Don't you love when you find things from your house in magazines?

Have you ever been flipping through a magazine and you see something that you absolutely love but deep down know there is no way you can afford it? I was browsing through my most recent edition of Style at Home magazine and came across an amazing chair. I mean I could have drooled over the pages.

Source Metropolitan Home

Do you see the one I am talking about? The one with the three ovals? Isn't it absolutely gorgeous? Let me officially introduce you to the Bracelet Chair by Barbara Barry.
Here are a few more images of it:

Source Metropolitan Home

Source Barbara Barry

Oh I love it so much, but not for the retails price of...wait for it...$2,800! Yes, there is a coma and two zeros on that price. If you drop the one zero I might consider it or maybe even the 2 and the comma (probably not) :) So I can honestly say I will never have it but I can dream. In fact I was dreaming so much that I showed it to my husband, and him being the wonderful man he is he looked at it and said "how is that different from the headboard you pulled out of the garbage?" I immediately corrected him and said I didn't pull it out of the garbage I picked it up at the Sidewalk Boutique. :)

But then a light went on and he was correct. It does look remarkably like this headboard I got for free out of the trash. Amazing! It actually made me smile.

Then I stumbled upon this in a Parenting magazine I got.

Source Ballard Design

It retails at Ballard Design for $153. Seriously, it is a small ottoman! But isn't the fabric purdy? Well does it look familiar?How about now:

 

This is the same fabric I used a year ago to recover my kitchen chairs and to create the stair basket I made out of a cardboard box here:

So if I were to find a cheap crappy ottoman at a thrift store for a few buck, spray paint the legs black and cover it with fabric I have on hand (cost under $15 per yard to start out with) I could have almost the same ottoman for around $10! A savings of $140!

I am literally going to head out to my local thrift stores after I hit publish on this post to go find one. I will let you know how it goes.

Doesn't it make you happy when you find things in your home that are in magazines? It makes you feel like you might have made a couple of right decorating decisions.

Have you ever found something like this before?

Have a great day,
Stephanie

Rope knot doorstop - a Ballard Design knock off

I have hoped to find an attractive doorstop (at a reasonable price tag) for our office for quite a while...well actually I wish for them ever time I open windows in our house. We have beautiful double french doors leading into our office, that unfortunately slam shut every time we open the windows.

After dreaming about many beautiful things on Ballard Designs website, I stumbled upon a great rope knot doorstop that was ridiculously priced at $45. I thought it didn't not look too difficult to make, so I recruited my husband to create two of them for me.

Source Ballard Design ($45)

As I was still sick and on the couch when I was dreaming of these, my amazingly wonderful husband ran to Home Depot and bought the rope for under $10 (20 feet of 3/4 inch was enough for 2) and then found some videos on YouTube detailing how to make the knot. The key to this was to find instruction on how to create a 'monkey fist knot'.  It took a while for us to figure out the name of the knot but once we did, a simple google search produced many different instructions.

 

My hubby practiced with some plastic rope from the dollar store and after about 5 minutes was ready to give the real thing a shot. At first we tried a rock as the weight in the middle, but the shape wasn't perfect. So while I was outside looking for a perfectly round stone in the garden, I found a tennis ball our dog had left behind. I knew it would be exact shape I wanted but it needed some weight. With my husbands advice, I cut a slit in the tennis ball open with a sharp knife and filled it with little stones from the garden. The stones gave the tennis ball enough weight to hold the door open while being the perfect shape.

After 10 minutes of twisting and tightening the rope knot, my husband produced the perfect doorstop that even had a convenient loop so we can hang the stop on the door handle when we close the doors.

Now I just need him to make 2 more for our master bedroom!

What do you think?

Stephanie
Linking to some great parties including: Story of A2Z, Thrifty Home