Deal of the Century

So I might be a little too proud about this deal that I scored a few weekends back at the Crate and Barrel outlet. I was shopping with my husband, mother in law, and aunt in law and Aaron and I went ahead of the others into Crate and Barrel, where I happened upon a large selection of “final sale” dining tables and various furniture. They had some beauuuutiful wood dining tables at some pretty amazingly deep discounts. I didn’t believe it when I saw the Pranzo II extension dining table, a $1699.00 table, for … yes, $249. That is an 85% discount.

 

What I loved about it:

• Too good of a deal to pass up an 85% discount on a very high quality piece.
• The wood table is so lovely. The black legs go perfectly with our already owned chairs.
• It has THREE extension leaves. Yes, THREE. So that means that it can seat 14 people. How amazing is that?! This gives us an opportunity to host both big and small groups of people without even having a formal dining room.
• It was made in Italy.

Why my husband thought we shouldn’t get it and how I convinced him otherwise:

• We already have a table. Why yes we do. We got it off Craigslist for $60 including chairs and it badly needs another coat of paint. It also collects and shows EVERY speck of dust and dirt and makes cleaning it impossible.
• He didn’t wait to buy new chairs. Well guess what, we don’t have to! The ones we have go perfectly. Just need a coat of fresh paint.
• We pretty much only bought it because his mom and aunt kept telling him it was such a great deal.

After we paid for it and left I remembered that I had a 10% off coupon for Crate and Barrel from changing my address on the catalog when we moved. I examined it and it didn’t list any exclusions for final sale/clearance items. We went back to get $25 back and they said it wouldn’t work on final sale items. After I politely pointed out that it does not say that on the coupon, they said their computer just wouldn’t accept it. I knew that customer service would come to my rescue. Not sure why they didn’t call customer service to ask for support in the first place, but alas, customer service said there shouldn’t have been a problem and promptly refunded $25. So the total was only around $240 with tax!

    

Framed File Folders

Our guest bathroom was missing something…..



Enter some framed file folders from World Market…



I was at World Market today when their display of notecards caught my eye. They have so many beautiful prints! I was about to purchase a box of small notecards to frame when I saw these suzani file folders. I liked that there were six of them, in varying colors, and that they would fit in an 8x10 mat. They were $7.99, and I had a 25% off coupon, making them $5.99!



I already had two frames just waiting to be used. All I did was center the file folder on the mat and tape… no cutting required! I like that if I ever decide to use them for their original purpose, I can.



 

Garage Sale Scores

There was a garage sale down the street from us last Saturday, and we drove by on our way to our church’s Partner’s Brunch. I spotted these white chairs with pretty lines. We decided to see if they were still there on the way back, and they sure were. So- score #1: we got two upholstered dining chairs with great lines for $10 total. Score #2: We met some super sweet neighbors, the ones who were having the sale! (and they told us that one of the neighbors has a built in margarita machine in their backyard- we really want to get invited to one of those parties).
The chairs first made their home as the two head chairs on our dining table. After a few days I wasn’t sold on the combination of four black chairs and two white chairs at a black table. I felt it made our kitchen look too cluttered. Too many finishes going on in there!
So they made their way up to our master bedroom, on each side of the dresser.

Of course, I had to reupholster that red stripe fabric that was stained and in bad shape. But don’t these chairs have great lines and curvatures?

So I turned the chair upside down, and got to work on reupholstering, which took about five minutes and doesn’t really require an explanation here…

I used some fabric I already had.


I like that we can sit on them when we put on socks, shoes, etc. Other than that, they don’t serve much purpose other than looking pretty, but I don’t mind that.
Total cost : $10! Can’t beat that.

A Relaxing Guest Bedroom

Aaron’s mom and aunt came to visit us a few weeks ago (more about that fun weekend later… it was project-filled) and that lit a fire under us to get our guest room acceptable for these very important guests. We started out with this:

So basically, rag rolled walls in two shades of orangey red, a barn wood chair rail, and western curtains. This room didn’t have much goin’ for it, in our opinion. I’m really careful about my thoughts on this room though, because I know that to the three little boys that shared this teeny tiny room before we lived here, this was probably the coolest room in history and I know their parents worked really hard on making it great for them. Anyhow.

I painted the room (and the chair rail) Silver Birch by Glidden. I was expecting it to be a lot more gray, but it kind of turned out as a really light, almost whitish gray. I’m still happy with it though, it makes the room really soothing. I originally planned to do the room in all yellow and gray, but then I started really liking a gray, yellow, and blue combination. I found some great bedding that I really loved at HomeGoods and went from there.

