come on down, house guests.. we're ready for you!

that is, now that we got our last remaining piece of furniture for our guest room.

I had been keeping my eyes peeled for a side table to go in the guest bedroom. My requirements:

1. it had to be black

2. it has to be not hideous

3. it had to be cheap

that was it. You'd think it would have been easier than it was. Granted, I wasn't actively seeking it out.. just keeping it in mind while I was already out. There was a table that I thought was pretty decent at Target.. not first choice but not terrible.. especially for just a simple guest room table. That piece, however, was not the price I was willing to pay. So I watched and it went on sale... still wasn't willing to pay that much for something I didn't absolutely head to toe love. So when it got down to there being two left, and one was scratched up beyond recognition and the other was in pretty decent shape and both were marked down to $25 I decided it was time to make my move. So we got it and I think it's lovely in there. Check mark off of the "to buy for the house" list. ahhh.

the hubs knows a deal when he sees it

When I started doing some idea boards for people, I found some pillows I used in one of them... and oh man I fell in love with that pillow and wanted it all for my very own. I've been coveting it for a while... and I may have casually shown it to the hubby at some point. Well the other day he purchased it as a surprise for me. It was on a great sale and could not be passed up.

I got the green one. The sucker was originally $24.99, on sale for $11.99. Of course, if it were me I would have searched long and hard for a free shipping code, but that's okay... it was still a great sale! Guess I'm rubbing off on him, huh?

mail call!

I just saw that I had received an e-mail from a reader. She had seen my post on my desk and she wanted to share her own deal. She was able to use four 50% of coupons at Michaels on cubes just like the ones I used from Target on my desk. She got 4 of them for only $60! Way to go, Lauren! You paid less than me!

idea boards

so I've been kind of bored lately so I've been making idea boards for friends. Idea boards are things that you would like to buy to pull a room together. You can kind of see it all together and how it would look. The background color is the paint color I recommended. I incorporated things they already had or pieces the definitely wanted and worked around that, and of course, everything I picked was relatively cheap. In fact, most of it was from Target. So I thought I'd share these with you, and maybe you can get some inspiration for your own space.

This room is for someone's office. They already had dark desks and bookcases and that chair you see is something they already had that was to be incorporated. They also already had a futon but were shopping for a new mattress. Here's the breakdown:

futon- Target: $188.99 (but that includes the frame)
pillow- Target: $24.99 (don't worry, it's new.. it'll go down.)
curtains- Target: $17.99-$19.99
vase- Target: $holycrapnevermind... um.. I didn't notice the price on this before... it's really really really overprice so just... ignore that... i am a disgrace to this blog


this particular board is for a living room. None of this is pre-existing stuff but the person wanted something to do with travel but still have something warm and inviting and cozy. It was the first room you want into.

Chair- Target: $299.99
Artwork- Allposters.com: $9.99
Couch- Target: $399.99
Vase- Target: $29.99
Lamp- Target: $165.99 (ew, I don't like that price either.. for a LAMP)
Curtains- Target: $31.99-$32.99


one of my personal favorites. this is for a living room which is open to a kitchen. The hanging light in the left corner is the choice of the person who this board is for for the kitchen.. that was my inspiration for the rest of my design. So here we go:

Table Lamp- Target: $119.99
Curtains- Target: $29.99-$34.99
Couch- Target: $189.99-$319.99
Table- Target: $79.99
Vase- Target: $7.99 (that's what I'm talkin' about!!)
Art- Target: $79.99

okay, there are more but that's all I'm doing for now. To be continued...

it's the little things

so I went on a little Saturday trip to Target today (the hubbie was out of shampoo) and then I saw my favorite thing. A red clearance sticker. It was on something I had mentioned before that if I saw it on clearance, I would get it. It will be a great accent piece for spring and summer. It's a lantern pillar candle holder. They have three different sizes and I got the small one that is regularly $12.99 and on sale for $6.48. I snagged it immediately! It's resting on my mantle right now but will find it's permanent (at least for the spring/summer seasons) once we get down to organizing our dvds so they don't take up so much space. Anyway, here's a picture of it:


I'm on my way to a more care free airy summery living space, of course for less.

vase variety

If you are looking around for vases right now, Target has a ton of them on sale. Now that I have my flower garden, I've been trying to keep my eyes open for bud vases to put out a flower that may be snapped off the plant. I found a really cute teardrop glass bud vase for $1.49 last night so I snagged it up, and right now it is proudly displaying a gerbera daisy.

oh, also saw some pots and hammocks on sale for your outdoor needs. I BADLY want a hammock but unfortunately, that will have to wait. Hopefully I can still find a good deal though.

yes, I AM pathetic

I have been so terrible about updates here! I do have a valid excuse though.. I am on a spending freeze! I can't buy fun cheap things for a while :( Isn't that so sad? I remembered something I could write about though. Not too long ago my husband and I did a DIY desk for our office. Our inspiration? what else... Pottery Barn. This desk has been around for a while and I have been drooling over it from the very minute I saw it.

by the way, they have changed the picture for this desk about 4 times (at least) since they came out with it.

Anyway, it is sold in pieces and you can choose what you want. I wont give you a complete run-down of the prices (you can find that on their website), but lets just say that the SMALL corner desk top (desk top ALONE.. nothing to hold it up) is ON SALE for $219. Yikes.

JCPenney can always be counted on for a good pottery barn knock-off. Here's theirs:

It also comes in white, which I happen to prefer. Theirs is also sold as components and their corner desktop is on sale for $149 BUT they throw in a single leg ;) So if you can magically balance a desk on one leg, you wont have to buy any more of the components!

Alright.. onto the cool part. Here is my desk in my personal office (please keep in mind my office is FAR from finished and PLEASE ignore the mismatched chairs.. and yes, my office really IS orange):



Alright.. here is the run-down on our desk and the pricing.

the "legs" are cubes stacked on top of each other. They were purchased at Target but Michael's has some almost identical ones for SLIGHTLY more expensive. Ours were around the range of $25. Some were a few dollars less, some were a few dollars more so we're just going to say $25 each and make it easy. We purchased 8 of them.

The desk top was all made out of ONE large sheet of wood that cost us about $10. We had it cut at the store for us.

We purchased a long piece of wood and cut it up to make two legs for the corner part of the desk to support it there. That only cost about $2.

Then there was the paint. That was about $20.

Lastly were brackets because the longest part of the desktop is two pieces put together and then the short part was another piece. We needed to put them together to have it lay flat and stay together. That cost about $3.

so the run-down:

Cubes- $25 x 8 = $200
wood for desktop- $10
wood for legs- $2
paint- $20
brackets- $3
labor- free ;)

for a total approx. cost of:
$235

and that is for a HUGE desk that takes up an entire wall on one side and a large part of a second wall with tons of storage. For that, you can barely get one small part of a desktop at Pottery Barn.. IF it's on sale :)

So kids, what have we learned today? DIY, if you can do it (and trust me, everyone can do something like this.. it didn't take ANY carpentry skills) and you will save lots of $$ in the end.