofa--add pattern to the room with throw pillows on a solid colored sofa, or add it on chairs, rugs, etc. Wish I had heard that advice many many years ago before I bought that sofa, although I did learn from that mistake and didn't repeat it when I decorated the next living room.
So, I'd slow down on trying to furnish your new home ASAP. Live in it a while. Get a sense of what you need, and like, and the space you are trying to fill. Buying mistakes can be costly and a pain in the neck. Either live with your old furniture for a while, or, if you don't want to move with it, consider renting furniture for a month or two so you can talk, and plan, and browse, and shop, at a more leisurely pace. I think that's the best way to wind up with a home that reflects your combined taste and style, one you'll both feel comfortable in, and one that suits your needs and lifestyle.