Since all we had was a futon up until this point, we needed to buy a bed for the room. I knew from the beginning that I really wanted the IKEA Leirvik bed, since Aaron thinks it is so girly and it would never fly in our bedroom. To make a really long story about mattress shopping short, we picked a great memory foam mattress at an amazing price from Denver Mattress, and switched out our old mattress into the guest room.

The day that we picked up the bed from IKEA, we were babysitting my parents dogs, so they were of course helping us put it together.

I found this perfect shade of aqua blue in the oops section at Home Depot at $6 for the gallon. I painted the nightstand that I mentioned here ($30, thrifted) with it and the shelves that were already hung in the room.

    

           

So, here’s what we’ve come up with for now!

  

 

Paint: Silver Birch by Glidden, color matched to Behr Premium Plus Ultra, about $35
Bedding: quilt, duvet, shams, and decorative pillows all by Hillcrest at HomeGoods, purchased with a gift card.
Lamp: $29.99 at HomeGoods
Nightstand: $30.00 at Next to New, updated with a $7 oops paint.
Shelves: already in room, updated with $7 oops paint.
Curtains: Target, already owned
Curtain rod: Wal-Mart, already owned
Bed: Ikea Leirvik, $99.99
Desk: West Elm at Pottery Barn Outlet (it was around $50, bought in January)

Our total out of pocket for this room was about $200. Not bad! I still have plans for things on the walls, and those shelves.

Thrifted mirror

I'm here again to confess my undying love for oil rubbed bronze spray paint. Just kidding but kind of.

The first thrifted item I bought was this large mirror at the Salvation Army for $14.99. I loved the unusal shape (long and skinny) and the beautiful curvature (is that a word?) of the top. I had to have it.

I also had to paint it.

So I taped it off and covered the mirror part with newspaper, being very careful to get as close to the edges as possible, as not to spray the mirror itself. I  love the result and can't get enough of seeing the delicious metallic bronze against my grayish wall in the entryway.

I love how long it is, so it has become my go-to full length mirror when I stand back far enough. I for one think it looks expensive and new and it is really old and cost me $14.99. I also think it looks very nice paired up with those Target frames that we got as a wedding gift!

Blue la la

So far I think our guest bathroom has undergone the biggest "makeover" in the house. I knew I would want to start out by picking a shower curtain and then letting it develop from there. Since this is our only bathroom in the house to have a shower curtain, I wanted something that I really loved!  We have a gift card to Pottery Barn that we can use at West Elm, and as soon as I saw this shower curtain in their new fall line I was in love:

At $39, it was a bit higher than I'd normally pay for a shower curtain, but since we had a gift card I didn't feel bad at all. I love that I can mix the indigo shades with tons of different colors- green, yellow, gray, coral, I could go on and on.

Next, I painted the oak cabinets in Martha Stewart's Glass of Milk. To be honest I was expecting it to be a huge pain after all of the horror stories I've heard. It went so well and I didn't even sand the cabinets. I put on two coats of Zinnser Bullseye 123 primer and probably three or four coats of the Martha paint. I was very happy with her paint. I already had the brushes, primer, and everything so the project cost me about $13 for a quart of the paint, and I barely used any of it.  Here is a picture of the before:

Here we are after a coat of primer. At this point I was a little nervous about all of the brush strokes showing:

But not to worry, this is how it turned out:

I also painted the bathroom in the same color we used downstairs, Milk Pail.

We hung the shelf that we scored at the PB Outlet earlier this year for $4.97 over these towel hooks that were already in here. I like them and I think that hooks function much better than racks anyways, so those will be staying.

A closer shot of the shower curtain and the pattern. You can't tell in these pictures but each print is just a little different shade than the next.

So what's next for this room?

• Accesorize the white shelf. I'm thinking of various bath related items in apothecary jars, etc.
• Get a soap dispenser.
• Either get a new mirror or frame out the existing mirror.
• Purchase bath mats.
• Hang some art.
• Find some great knobs for the cabinet doors.
• Eventually change light fixture.
• Eventually change faucet.

House Tour Updated

Just popping in to say if you are curious to see some before and "progress" shots of spaces I haven't shared on the blog yet, you can now do so on the page above you labeled "Our Home" or by clicking here!