Pier 1 Design Without The Pricetag

After being in our apartment for a year, Matt and I decided it was time to get rid of our collective hand-me-down furniture and redesign th

e space to fit our style. We started with the living room which, to be honest, desperately needed updating. I spent countless hours on Pinterest and websites like West Elm and Pier1 looking for design inspiration and pieces that I not only loved but would work well in our space. We did not have a budget set when I embarked on this endeavor (bad move) and I soon found it was very easy to get carried away. I started adding items to my cart and before I knew it our total was well beyond what I was comfortable with spending on this project. Since we do not know how long we will be in our place, we did not want to splurge on furniture or decor that we may not be able to use in our next home. With that in mind, my goal was to look for functional pieces with a low price tag.

Our first purchase was a couch. Despite our goal to "not spend a ton of money" this was one item we felt we should not cheap out on, and we didn't. But, after the couch, I knew I needed (and wanted) to be much more frugal with the decor. Initially I fell in love with two pieces from Pier1, a console table priced at $399.95 and an awesome medallion carved panel for $295. Although both are not outrageously expensive, I was determined to do better. It was a bit of a challenge but after a few hours of research I was able to find a console table almost identical to the one at Pier1, from Hayneedle.com, for less than half the price! I was beyond happy to know my time put into this project was actually paying off and when the piece was delivered I was even more ecstatic that it was of great quality and very easy to assemble.

The next part of this project was to dress the table up. That night, I took a trip to Home Goods just to look around. I absolutely am obsessed with this store but I find it is often hit or miss. To my surprise, this time was a HIT! I found a very similar carved panel piece for $99! I also picked up a few other great pieces and my total (including the carved panel) was $187. Had I bought the table and wall art from Pier 1 I would have spent close to $700. I still would have needed to buy additional decor items for the table and the project total would have probably been close to $1000. With a little time and research I was able to complete the entire project for just over $300!