Inspiration vs. Reality

Hello! I hope you all had a great weekend. I am very much looking forward to our long, July 4th holiday weekend coming up- though this year I am excited about three days dedicated to house projects rather than the lake! Life sure is looking different these days :)

I am starting to realize that gathering everything to decorate a home can take quite a bit of time.. and research! I am still figuring out exactly which direction I want to go with our decor (French-Country-Cottage-Farmhouse-Industrial pretty much sums up my dream house).. and as you can imagine, combining all of these looks to be a cohesive home has proved challenging. There are so many talented artists, designers, and sources of inspiration now, that I think it makes it even MORE difficult to make a decision. Everywhere you look is a new beautiful piece of furniture, or a fun spin on something you perhaps hadn't considered before (hello- WALLPAPER for an example.. there are so many amazing ones out there now!). Not to mention every room you see on Pinterest or HGTV is immaculately styled and professionally photographed to give us unreal expectations.

As I have mentioned before, just like most 20-something's, Richard and I are on a budget, and many of these sources of inspiration just aren't reality for us right now. Don't get me wrong- walking into a Pottery Barn or Restoration Hardware makes me go as weak in the knees as the next girl, but you know what I find has been even more exciting recently? Scoring items that I love at a great price! I still look to Pottery Barn, Pinterest, magazines, etc. for inspiration, but now, before I convince myself that I have to have that adorable basket even if it does cost $75, (this is what college Lisa was great at) I do some research first and make sure I am making a wise decision. Here are some of my most recent purchases that I am particularly excited about:

 As soon as Richard and I bought our house, I started looking at rugs. There are no carpeted rooms in the house, so I knew we would be needing several. I kept seeing these natural rugs in dining rooms/living rooms and I loved the look of them, so I started keeping an eye out (Who knew rugs were so expensive!!) Thankfully, a blog I follow, Jenna Sue Design, did a big kitchen reveal (HERE) and she linked up to a jute rug at Rugs USA. I love her style, so I checked it out and it was almost too good to be true- at the time it was 70% off and they always offer free shipping and have a generous return policy. I pretty much ordered it immediately and haven't looked back. In fact, I think I will probably be ordering more for other rooms in our house! I just love it. It has a great natural look, is very soft and has tassels on the ends, which I really like.

I recently purchased the light on the right and cannot wait for it to arrive! If it is as gorgeous as the picture looks, I think I will want one in every room!! After seeing an episode of Fixer Upper (my favorite), I was on the hunt for a rustic, wooden chandelier for our kitchen.  I wanted a lantern type light.. but not one that looked TOO industrial, because the light will be going above some semi-formal chairs, so I wanted to looks to match. A google search led me to Wayfair (which is a great website that does offer some good prices).The chandelier pictured on the left was a good starting point for what a wanted (as far as style is concerned), but the measurements were too big, and so was the price tag! I think I must have searched on ALL of my go-to websites, and found the chandelier on the right at Amazon! To me, this is like hitting the jack pot. I like the less expensive version even more and it is a fraction of the cost! I can't wait for it to come in! I will update with pictures as soon as it does!


Blinds also took QUITE a bit of research before we decided on which ones to go with. I knew I wanted bamboo shades... inspired by beauties like this:

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The windows in our living room and dining room, where these will be used, call for 35" wide x 74" long panels. I checked out several website, and found that THESE were going to give us the best bang for our buck (around $45.00/panel). Other websites/locations that I checked out (justblinds.com, blinds.com, Lowe's) either didn't give me the look I wanted, or started out at a minimum of $80 a panel and went up to well over $100! We have received the blinds already, and I love the look of them! I will say that sometimes, you get what you pay for. This was obvious in the screws included in the mounting hardware. They stripped after trying to screw them in with a HAND screwdriver! They really were terrible- but thankfully for us, we have tons of extra screws lying around, so this didn't bother me at all.. and definitely wouldn't justify paying TWICE as much just to get some better quality screws.

I can now honestly say that I get truly excited about bargain hunting- whereas I used to just find something I liked and buy it right away. I enjoy the research process of it, and often times find something that I like even more than the original inspiration! Some of my automatic go-to's when doing some research/ price comparisons are HomeGoods, Target, Ikea, Amazon, Overstock.com, Etsy (love supporting small businesses!), and local thrift stores, antique malls, etc. I look forward to continuing to stock our home and updating you along the way!

Thanks for reading! On to some (BIG) projects soon and I can't wait to update you!