Window Shopping Wednesday: West Elm

West Elm doesn't exist in Winnipeg, but they do ship, and one of these days I'm going to pull the trigger and buy me some beautiful West Elm goods. It's not cheap, but a splurge item now and then...as long as you track it on your Money Tracking sheet ;)...doesn't hurt if you save up. Also, I like to look at a store's website that's out of my reach (I'm talking to you Restoration Hardware/Jonathan Adler/West Elm/Crate & Barrel) and think of how I might be able to recreate the product with materials or products that are more income accessible to me. 

First up, Furniture. 

I'm loving the clean lines and white-ness (is that a real adjective?) of this dresser. Would look great as a Media stand, or entry way table that serves the dual purpose of a lot of storage.

This isn't my typical taste, but outside on a patio this mosaic tiled side table has great color and would be great paired with wood or painted furniture. 

These melamine plates are too excellent. I love the bright colors! We're planning on hosting a lot of BBQs (if we had a BBQ) and bonfires this Summer, and these plates would look great on a buffet table next to a lot of fruit salad and hamburgers. 

Did you know that we like yellow and grey?

I don't often find a rug that I like, but this one is the exception to the rule. I love the different shades of grey, and the geometric pattern that's just striking enough to get your attention, but not so attention-grabbing that it steals the show. 

Wouldn't these prep bowls make cooking heavenly?

If this April snow isn't enough to convince me to move, the haul I would come out of West Elm with might just be the final straw. Been shopping lately? Found any good finds? 

Short Project Attention Span

Since moving on to our Spring To-Do List I've had major project ADD, and can't stop dreaming about some of the other unfinished spaces we have in our future. The bathroom is the last thing we've budgeted for at least for now, so we'll see after that what we should be saving up for next. Lately, I've been especially drooling over an Ikea living room. 

I'm a bit hesitant about buying an Ikea sectional, because some of them don't look like the best quality and I know that their stuff is cheap for a reason. However, Young House Love has the Karlstad sectional and they've had it for a few years and still like it so that seems promising. I'm going to use this post to create a bit of an inspiration board for our future living room.

I love a sectional that's at least close to equal lengths on both sides, it seems the most useful. 

Here's the Karlstad in John & Sherry's living room.

As far as media storage goes, I love our EQ3 furniture, but I wouldn't mind something on the wall that uses more of the space and makes me feel more free to accessorize, so it's not all about the TV.I'm leaning towards something like this. 

I find rugs so difficult to choose, but this new one from Urban Barn is graphic but still neutral.

This coffee table is crazy cool, from EQ3.

I love curtains! Both of these options from West Elm are fantastic.

So those are some of the things I've been dreaming up while blogging on our living room couch lately. I know we probably won't be able to make some of the more major changes - like a new sofa - anytime soon, but if we can start dreaming up what direction we want our house to take we'll know what we should choose accessory wise or what to save up for. Anyone else planning a project that isn't happening?

Window Shopping Wednesday Turned Real Shopping

I had mentioned in Monday's post that my mom and I went shopping last week, here are some iPhone photos that I snapped while browsing at Home Sense. For those who don't know, Home Sense is like Winners but with home stuff. My favourite finds there are furniture and some of the art is pretty great. Tricky though because there usually aren't too many of each thing so you have to snap it up right when you see it. I didn't buy anything there, but did a lot of admiring! I tried to keep my eye out for anything especially interesting. 

This isn't necessarily my style, it's a bit rustic. I loved it though ,
all the drawers were numbered (randomly) and it looked so unique!

This cabinet was very beautiful, it had a hint of sparkle and I might have taken it home
but I think it was a few hundred dollars. 

At some point I may push our dresser side tables together to make a real dresser and then get some lighter side tables like this. I love that it's on wheels and the glass makes it look a lot less bulky. Since our bedroom isn't the biggest I think this would look great on either side of our bed!

I could spend an hour in the pillow aisles at Home Sense. 

I liked how this rug mixed stripes with a more ornate pattern but kept the color simple. 

After Home Sense, we headed over to Costco where I picked up some pantry organizing containers (I'll show them in a post soon once my pantry is all tidied up). From there, to Ikea of course! At Ikea I bought a plastic bag organizer, scarf organizer, under bed storage, and some bag clips. So exciting to buy some organizing products so that we can make the best use of our new space and start making it feel like home. Sometimes it seems like everything is in temporary places, we can hardly keep track. 

What have been your favourite finds lately? Any stores you would like us to feature in the coming weeks? Also if you read anything interesting online this week, send me the link or post it in the comments! We're going to be starting a new series soon which will feature some of the favourite online posts of the week from other sites.