Word to the Wise!

Do your homework before purchasing...anything! I vowed this year to become more of a saver and to monitor my (our) finances very closely. I have been quite a coupon-cutter, deal-watcher, and budget-planner this past month and a half. I've even taken to watching Youtube uploads from savvy budgeters (is that a word? Should be!) and have picked up some interesting tips. Today, however, I discovered my own tip: compare online prices to in-store prices before purchasing!

Case in point, we are going to semi-remodel the downstairs bathroom. Earlier this week I began searching online (mostly Home Depot and Lowes) for vanities for the bathroom. Surprise, surprise, I finally decided upon the Martha Stewart Seal Harbor vanity in Sharkey Grey. Ah, I adore Martha!

Isn't it just so cute? Back to my point, the online Home Depot cost of this little beauty was $299 on Wednesday, $399 on Thursday, then back to $299 Friday (and today, Saturday). My mom and I went to Home Depot (in the flesh today) and the listed price on the item was $399. We spoke with an HD associate to verify the cost, and yes, $399 was the in-store charge. She went on to explain that sometimes the in-store and online costs might be a bit different. Um, yah I'll call a $100 just "a bit" different! When I got home I jumped online and there it was, Seal Harbor for $299. I ordered it to be sent to the house (free shipping on all items over $45) and the total price was $322 rather than the $432.92 that it would have cost me in-store after taxes! Score one for the anti-spendthrift!

(Sneak Peak)

This is not the complete post, but I'm still so excited about our new furniture that photos must go up ASAP. We still have more pillow to buy, window treatments to install and artwork to hang, but here is the living room as of tonight.

Husband's chair is finally assembled and home! This is the most comfortable chair that has ever been made; worth every single penny. PS, isn't this wall color 100% better than the original dark green? I love the buttery walls and pure white trim (I did the trim myself).

Love, love, love the Andalusia rug! Love the loveseat, but it's still missing a few essential pillows. Although I adore the look, I am quite fearful that I am going to be finding little black Ellie hairs all over it. But I ask you,  who can resist this face?

West Elm L-O-V-E!

Today was such a happy day! Our loveseat was delivered and I had the most lucrative trip to West Elm. Ah, I cannot put into words just how much I love that store. And after a failed trip to Pier 1, I picked up a few snazzy accent pillows from Target (old faithful).  I can't wait to head over to the house tomorrow after work and decorate the living room with Sweet Dee!

Here are my West Elm purchases; next photos will show this lovely loot in our house!

Spring Bloom Curtains

Andalusia Rug

Parlour of Perfection?

Finalizing the decor for the living room is much more difficult that I had anticipated. I do not remember having this tough of a time picking out our furniture when we were first married, but then again I was only 22 and we were selecting furniture on college students' budget (not that we're rolling in dough now, but we're not buying Ikea furniture this time).

The only definite right now is Husband's chair. Ah, and what a wonderful chair it is. I highly anticipate knitting in it while watching Snow White on the tele with Sweet Dee. What an absolutely splendid way to spend two hours! Anyway, back to the chair; yes, the only concrete piece of living room furniture thus far.

Husband and I found this lovely little loveseat (the space is an awkward shape and not suitable for a full sofa). The dinning room table that we purchased is a mid-century inspired piece so we decided to go mid-century for the loveseat as well.

Of course this little lady will need an ample supply of pillows. I found this one on Etsy and absolutely love it!

The pillow (although quite price for an Etsy find) is a must because it contains the off-white of the loveseat, the green of the dinning table seats, and the blue of yet another fabulous Etsy find (from Bird Ave).

Is this not a fabulous piece?! We ordered a set of four cities: Madrid, Rome, Barcelona and Lisbon. All cities that we have been blessed to visit over the past two summers. They came in the mail two days ago and I am dying for the painters to finish so that I can hang them up!

The last furniture piece that I'm eyeing (which also matches the lovely chevron pillow) is this beautiful rug from West Elm. I know that the picture is crappy, but you get the idea. The rug is called Andalusia (yet another wonderful nod to our favorite country Spain).

Sneak peak: this is the dinning room table. Her name is Sophia (given by by World Market, not me). She is a little green gem! Ps, this is the photo off their website, our Sophia is not in the dinning room quite yet. 

Fins Aviat! <3

Baby It’s Cold Inside

With 20-something feet high ceilings and no furniture yet in the house it is very chilly indoors. Needless to say, the thermostat was broken (thank you sellers)! No need to fear, Hubsand has become quite the handyman (hallelujah) and was able to replace it in less than 15 minutes (and yet another trip to Home Depot)! What a fabulous man I married… and he’s cute to boot!

 *Note: before replacing a thermostat remember to turn the power off!

And since he is just so wonderful, I got him this! He's been eyeing it for a couple of months but a $600 chair seemed a bit ridiculous. What's a girl to do? Answer: wait for a sale, wait for the $10 birthday coupon World Market always sends, and use a 15% coupon found in an email. Hot dog, a $600 recliner for $447.14! I can already see him falling asleep while watching football in it!

Bathroom Blues

The residents of this lovely little house will be my Hubby, Sweet Dee (my baby sister), Ellie (my sister’s Boston Terrier), Jack (my orange and white tabby), and me! Sweet Dee and Ellie will be occupying the downstairs bedroom and bathroom, so the bathroom color choice was Dee’s.  We found an adorable little teal bathroom online and thought that we’d mimic the overall feel of it.

Clearly we know that we don’t have the space to replace the current fiberglass shower/tub out and replace it with this lovely claw foot porcelain tub but we figured that we replicate the color scheme. WE FAILED MISERABLY!!! We all hate the color, it is way too intense for such a small area; definitely not what you want to see first thing in the morning.

Thank God that the painters haven’t come yet! It’s not too late for the painters to correct our mistake. And although we initially thought we were going for a nice, light, and dainty look (and bought the cutest little décor from West Elm) it turns out that Sweet Dee was much more inspired by this little number while at good ole Target.

So now Dee wants to paint the walls yellow (or was it gold?). Either way, Hubby was more than ecstatic about the color scheme change since he’ll now have a “Chargers” bathroom downstairs. Now another decision…

10 Day Update

So, this is the house...

The past 10 days have been unbelievably busy driving from one house to the other and making a ridiculous amounts of trips to Home Depot. The painters are scheduled to (finally) come make the casa beautiful in just two short days; I can hardly wait! As you can tell from the (horribly out of focus) photo below, the walls and ceilings are entirely too dark and too high for us to do the job ourselves. 

The color makes the space seem like a tiny, dark cave... not quite the look we are going for. I saw a photo in last month's HGTV Magazine of a bright and open living room with beautiful buttery walls and absolutely loved the look (as did the husband... shocker!). The painters suggested the four colors below to us; we're leaning towards the color on the far right; it looks much brighter in the light.

We've already had one color flop (downstairs bathroom...yikes!!!). So we're hoping that this is the right choice. More to come!

Fins Aviat!