Do we really need show lemons?

I've been struggling with a desire to buy stuff. Join the club, right? We moved in to our house more than a month ago and I've had it with bare walls. At our first rental we barely hung anything on the walls because I was afraid of making holes. Then I realized how easy it was to putty up a white wall so I hung lots of things up at our second rental. And about two months later, we moved. Grrrr. In with my father-in-law, who had just remodeled and, understandably, didn't want any holes in the walls. GrrrrrRRRR!

So now I don't care. Putty is made for a reason! So is white toothpaste! So I want stuff on the walls. I'm going to hold off on painting, which is what I really want to do. Makes no sense to invest in the walls on a month-to-month rental. But we sold most of our decor items in garage sales to make way for Jack and to consolidate our stuff to fit in my father-in-law's garage.

I've taken up a hobby, therefore, of window shopping on the internet, bookmarking things I want and things I'd like to have a cheaper substitute of on my Amazon WishList. It's kind of addicting. Side tables and art and bedframes, oh my!

My issue is balancing buying things I think are pretty with living within our means. I want to buy a print of a painting to hang in the kitchen, but wonder if I should just deny the urge and put the equivalent value toward our looming credit card debt? Does the empty wall bug me more than the bills? No. But it's just difficult for me right now to figure out where spending a little (or a lot) on making a house a home fits in our budget, or if it really matters.

I want a coat rack. Or at least a series of hooks on the wall by the front door. We want a full or queen bed in the guest bedroom, obviously. With that should come a nightstand. And a lamp. And a TV stand for the living room that actually contains the game consoles and wires. And might as well get a flatscreen tv, right? Kidding, kidding... Do I really NEED two prints of songbirds in the bathroom? Or another tablecloth?

In the movie, The Break-Up, Jennifer Aniston gets extremeley irritated with Vince Vaughn because he doesn't buy enough lemons to display in a bowl on the table as a centerpiece. Not lemons to use, necessarily, but to show off. Do we really need "show lemons" to make us feel content? Where does that fit in with bills? Am I buying something to make me happy, or look impressive? Hmmm...