Category Archives: Frugality

Separated at Birth

I’m good at bargain hunting when I go to thrift stores. Unfortunately, I have one major chink in my I-refuse-to-overpay-for-anything armor.

I have a thing for twins.

If I see something identical to a previously-purchased treasure, I have to buy it. Even if it’s overpriced. Even though I already have one. I’m constitutionally unable to face the possibility I’ll think of a brilliantly symmetrical way to use the twin of my previous find — but only after it’s too late to buy the counterpart.

So I fold. I pass over my money — too much money — and scurry home with a ridiculous sense of satisfaction mingled with regret. Like last week.

You may remember me finding, among other things, this loverly vanity seat a few months ago:

I found her twin last week.

She was a little hard to recognize under her disguise. (I admit, the fabric is kind of cute.)

But I did a little excavating.

(Two nautically-themed fabrics? Wasn’t the first seaworthy?)

And then unearthed her at last.

They’re fraternal twins. One blond, one brunette.

Safe under one roof once again.

UPDATE: I’m having some comment posting issues with the blog lately. Unfortunately, I cannot get the error to reproduce so I’m unable to get help for the problem. If you attempt to leave a comment and the system won’t allow it, pretty-pretty-please send me an email giving some detail on what kind of error (blank page, 405 error, etc.) and what browser you’re using. If you are so inclined to send me a “print screen” image of the error page, I will weep tears of joy and name a star after you. I hate that people are trying to leave comments and can’t, so I desperately want to get this fixed soon. Your help is my lifeline. Thanks!

Linking up to:

Believe it or Not

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I really don’t spend my life in thrift stores. Honest. It just seems that way.

I usually only make it to a thrift store once a week, and then it’s usually because the long, hot, miserable, humid, turgid, ferocious, scorching, summer weather has inflicted cabin fever on my boys, a dose so severe they beg me to take them somewhere. Anywhere.

I’m just trying to please my kids really. Taking one for the team is my nature.

(On that note, it has been a nice change of pace to see my boys entering a thrift store willingly and without tranquilizers. They’ve been — knock on wood — astonishingly well-behaved. As long as I give them something to hold and play with while they’re in the store, they’re usually quite pleasant.)

Anyway, back in July, Holly posted a query regarding her kitchen area: to eat in or not? As usual, she included some great photos for inspiration, including this one:

Normally, I’d call this too French Country for my taste, but I really liked the chairs. I’m into nailhead trim these days.

Cue the “B” Story: for the previous few weeks, I’d been watching a dining table and chairs set at Salvation Army. The original price of $189.99 had come and gone and still the set remained. When it hit 50% off, I was tempted. But the time just wasn’t right.

But somehow seeing the above photo got my wheels turning, and on my next trip to SA I managed to put two and two together. For a miracle, the dining set was still there — and was now 70% off.

So here it is. And only to you, blog friends, can I safely confide that she’s destined for a coat of paint. White paint, perhaps gray.

The puzzlement is the chairs. The seats obviously need doing.

The seats are a bit too large for their frames and it looks slightly awkward, so I’ll probably cut them down a little. I thought I might recover the seats in pale blue linen (or whatever cheap facsimile I can come up with), finished with extra large nailhead trim.

The inspiration photo is coaxing me to upholster the backs, too, but I’m not sure about how to contend with the figure-eight detailing.

I like it but it’s not exceptional. Do I cover it on one side? Both sides? Recover only the seats and let the eights speak for themselves? Rip out the eights completely?

For the time being, I have white canvas slipcovers (meant for the Ikea Henriksdal chair, but they fit so who cares?) to disguise the slub ugly fabric. Hopefully that gives me time to decide about the eights, decide about upholstering the backs, find the right upholstery fabric, paint the chairs, paint the table, learn to do upholstery, finish our bathroom remodel, have another baby or two, raise my children to adulthood, write my novel, dye my hair, learn to play the guitar and become Bunco champion before I have to actually recover the chairs.

No rush, right?

Linking up to:

With Regret

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For those growing tired of my ramblings on the bathroom remodel, feel free to skip this post. Move on. There’s nothing for you to see here.

But I’m having second thoughts.

Until Friday, I’d never actually made it over to a particular tile store very highly recommended to us. They aren’t open on weekends. Or, as far as I can tell, any time a woman with kids could possibly visit.

On Friday, however, Scott took the day off so we could knock out several during-business-hours-only errands and he insisted I go to the tile store. To be honest, I didn’t want to. Even if this store carried white beveled subway tile, the chance of its being less than $2.13/SQFT was slim to none. Waste. Of. Time.

But seeing as I’m still maneuvering for an advantage in the War of the Tub, I made it a point to play along. No sense in uselessly antagonizing my opponent, right?

