A Second Time Around

I love Pottery Barn! Everything about it...the look, the simplicity of the pieces, the organizational methods, the prints, the colors, everything! But, I don't love the price!! My husband's teacher salary doesn't get me far in that store, that's for sure. So, whenever I have the opportunity to recreate a Pottery Barn look with something I already have I do. Or, when someone hands-us-down a piece, that's even better. It may not be new, but it's new to us!

Case in point: I've been wanting to get my daughter a desk to go in her room. I looked at Target and Walmart, who both carry a lot of pieces that replicate the PB type of furniture, but their prices were over $100, and the quality wasn't the greatest. So when my father called and said someone at his golf club was getting rid of a desk and it's in great condition, I quickly said "We'll take it"! Well, what a beautiful find it was! It is the perfect style, down to the knobs. It is so well made and even has dividers built in to the bottom drawers for file folders! My husband painted it white to match her "little girls room". It came out beautiful! Of course, though, we needed accessories. So, I went to my collection of inspirational pictures from the Pottery Barn catalogs I've been keeping over the years, and got some ideas. They've been showing a lot of "pots" and buckets for supplies recently. I had two green tin buckets that would've been cute, but I use them a lot during the summer for our table outside and they took up so much room on her desktop. So I looked around for what we already had and I found an old formula powder can (perfect for markers) and some canned vegetable cans ready for recycling. I went through my cache of scrapbooking paper and ribbon, picked the perfect papers, and covered them. I then found an old picture and frame that I was actually donating to the church thrift shop, took it apart, wrapped the backing board in an old washcloth and covered with some more paper and matching ribbon to make a message board. The only things that were missing and had no solution for were a desk blotter and little desk lamp. I could only find a blotter for $19.99, so I purchased a plastic poster frame with a removable frame for $5 and just used the clear plastic as the blotter and put some pretty scrapbook paper underneath. As for the lamp, I was originally going for a pink one, but when I came across this brand new stainless steel one on clearance at Walmart for $3, I couldn't pass it up. And the chair...we had it in the attic...along with 5 others to match our original table from our condo-living days when we were first married. I knew they would come in handy someday!!

Moral of the story...hand-me-downs are such a blessing and a "fine, frugal thing"!

This post is linked to: Frugal Friday and Finer Things Friday