Ballard Design Catalog Look For Less

This post is more like a hodge podge of random things and thoughts but first of all I want to talk about my new Ballard Design catalog (February 2013) that I received this past weekend. When I saw the cover, I knew that I had some things to say.

The colors just reminded me so much of my recent living room updates. And they certainly make me want to throw out my bed (calm down hubby, I won't). Just kidding I actually still like my bed. It's one of the few splurges that we have in the house.

Isn't the color of this bed beautiful? It just screams sunny spring morning!

The colors are a little off since I took a photo of the cover instead of scanning.

The pillows actually have a similar but a darker color as my pillows:

I have the Ikea Sanela pillow covers and at $7 for a cover I can't complain. Nobody beats that price and the quality is great. They are actually velvet too. I already had the inserts but you can get cheap inserts at Ikea as well which are no more than $7 too.

The Ballard Design pillows are custom pieces made with their Queens Velvet Teal Fabric (it looks way darker on the link than on the catalog photos). This fabric retails at $45 by the yard. So you can imagine what custom pillows would cost, right?

The rug is so me and reminds me of my living room rug. And that ottoman is beautiful, isn't it?

Only difference is that my changes were way cheaper. Shows again that you can get the look for a lot cheaper, right?

Look at their Avlon Dhurrie flatweave rug from the picture above. The 8' x 10' sells for $699 plus shipping. Mine is just as graphic, has similar colors and is also a flatweave. Guess how much I paid for mine on Overstock? Well, I paid $180 and $2 shipping. It's such a steal. If you are wondering what the name of the rug is, it is the Poolside Grey/ Bone Indoor Outdoor Rug (they don't have it in 8' x 10' anymore just 9' x 12') and they also sell it at Sears. They call the rug Safavieh Courtyard Grey/Bone Rug but they sell it for a price closer to the Ballard Design rug.

They have limited edition grey chevron lamp shades (Hudson Collection) in several sizes: 9" for $39, 15" for $59, 17' for $69. This is all pretty pricey compared to my 11" Target chevron lamp shades that I got for $15 (Or was it $20, I can't remember correctly but I know they were way cheaper).

If you have been following me on my new instagram account (and you should LOL @cuckoo4design) you probably saw that we are fixing our living room ceiling that had some damage due to excessive bathtubbing. Those kids can do some serious damage when they pretend that our tub is a wave pool. And to be really honest here, the damage started two years ago. The last time the kids were in the tub I had actually water dripping from a crack in the ceiling. Yes, we do procrastinate in our house as well, especially when it is a project that involves the husband in any way. I'm still trying to convince him that he has to be THE ONE to paint the ceiling when it is fixed. I did it last time and I hated every second of it. (While reading my post he asked me why it has to be him that paints the ceiling and I told him that one really good reason is that he is way taller than me. Don't you think that's a legit reason :)

(playing with the instagram features)

And here are some more random instagram pictures. I love playing with my new iPhone.

Inspiration browsing at Joann's Fabric.

At Pier1

Lucy playing ninja. It's blurry because it was dark.

Haha, I had to throw this one in here. My husband's bad high school 80s hair. Isn't it awesome?

Looks like I'm having lots of fun playing with instagram, doesn't it?

And another random thought is that I have been thinking about doing a feature day once a week. I love reading other blogs and finding new ones. Or just other people's awesome and inspiring projects that I come across. So I have been playing around with names and ideas on how to approach this. So many bloggers do this already and I'm not sure if I'd like to add to the millions of blog linky-parties or if I just want to feature randomly. Lets see.

I also had an idea last night that involves Pinterest and more Rub N' Buff. Let's see if it'll work. Some trial and error is in place again but the ceiling has to come first.

Talk to you on Friday.

Tschüss und guten Tag,