As far as it goes, I was sort of right. They had no white beveled subway tile. It may still be proven to have been a waste of time, but only because I’ve suffered a massive setback to my ideas of how to make this bathroom beautiful on a budget. This store had such incredibly lovely and unique tile, I’m still trying to recover.

If you think I’m crazy, take a look at this supplier — just one of several they carry. If you don’t fall in love at least once, you might as well stop reading my blog forever. We have nothing further to say to each other.

True to form, I managed to pick out the most incredible marble mosaic I’ve ever laid eyes on. The owner finally agreed to give me a price quote after I signed a waiver to release the store from any liability should I pass out on the (gorgeous) showroom floor. It didn’t exactly surprise me to find out the continuance of my new romance would cost $150 a square foot.

But I was still destroyed.

After a little grief counseling, the owner found a few options closer to my price range. But now I’m torn. I’d settled on the Brazilian Black slate, but it may be because I couldn’t find a true gray marble anywhere. My new enabler has found me Nordic Grey:

…and Ice Grey:

Not to mention endless possibilities of white and gray marble mosaics.

What’s a girl to do? Between spells of guilt, that is, because I’m feeling pretty silly being totally absorbed by such superficial and globally-insignificant questions as:

How much marble is too much marble?
Is black too dark to complement white marble counters, white subway tile wainscoting and white cabinets?
Is marble too much maintenance for a bathroom floor?
Do I have to hire an installer for marble tile or can my beleaguered husband do it?
Why do I have such expensive taste?
Is having expensive taste a sin?
Lord, if it is a sin, will you forgive me for my expensive taste after I finish the bathroom?
Is $15,000 too much for a bathroom floor?
Can I sell a kidney to pay for the floor tile?
Would that be a sin?

The preceding program has been a dramatization of actual events. No housewives, husbands, bank accounts or understanding of the theological truths of Sin and Forgiveness were harmed in the course of this dramatization.

It just feels like it.

(By the way, if you need a kidney, my blood type is O-negative. Please call me.)

A Wet Bar for the Nursery

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Yesterday, after naptime, I felt a disturbance in the Force.

So naturally, I chased the kids into the van and headed over to Salvation Army. Something was calling to me from that little store. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.

And She was the first thing I saw coming through the door.

She was labeled: “Wet Bar.” But I saw through the charade —She couldn’t hide what she really was. Sure enough, a hidden label betrayed her identity.

Wet Bar, my foot. The label said: “Pottery Barn Kids.”

Her name is Madison.

Of course, mine is a bit more banged up. But what I paid would have covered PBK’s Shipping Surcharge and nothing else, so it’s pretty easy to reconcile myself to a few character flaws. (Madison’s, not mine. Those are a bit harder to ignore.)

She’s at home in the nursery now, making new friends and trying to ignore walls in desperate need of repainting. But there’s no baby on the way, so I’m focused on priorities.

Because it’s going to take some time to retrofit the interior to accommodate the wine cooler, but I think in the end, it’ll be worth it.

Linking up to:

The Deal of the Century

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Yes, I’m exaggerating. Again. Maybe it’s the deal of the month.

Better bloggers than I, such as The Nester, have educated the public on the best way to shop thrift stores. I really don’t have any new advice to offer. Just consider this my “happy dance” moment.

After a bout of summertime cabin fever — something to which Oklahomans are particularly susceptible in July — I ran off to Salvation Army with my boys in tow. Retail therapy on a shoestring, if you will.

I’ve been on the prowl for an ice bucket for sometime and just so happened to find a smallish version with scrolled handles tucked away behind some plastic plates. It was so filthy, at first I was unsure whether it was glass or acrylic. And then there was the price: $3.99.

My particular Salvation Army has a daily sale on bric-a-brac, 50% off certain color tags on certain days. And this ice bucket wasn’t on sale. So I left it on the shelf and walked away.

(You know you’re seriously deranged when you refuse to buy something at a thrift store because it’s not on sale…)

But just before I checked out, on a complete impulse, I plucked the ice bucket off the shelf and bought it, with the parting thought: “I hope it’s not acrylic.”

As I washed up my finds later that afternoon, I was happy to discover underneath all the grime was a very nice, non-acrylic ice bucket.

And then, as I dried it off, I looked down through the now grime-free bottom and saw something that made my jaw hit the floor.

It’s nice when your own stupidity doesn’t get in the way of sheer dumb luck. I think I spent the rest of the day doubled over and laughing at myself.

Of course, the downside is that I’ll spend the next twenty years — or however long I have before my boys break it — too paranoid to actually use the ice bucket. I’m sure it’ll end up sitting on some shelf, hidden by dust and grime.

Until it gets donated back to Salvation Army and sold for $4 to some idiot who thrifts with her heart and instead of her brain. Like me.