Pottery Barn rugs at bargain basement prices

One of the cool things about my day job is having a couple of new sisters (sister companies that is) and the opportunity to meet and work with people who, like me, spend a lot of time online. Kristy Pryma is one of those people. When I learned about her amazing rug bargain on Twitter, I asked if she’d write a guest post and share it with you too. So here goes... Kristy’s a writer, the mom of a preschooler and the wife of a man without a stomach. Follow her on Twitter or visit her blog.

The only thing better than getting a great bargain is telling other people about it. Here’s my latest coup, of the home furnishing kind.

Two years ago when we moved our two year old daughter into her big girl bed, we started the hunt for a new rug to tie her room together. After flipping through the gorgeously girly rugs on display at Sherway Garden’s Pottery Barn Kids, we noticed a small sign that said “Ask us about our selection of discontinued rugs not on display.” As true bargain hunters, we asked, and were treated to a visit through the website with a helpful stockroom guy who showed us a dozen options online that they no longer had room to display on the floor. We chose a pattern and drove home with a still sealed $800 rug for $225.

When we needed a new rug for our living room, we were jonesing for a similar experience, so lurked around the city’s Pottery Barns hoping to find a discontinued gem. A few Fridays ago history repeated itself. This scenario was slightly different—Pottery Barn at Yorkdale Mall is in the midst of its floor model sale, so dozens of pieces of furniture, including rugs, have been significantly marked down. My husband spotted a lush 8' x 10' wool rug in the right colour at up to 70% off the original price, so he lured me to the mall after work to take a look. The colour was perfect, the size was right and the price was amazing: it was labelled $249.

When we got to the register, however, it appeared the rug had been mistagged: it came up at $599, which would have made its original price significantly higher than we thought. As soon as the wrong price was revealed, I bristled, preparing myself for an argument, but to my delight the salesperson adjusted it, and we walked away with a mint-condition floor model rug for $249.

Don’t you just love happy endings?

How to get a designer nursery look on a DIY budget

In this week’s baby bargainista column, you’re in for a treat as Rebecca Atkinson shares how she and her husband decorated the nursery.

One of the first things my husband and I thought about when we found out I was pregnant, was space. We had a room in the house which could be converted to a nursery, but it meant getting rid of our prized Foosball table, and also creating a new linen closet somewhere else if we wanted the baby to have somewhere to put her clothes.



After convincing hubby that we couldn’t just put the crib on top of the Foosball table (much like the old ping pong/billiards combos), the nursery renovation launched a giant project of our bedroom to create more storage so baby Atkinson could have her closet. We were forced to redo two rooms simultaneously, meaning our nursery budget shrank considerably.

Being big fans of the show Sarah’s House, and having recently watched the nursery episode we decided we wanted to recreate something similar (complete with two-colours and the alphabet on the wall), but on a DIY budget.

First stop was Michaels craft store, where I fell in love. I’m not normally a very crafty person, but it is full of so many cool things to get your creative juices flowing. First thing we looked for were letters. We found several options, but went with styrofoam ultimately because it was half the price ($1.50 per letter) of the same sized wooden letters.

We got very lucky with this project as my husband’s aunt was coming into town for a few days and she is one of the most creative people I know. We immediately asked her to come help show us the light so she gets a lot of credit for this post too.

Back at Michaels, we filled up our cart with several things: acrylic paint (because we learned this would go a long way, be easy to clean up and have virtually no fumes, meaning I could paint letters to my heart’s content). We also found the cutest vinyl wall art of safari animals which would be easy to remove without ruining the paint, should we decide to change the room down the road.

Having already found a bedding deal at Pottery Barn the colour scheme for the room was pretty much chosen for us; yellow and green. We then decided to add orange and light-blue accents. Although we’ve been told we’re having a girl, we also know you never know until the baby comes out. So we opted to still go as neutral as possible without making it gender specific – just in case.

As we were showing my husband’s aunt everything, she declared we’d found a theme – Alphabet Safari. This prompted Mark‘s next brilliant find, alphabet flash cards using animals. With all the fun stuff bought, it was off to buy the room paint and material for the plate rails so we could get started on this project.

We were excited to be able to recreate the designer’s look for less and to be able to say we did all of it ourselves (with help from said Aunt). Overall with paint and supplies (tape, brushes etc), we spent less than $350 on decorating (not including window coverings, furniture, shelving or accessories). You can see the finished look in my Flickr album and read our lessons learned below for some additional tips.

My next post I’ll tell you how we saved more money by reusing several pieces of hand-me-down furniture and updating them.

Lessons learned:
1. A trip through Wal-Mart later showed us many of the same items we picked up at Michaels for less (especially for paint and brushes), so when the budget is tight, make time to look around before buying everything at one store
2. If using Styrofoam, gently sand the letters as it will heanlp the paint stick better, and get rid of the cast lines.
3. Buying primed (MDF) which we did for the plate rails, doesn’t cost much more, but saves you a whole lot of time and fuss. And use a combination of industrial glue and nails to keep it on the wall. It’s also a lot cheaper than “real” wood options
4. Wallpaper paste can be used for so much more than wallpaper – and a little definitely goes a long way. It’s also not expensive and cleans up easily with water, too.
5. Allow plenty of drying time between coats – especially for letters; drying times suggested on paint are just that and depend on a whole lot of factors (including humidity).