It's Friday!!

Hope all of you have a fabulous Friday and an even better weekend!  I hope to be able to do more of this...after some work of course.

What are your weekend plans???

Tara

More Looks for Less

When the time finally came to shop for a new dining room table and chairs, I shopped at multiple stores trying to figure out what look I wanted.  I even drug Jeff to many stores to have him help me look at sizes, quality, and of course prices.  I wanted something in dark wood that looked rustic and could seat a lot of people since we entertain quite a bit.  Naturally, I fell in love with a table from PB AGAIN!  I knew that I wanted something that would be for the long-term and I dreamed of our holidays all gathered around the table for elaborate dinners or all of our family members in our pj's around the table playing board games (my mom is passionate about her game playing to say the least!).  Sorry getting a little off topic, but I tend to put a lot of thought and emotion into my furniture buying as you can tell.  My husband on the other hand views it as simply a table.  So the hunt continued to find something that would satisfy my "wants" but be affordable so that we would both be happy.  I then took a different route, and I found a local custom furniture store that could make a table very similar to my PB dream table for a lot less - $700 less that is!!  And to top it off, you aren't going to believe this, but they had already made the table I wanted for another client before!!  I drug hubby to go look with me and he gave me the go-ahead, and a table was made!! Well after about two months, but nonetheless, we have the beautiful, handmade, solid wood table in our home now!  It's so heavy that it took 3 men to carry it into our home.  Definitely going to last for a long time! 

I think the table searching/buying mission was a complete success....do you agree?  Here are the pics to compare below:

Pottery Barn's Benchwright Table

Our Dining Room Table:

They did an amazing job, don't you think?

Now, as you can see, I do have very similar Leather Parsons Chairs as those in the PB picture.  You really didn't think I'd stop at the table did you?  Well, PB's Parson Leather chairs run $299 a pop!  I think this made my husband's head spin.  Of course I was on another mission, and I ended up finding these chairs at JCPenney on sale for $140 a pair - $70 per chair! 



Tara

LOOKS for LESS!

Pottery Barn is definitely at the top of my list of favorite stores!  I get excited every time a new issue of their catalog comes in the mail - I love looking through the pictures for decorating inspiration.  However, it's not always the most affordable store to shop at when you have a whole house to fill.  Do not get me wrong, I have bedding, dishes and accessories all from PB that I love.  I just can't help myself though as I always fall in love with their furniture too, which the hubby is not so fond of the big ticket price!!  Here's the trick though - I've learned to use PB as my inspiration but challenge myself to shop elsewhere to find the same look for less, especially for those big ticket items! 

When shopping for our Master Bedroom, I absolutely adored PB's Hudson Bed.  After a little research, I found a VERY similar bed at Bassett Furniture, which was perfect since we have one about ten minutes from our house.  I knew the price was already a lot cheaper than the PB price, but when we bought the bed, they were having a Memorial Day sale, and we were able to get the King Bed for only $500!  Can't beat that!  Here's the comparison of the two beds:

Pottery Barn's Hudson Bed

And now our Bed that I showed you before from our Master Bedroom:

I think the two beds are very similar, and I still get the same look I was going for, so the savings was totally worth spending time to shop around and find the look for less!



Tara