Impulse Buying!

Confession:  I’m a serial re-decorator.  Well, in my mind anyway.  I’m always re-designing, tweaking and testing out new ideas.  When I see a product, a design or even a colour that strikes my fancy, I start mentally re-configuring the room that I think would suit that inspiration best.  Even if the room I’m envisioning isn’t on our list to change in the near future, I start looking for the materials I’d need.  And then I online shop.  This is so dangerous for me as I don’t always have the restraint to not hit “purchase” on the checkout page – my basement can attest to that:

A few items I’ve impulsively bought for future renos includes:

1. A round sink:

I got it for a ridiculously low price (< $10!) at IKEA for our future laundry re-do a few years ago.  Now that we’re looking at freshening up the space, I decided against having a sink and I decided instead to put the washer and dryer side-by-side so that I could have a counter surface.  (Side note: Anyone need a sink?)

2. A faucet for the powder room:

I got this at Lowe’s on sale about a year ago.  While our powder room wasn’t on our hit-list for renos this year, I’ve been mentally re-designing this room about a million times and I’ve now decided that the faucet is not the right fit for the current design (but who knows – that could change next week!)

3. A bathroom vanity:

Costco had this vanity that met all of our criteria to renovate one of the bathrooms we have on our second floor.  It was of wood construction, looked like a piece of furniture, had a granite countertop, was < $500, etc.  I could change out the hardware, paint it up, it was perfect!  Did I mention that that reno was to take place about 8 years ago?  And that we still have the vanity?  It was in our dining room for about 6 of those years and it’s now living in our bedroom.  John still mocks me to this day about that impulse purchase.  It made for great dinner conversation though!

What prompted me to write this post was that I was about to order some wallpaper for our powder room.  I wasn’t going to drop a huge amount of money but still – what if, when we go to renovate that space, I’d change my mind – AGAIN!  I’d be cramming yet another idea in our already crowded basement.  So what I’ve been doing to curb this insanity is not an original idea but one that has worked for me – design boards.  Here’s my current board for the powder room:

As my design keeps evolving, so will this design board until we decide to renovate the space.  Here are the pros I experience of doing this method:

• Save money – Unless I’m 100% sure my design won’t change, buying anything prematurely has taught me that it isn’t worth the thrill of purchasing it if, in the end, I’m not going to use it.
• Save space – We’re lucky that we have a basement that solely is used for storage but still, I don’t like seeing unused items junking up that space (or any space for that matter!)
• Save your spouse’s sanity – John is often shaking his head at my current inspiration because he knows I’ll have a million reasons to buy it now. For the record, he 100% supports design boards.  Well, virtual design boards.

Is this something you do as well?  (Tell me some of your impulse buy stories and I’ll share more of mine – you’ll be horrified!)

Subscribe here!

Do you like free stuff? Me too! Subscribe today and not only will you be in the loop, but you'll get access to exclusive freebies!

Your information will *never* be shared or sold to a 3rd party.