Bargain Shopping

It took a baby to motivate us, but we are finally "moving in" after buying our house over a year ago .. hey, it takes awhile to get all your junk in the right place. Over the next few months, we'll be making some changes to different rooms of our house to make them work better for us especially since we'll be turning the spare bedroom upstairs into a nursery! I'll be sure to blog about each room along the way. Today involved dipping into our pocketbooks a little to make this happen, but there was one bargain I could not pass up.

Obviously, I'll be losing a closet soon to make way for Poppy's wardrobe. I've gone through a lot of my clothes and have tubs full to put on our "make room for baby" garage sale this summer. I have a feeling I could get rid of some more if I was really honest with myself and let go of those things that I have had for 4 years and have never worn but "I might want to wear it some random time..." 

I've been wanting a bedroom set since we got married. I wanted a big dresser with a mirror and then a 6-drawer chest for some more clothing and I wanted it to be fabulous. I've been putting it off because I hate spending money, but we've decided if we don't get some of the things on our wishlist now, we will never buy them once baby gets here because our funds will be going elsewhere. It's really expensive to furnish a house when you're just starting out, so we've slowly been buying for different rooms and making what we have work. I've also found some steals at garage sales! 

We've been looking for quite awhile now for the perfect set. The problem with a "set" is that I LOVE our bed. It was given to us when we got married and I see no reason in getting a new bed just to match our dresser set when I'm in love with it. I knew we wouldn't find anything that matched perfectly, but I wanted to get something that  didn't clash either. I had a little shopping trip planned to go to a furniture store in Des Moines that I've heard really good things about and I was determined to buy something that day! 

However, Sundayafter church we decided to just go through the furniture store to see if they had any loveseat sleepers. We will no longer have a spare bedroom upstairs, and we need a piece of furniture in the basement anyway, so we thought we'd get one that could fold out into a bed. I got distracted at the furniture store by their adorable chairs I'm just certain I need for Poppy's nursery and their dance sculptures and kitchen tables, and then I noticed a "sale" room which I've never seen before (even though I've been in that store 1,000 times). We decided to check it out and and we found several floor models of things that we would like to have, but definitely don't need. 

Then I spotted this beautiful dresser with a mirror and went over to it immediately. I expected it to be on "clearance" which normally means still rediculously overpriced and unaffordable .. but it was a STEAL. I really did not believe the tag and immediately began opening the drawers and searching for any chips or major defects. Then I thought, well there's no way the mirror will be included because usually they make you pay $500 more just for the mirror but it WAS included (and the whole set was WAY less than $500). I really couldn't believe it. Before I said anything, Benny told me he really thought we should get it. We went back into the main part of the store and looked at chests. The chest is probably going to go in our closet anyway, so it doesn't have to match perfectly. We found one that was really cheap and on sale an additional 25% off right now. We went and found the sales lady and I asked her why the dresser was on sale and she said it was a floor model that had been discontinued. The bed that matched it was also on sale dirt cheap, but like I said, I'm not ready to part with our bed and there's really no reason to. I was ready to hand over my card when Benny said, "Well, we better go home and measure." Oh the life of being married to an engineer .. we literally have an entire wall for this dresser to go on, so unless it was the size of a movie theatre screen, I think we were okay. But we went home and measured and sure enough it would fit perfect .. back to the store Benny and my dad went with the truck! 

Within minutes of them assembling the mirror, I had already filled the drawers and removed the plastic drawers from our closet that had housed our socks & underwear since .. we'd been in college? This made more room in our closet which makes me even happier. The plan is to paint/touch-up our old dresser we had bought at a garage sale & put it in the nursery closet so I won't have to spend money on a dresser for baby clothes (and once again, no one will see it so it doesn't have to be beautiful!) But, until we go purchase that chest, the old dresser will remain because the rest of my clothes still have to go somewhere!!

Out with the old:

Goodbye "sock drawers" .. complete with the sticker    from the moving company who moved us into our condo back in June of 2010. These will be used elsewhere for storage. By removing them, it also made more room to hang things!

Our $5 garage sale find when we lived in our condo - people stared while we shoved it into Benny's cavalier .. getting it out was another story! This picture actually makes it look not too bad. The paint is awful, the knobs are clearly falling off, and the drawers are a little wobbly .. but it holds clothes, and that's it's purpose. It will be repainted and cute little knobs will be put on and then it will be moved to Poppy's room!

In with the new...

Here's our new beauty! I love, love, love it! I especially love the cute little compartment in the middle. Isn't she perty?










Oh, and Benny also brought me a little gift from the furniture store - another dancer figurine to add to my collection. What can I say - I am loved. :)