It’s no secret that I love to decorate our home. I take pride in how our little abode looks and feel a little smug (sad, but true) when someone comes into our house for the first time and compliments my hard work. But here’s the deal:
Making your home gorgeous doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.
I like to invest money in big pieces that we’ll need for a long time, like our sofas, but the details, well, I can’t say that I spend much to invest in them. Truth: those babies come from The Dollar Store, Hobby Lobby and flea markets.
Recently I was on the hunt for a new duvet cover for our guest bedroom – I prefer white bedding and I wanted something that was soft but still felt luxe for our guests. Believe it or not, I had the best luck on Amazon, of all places. After searching Target (and I love Target, but I think their home goods can be pricey if not on sale or Cartwheel) and Home Goods,  I ordered this duvet on a whim and was honestly more than pleased. The cost is a fraction of what Target wanted for a queen sized duvet -which did cause me to pause before hitting purchase – but I’m (thankfully) impressed the quality.
 Um, yeah. After seeing the price point of this duvet, I can assure you that I now regret buying our Pottery Barn duvet for our king. 
After our duvet success, it occurred to me that I should probably consider using Amazon for the item I had been hunting for over the last year: white Euro shams.
Why something so simple had been so hard to find was beyond me. We received a set that was monogrammed from Pottery Barn for our wedding but the monogram has pulled out and is starting to completely unravel. It looks terrible on our bed. I wanted stiff white shams that stood up and held their shape (since they are for looking and not snuggling).
And wouldn’t you know it, these babies were just the ticket. 
In the photos below, they look a little rumpled….we may or may not have been playing airplane on them.
I brought them from our master into the guest room for these pics a few weeks ago and now I’m re-ordering a set for our guest room. Sorry I’m not sorry.
And now for the piece de resistance:
I secretly hated the rug I ordered for our living room when we first moved into our house in Maine. It was too small and it shed rug fibers faster than my black lab sheds her coat. 
Before

I knew I wasn’t going to be able to convince my husband to look into another option until I found just the thing…..
Seriously, ya’ll, I bought this rug in an 8×10 for $145. 
(the 8×10 is big enough to be pulled farther to the right, but we don’t like the look of the rug crossing into the fireplace tiles so we left it as is)
It is surprisingly soft and the color is a warm oat (if I may be so fancy). It hides spills (baby vomit) really well and doesn’t shed fibers. I will say that it is more of a rustic look with natural imperfections but if you don’t like some of the more loosely woven fibers, you can literally tuck them back into the weave of the rug. 
When our friends Reid and Caroline came to visit they commented on the rug and I told them how cheap it was….and they ordered one as soon as they got home. They were previously looking at a rug in a much higher price point (rugs are flipping expensive) but couldn’t resist the call of the Natural Jute. P.S. save some money and don’t bother with the rug pad if this rug is going under big furniture. The rug is super thick and doesn’t need it and the furniture will anchor it down and prevent slipping. 
We received our rug in a week, Caroline received hers in like 3 days, and we were both able to use the massive coupon codes on the Rugs USA website. 
While I’m talking cheap home decor, I should mention that all of the art that you can see in these shots certainly falls into the You Don’t Have To Spend An Arm And A Leg category. I made the large art piece behind the stone colored sofa in the living room – Hobby Lobby canvas, store brand paints and paintbrushes – I think I spent a total of 20 minutes painting and then had Hobby Lobby frame it using their pre-made frames (wait for a sale, then they are so cheap and they do it while you wait).
The two tiny prints in gold frames to the left of the large couch are actually prints that we bought in a stand by the port in Aruba. They were $5 each. I had them framed and matted and love the way they look. We purchased another set of prints ($15 total) from a antique flea market in Newport that are awaiting the same frame/matte treatment and then they’ll hit the walls too. We try to buy inexpensive but meaningful souvenirs on our travels and the prints have become one of our go-tos.
In our guest room, the bird prints are from one of our favorite festivals in Greenville, Artisphere. I think we paid $10 for each print and then I put them in Dollar Store Frames. 
So there you have it, proof that cheap can be chic! 
Ugh, I couldn’t resist, sorry for the rhyming.