What a beautiful day for love! Don’t forget to check out my Valentine’s Day Gifts 101 post if you waited until the last minute to get the perfect gift. I can’t really talk because I have yet to acquire my love’s gift. I was too busy making curtains last night! You heard that right, I found a fantastic solution to my curtain conundrum. I’m hoping to have some after pics by Wednesday – how’s that for a cliffhanger? Currently, our house looks like Martha Stewart threw up on it with scissors, measuring tape, fabric, and curtain rods everywhere!
There is a concept that I keep seeing/reading about again and again – buying multiple options and then taking back what you don’t need. We’ve all been there, standing in the aisle going back and forth about which item/color/amount to get. I personally have always shied away from this idea. It’s difficult for me to spend double or triple the money, even though I know I will be getting credited back for the items I don’t want – the cheapo in me resists it.
Some might argue that this isn’t convenient or eco-friendly since another trip back to the store is inevitable. I will say that if you are constantly paying late fees for movies or own any Redbox DVDs because you never returned them, then this may not be for you. The organizational book I’m reading talks about how everything you own should be useful or beautiful to you. I really like that idea so that you don’t have a home full of regrets.
So what happens if you purchase an item at the store, bring it home and it doesn’t work? Obviously you can simply return it and get what you want, but if you’re like me a lot of the time we just settle. It’s too much trouble to take it back or we’ve already cut the tags off or we just don’t want to be standing in that aisle again making yet another decision.
The other night I was in this exact predicament trying to decide between 2 colors of bath rugs. I even went to the extent of texting my hubby a pic of them to make the decision for me (I sometimes refer to him as FD – final decision). Seriously, like he would know or would have an opinion about such a thing. I was grasping at straws until a bright light appeared with angels singing the hallelujah chorus I remembered that I could in fact buy them both and bring back the one that didn’t work.
This was Option #1 – the color was called pebble. I had convinced myself in the store that this was the clear winner.
This was Option #2 – sage green. Do you see how the second one really pulls out the green in the shower curtain whereas the pebble just kinda blends into the background? I would have never known unless I brought them both home and introduced them to our bathroom floor. I promptly took pebble back to Target the next day to get my refund – that’s just the kinda girl I am.
In the same shopping trip I tried this method with some curtains and again there was an obvious winner, so I’m pretty convinced. By the way, the reason we were in the market for a new bath rug was because I may have accidentally washed our powder blue rug with a brown striped rug from the kitchen – they did not become friends in the washing machine! It looked so bad that we were actually taking it out of the bathroom when company came over.
Anyone have an example of a time this method worked for you? Am I the only one who thought as long as you washed things in cold water they wouldn’t bleed? What’s the most fun or romantic thing you’ve done on V-Day (keep it PG people)?
Target shopping lady image found here.
