Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I am thankful to spend this Thanksgiving with my sister. Since moving to the States in 2005, I stopping celebrating holidays all together. Chinese holidays are not recognized holidays in US, so I usually do not get the day off.  I am also not used to celebrating American holidays, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. So it is hard to justify paying top airfare to eat unfamiliar food with my sister just because I have two days off. As a consequence, I ended up working during most of the holidays.

This year is a bit different – Slav’s mom will spend Christmas with us, so we are actually going to follow Christmas transitions. And for Thanksgiving, we have been my sister’s since Tuesday night. Needless to say that we are having a wonderful time!

Without work, the dogs, and away from home renovation, I suddenly had a lot of time in my hands. So much time that I even browsed home decor websites. I am super cheap and hardly buy any furniture with a huge sale. So poking around big store’s website such as Rejuvenations’ is a rare event for me.

It turned out that I was not that good of an anti-consumerism warrior as I thought I was. Within 10 minutes, I had more than half a dozen items in my cart already. I did not check out any of them, so it is still a win for me at the end. But I thought I’d share with you and why I liked them.

1. The Crosby bench

This bench was ~$50 dollars when I saw it. It is 71″ long, and they have a 64″ version that was even cheaper (in $40 range). Being an oak bench, the price is very good. We can definitely build something like this ourselves (who knows, maybe I can even build it myself), but the time and effect will not be worth it. The only reason I did not buy it is that I do not have a vision of where it should be. We have a round dining table so this cannot be used as a dining bench. Our living space is small (850 sqft) with very limited wall space. This bench is simply too long to be floating around the house.

2. The Crosby bar stool

I like the look of this bar stool, and it is only $43 when I saw it. I like the color, the finishes, and the fact that it was made from white oak. However, I do not have high counters in my home. This is a typical example of something I like but I have no use for. I even thought about buying it to pair with the light work bench in the garage, just to have it. But my principle of not buy anything I absolutely will use a lot won at the end.

3. Casement fastener

This fastener caught my eye because we need to replace our attic door, and this can be a great hardware for it. The local building code calls for a self-closing door that can be locked, so my current design for the attic door is with spring hinges and a casement fastener like this. It has many finishes to choose from, and the $12 price tag is comparable to the ones I saw in home improvement stores. The reason I did not buy it? This is the only thing I actually need now and the shipping is not free for just this. I guess it is really hard to convince me to buy something…

4. Red berry door mat

I adore this door mat. Winter is coming to Colorado and we have lost all the leaves on the trees. I started craving evergreen trees with red berries – they dress up snowy Christmas so well! But we just got similar doormat without the berries from IKEA. New mat will have to wait for the old ones to fall apart.

5. This rug

I’ve been wanting a calmer rug for a while. What we currently have is a green IKEA HAMPEN, which my dogs adore. It looks and feels more expensive than the $30 price tag, and it can take a looot of abuse. When it became too worn or smelly, which happens when you have dogs, we just replace it for another $30. But the color of the rug is too intense for this ranch. I want something that is more neutral, but not boring. And this rug really gets me:

$250 is not a bad price for a 5′ x 8′ wool rug. I especially like how it looks laying with a hemp rug.

However, the reason I did not buy it is the exact reason why we have the green rug at the first place – the dogs. See these fussy ends coming off the rug? I am 200% sure that Charlie will chew on them on day 1. The hemp rug will not be ignored either.

6. The throw

This throw is still over $100 when it was on sale, so buying it was not an option for me. All our blankets and throws are dog-tested, which means they all got chewed more or less. Based on how many holes on them, they all get discarded eventually. But I liked the pattern on this throw, which reminds me folk arts in the mountains in south Poland.

7. All-white pillowcases

The last thing is pure utility. We always use all-white pillowcases and I generally replace them every year (Slav’s pillow will be in cream color at that point). This pair is $17 and I like the simple design of it. I did not buy them because we are not replacing our pillow cases yet, and they are still $17 after the big sale. So I can get them whenever I actually need them. Again, a good price tag and the fact I like it are usually not good enough reasons for me to hit the checkout button – it has to be what I love, something I need immediately, and will be using a lot. 🙂

Here they are, the seven things I almost bought this week. Did you buy any home decor this Thanksgiving?