Master Bedroom Makeover Intro

When we first moved to the house I pretty much just moved our pre-marriage-mishmash-furniture into our master bedroom and painted the room the exact color of our bedroom in our loft we just moved from. I guess, my thought was, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Either that or I was just afraid to try something on my own, because frankly, I get frustrated with myself because I have all the design ideas floating around my head and I think they will work, and a lot of times they do, but sometimes…not so much.

So after pondering for quite awhile what to do with the master bedroom and armed with my new plan to lighten things up in the house, I was ready for a change.

The first thing I wanted to do was purchase new furniture. Larry and I are both “savers”, although I’ll admit that I am a big fan of purchasing. So we do what we always do with big purchases: save up for the item and then purchase it outright. I’ll admit that that is a little hard for me, but I do see the point that 1) you aren’t going into debt buying a couch and 2) it will help us in the future when we retire because our credit card bills aren’t maxed out.

When I started looking for furniture I knew I wanted something “classic/traditional” that fit our farmhouse. After pouring through my Cottage Living/Country Home/Better Homes & Gardens/Southern Living and countless furniture line’s websites I settled on Ethan Allen because they had a farmhouse line called New Country and their pieces were just lovely. But I was immediately smacked in the face with the reality that farmhouse/simple does not mean inexpensive. On top of the fact that I hadn’t purchased furniture that didn’t have to put together, like IKEA (which I love) and then you realize quality furniture comes at a price.

I also quickly realized that if I was going to go the route of saving up for furniture first, then it would probably take me about 5 years to get what I wanted. What’s a design-obsessed girl to do?

Well my friends, when the going get’s touch, you need to get creative! So what I did was 1) visit and visit often the Ethan Allen distribution center nearby that had a back room of discontinued/damaged items and 2) called every freakin’ Ethan Allen in the Illinois/Wisconsin area to see if they had any floor models on sale! And you know what? Although, I mentally might be a little worse for the wear, but it worked. Pretty much all the case goods in our bedroom was 40% because they were a floor model/or slightly damaged. It became a game for me to see if I could get the whole set I was looking at discount. I almost made it, but did need to purchase 2 items at full-price.

So my advice for today is don’t settle on not getting the items you want and opting for a lesser quality item, if you can stand it, try to do what I did and maybe you’ll hit pay dirt.

The other thing I do is if I like something that’s beyond pricey and know that I don’t have a chance in hell of being able to afford it EVER, I head straight to “my” favorite stomping grounds of decorating…the holy grails of affordable design at bargain prices: TJ Maxx, Marshall’s, HomeGoods and tag sales. Again, as long as it’s not a piece of crap that will instantly disintegrate if you touch it, who cares if it’s not THE item; if it looks good and it is good quality, then that’s a little secret between you and said piece of furniture or if you are like me, I pretty much have no problem saying were I got something, and that includes dumpster diving, which I have done and have been successful!