Frugal Fri...er, Saturday

I've been feeling a little uninspired for Frugal Friday lately - it's hard to feel frugal when you see dollar signs racking up above the heads of your construction crew. Tom participated in a 5k run this morning, so Clara and I hit a few nearby yard sales while he ran. As I mentioned before, I've been thinking a lot about the fixtures and finishes for the second bathroom. Pretty, affordable, and appropriate is apparently hard to come by in a new light fixture. I found several options and wasn't crazy about the prices, but I would have ponied up the dough anyway. These were the contenders, just to give you an idea of what I was going for:

Didn't like the chrome, and it was probably too mod for the house anyway. Sparkly and pretty, though.
$80.36

Top contender because of its price. Simple but appropriate.
$41.17

Probably my favorite aesthetically, but the most expensive and therefore least likely.

$96.76

As luck would have it, the second garage sale of the morning had a light fixture that I scooped up for $4. Of course it's used and not exactly like any of the options that I posted above, but I'm happy with the purchase.


I'll have to see how it looks in the space before I do anything to it, but I'll probably tone down the brighter brass with a little Rub n Buff. So the Frugal Friday tip (I know it took long enough for me to get to it) is to be flexible. Even if something isn't an exact replica of what you have in mind, it can still be great and save you money in the process! (And I bet you thought the tip would be to go to garage sales!)

Getting ahead of myself...

I know it's too early to really think about the details of decorating, but I found a pair of tall gourd lamps while at Goodwill yesterday. I've seen these in design magazines for months, and have been constantly appalled at the usually $200+ price tag for one lamp.


The citrus hues aren't really my style, but I like the lines of them. For $10 per lamp plus the cost of paint, I can forgive them that transgression. Of course, I'll have to wait until I have a room to put them in before I can paint them. Plain black or white is an obvious and mod choice, but I'm thinking a very subtle tone-on-tone crackle effect might give them the appearance of hand-dipped pottery. But I'm getting ahead of myself again.