Decorating For Less... WAY Less!

This is my second time decorating an entire house all at once, so "new to this" I am not.  And while I really wish I were in my home, sitting at my desk, relaxing, I am not,  I am now in decorator mode.  After agonizing over wall and floor colors, we have, I had finally narrowed them down, and ordered the ones we liked the most.  I think the majority of thought goes into wall and floor colors because we want to make sure what we pick out will stand the test of time.  We ask ourselves the following questions:

1.  Will we get tired of this color in 6 months?
2.  Will it hide dirt well?
      ( I ask this, because if I don't want to vacuum one weekend, it won't look like I didn't.)
3.  Is it easily washable?
4.  Are there several accent colors that will go nicely with the base color? 
     (So when I do get tired of a look, I can change some accents & get a whole new look.)
5.  Is it a color that the entire family likes?

If I can answer yes to all of these questions, the color becomes a contendor.  We have now ended up with 5 colors.

A winter white, for all the trim, doors and ceilings.  2 Greys, and 2 Browns.  A dark and light of each color.  Darker colors will be going into larger, brighter rooms, while the lighter colors will go into the smaller, less lit rooms,  yet the entire house will flow nicely together. 

I have to admit, I was truly dreading having to go out and purchase 12 rooms worth of home goods, again; however, I had one thing on my side.

Experience.

That, and that alone steered me in the right direction. 

Enter T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and Home Goods.  We have been making weekly trips to as many of these stores as we can in Rhode Island, and hitting the clearance aisles. 

I think I have purchased nearly half of the items we are needing for a quarter of the price we were anticipating.  Here's some of our recent finds.

With the girls having such different tastes when it comes to their own style, T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and Home Goods has been a God send!  One of the things I love, besides their prices, is that on their price tags, you always see a "Compare to" price. 

Comparing the "what I paid" prices to the "Compare to" prices was a shocker.  I had savings totalling alomst $500, and I am not done purchasing items. 

Why do I go each week?  Well their clearance aisles are constantly changing.  Constantly.  Take the bird cage pillow.  One of my girls spotted this a few weeks ago.  The regular price was $19.99.  The compare to price was $35.00.  That alone was a great savings, but we waited.  Last week, I spotted the pillow in the clearance aisle for just $15!