Last week I showed you our brand new kitchen.
You probably noticed a new rug in the dining room. I’m here to give you the low down.
I’ve been searching for a rug for the dining room and living room for awhile. I’ve mostly looked online, but haven’t pulled the trigger on anything for a few reasons: a) rugs are expensive!, b) there are way too many options to pick from and I just get overwhelmed and bored clicking through page after page of rugs, and c) I like to see stuff in person before I make a purchase.
I just happened to be at Sam’s Club with my sister and came across 6 different styles of 8×10 rugs for only $99 each. They had 4-5 styles in a beige tone and one bold royal blue style.
The price was more than right (only $99 for an 8×10 rug? I’ll take two!), but I got hung up on the color. I usually like to go neutral so that it never goes out of style, but I’ve got a lot of neutral going on already (brown floors, brown cabinets, brown table, brown sofa, tan walls, black coffee table and entertainment center), so I just threw caution to the wind and bought two of the royal blue rugs.
So glad I went with the blue. I just love the richness and warmth they bring into my home, and it’s enough color to really make a big impact.
The rugs are pretty darn soft and haven’t been shedding at all, but they are not padded, if that makes sense. They are basically like having apartment-grade carpet without a pad. I may end up purchasing some rug pads to go under for a little added squish.
I ended up buying two of the same rug because my living and dining area are so open. I like that they tie the two rooms together a little more.
That’s the dealio with the new rugs. They are huge 8×10 rugs for only $99 over at Sam’s Club. I’m usually a Costco shopper myself, but after going to Sam’s with my sister and seeing all their cool home decor, I may have to purchase a membership there as well.
Speaking of Sam’s and Costco… Are you a member of either? Which one? Neither? Why? Is it because you like one more than the other, or because it’s all your city offers?
We’ve always been a Costco family because I like buying stuff in bulk and because they do all the weeding out of crappy brands for me. I like that Costco offers one or two middle of the road options on pretty much any home-related product. They’ve done all the research for me and I’m confident that if I purchase a home-related product at Costco it will end up being a good, safe, middle-of-the-pack option. I know if I buy an appliance from them it is most likely a very good brand with a good rating. It saves me from having to wade through tons of product reviews to find the best product. Also, they have great produce, food, and snacks, and are starting to offer tons of great gluten-free and organic options.
Are you a warehouse shopper?
HA! As soon as I saw your post title I just knew it was going to be those Sam’s rugs! My sister bought me the gray/white chevron one for my office last week! You really cannot beat the price and the size! I was thinking about going back for that blue one for my bedroom…
Those rugs are so pretty!
Aside from that :-), my family generally tries to stick with Costco both because of their quality control (as you noted) and because of the way they treat employees — they pay extremely well, give meaningful raises often, promote from within, such that the average pay for employees is $20/hour plus benefits and they have very low turnover of employees (while maintaining huge profit margins). Sam’s, on the other hand, is owned by Walmart which has well-documented really terrible employee treatment — paying minimum wage with no benefits (meaning most of Walmart’s employees require government assistance to survive), rarely giving raises, and passing over women for promotions among a myriad of worker violations they have been sued for; additionally, they tend to have many sub par quality items and have been reported to have forced companies who sell with them to accept contracts that take advantage of the companies. On the other hand, they are the biggest buyer of organic food in the country and have kept many organic companies afloat, so there’s no pure answer here. 🙂
Here are a couple of links; they are a bit old but still hold true.
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2008/06/wage_against_the_machine.single.html
http://hbr.org/2006/12/the-high-cost-of-low-wages/ar/1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_5vttTJxgA
$99?!?! At Sam’s Club?!?! Looks like I need to find someone with a membership! Love the color and style!
We are a Sam’s shopping family. When Hubs and I first got together he was a Costco guy and I was a Sam’s girl. He was convinced to switch when we noticed in the Atx there was quite a bit of price difference on things we always purchase. Now on the Easter coast it is the opposite.
* East…..thank you AC!
What am amazing deal!!! Love your couch too!
I prefer Costco for the same reasons you do plus they treat their employees better with benefits and wages. The closest Costco to me is 6 hours away so unfortunately I’m forced to use Sams Club. I feel their products don’t have the quality that Costco holds their standards too.
I’ve been following your blog for almost a year now and I have to be honest. It’s hard staying awake while reading your posts.
You don’t follow those unwritten laws of most bloggers, such as:
1. Update at least once a week. ( Your readers are lucky if you update once a month. One of many ways to lose your reader base – keep them waiting..and waiting…and waiting. )
2. Keep it interesting. (unfortunately you love to give each and every detail of working up to something such as the main project ie: how you dealt with your kids to do this, the neighbor down the street with a hernia…etc., but when it comes time to talk detail about your project itself – you digress to something else again. You’re all over the road and well, it’s annoying and boring)
3. You pride yourself on being a DIY’er but when it all boils down to it – you only haphazardly finish projects.
You want things to look just great but towards the end you end up taking some kind of shortcut or just skip something altogether which ruins the overall effect of your projects. Many projects have ended up on the tacky side and not the “wow! what a fantastic job!” side.
You couldn’t even follow the full directions for hanging a tire swing, for pete’s sake!
4. You would never outwardly admit this, but you are out to impress and you try very hard to come off as someone with loads of money as if money is what it’s all about.
“I paid this for this, and this for that”…yet those things look very dated (80’s-ish) or are one of those things that make you say “she must have more money then brains because she’s going to have to replace that in 2 years” type of scenarios.
In your attempt to keep up with the Elite Jones’ – you’ve come off as a Beverely Hillbilly.
I wish you luck, and hope that your reader base doesn’t drop off too much.
@angelique – I appreciate your input and have thought about it for the past several days. Some seemed harsh and maybe a little mean, but some of your points are valid and I would like to reply to those.
1. Since we moved a year ago into this new house my posting has been sporadic. I can write a novel about this, but for the sake of the comments section I’ll just say, a) I tried out the whole “pro-blogger” thing, and it wasn’t for me. I don’t like the rat race, and I don’t want to have a career in blogging. I want this to just be my little online space where I update when I have something to say, and not worry about schedules and calendars and promotional posts and sponsors, etc. I have purposely backed off from blogging in the past year, and I am okay with losing traffic for it. b) When we moved to the country last year, one goal was to just SLOW down. And we have. Country life has caused me to want to spend more time outside, more time with my family, and less time online. I don’t want to look back on my life and wish I had spent more time playing with my kids and less time online. c) I have a LOT of behind the scenes personal stuff going on that I choose not to share on my blog. This has taken up way more time than I ever thought possible, and because of this I can’t focus as much time on projects around my house and on blogging. The blog has suffered but again, I always put my family first. I won’t apologize to the internet for unplugging and putting my family first. I hope this clears up why I’m a sporadic blogger.
2. I am all over the road with my posts. I get bored of doing one project over and over. I like to dabble here and there, and slowly update my whole house one random project at a time. I get bored doing one room so I will jump to another room. Sometimes I think I have a little bit of ADD because I like to hop from one project to the next. But if you hang around long enough I eventually circle back and finish what I started. I am not a Type-A person. I am a very creative free spirited person.
3. I don’t know what to even say about this point of yours. I have to disagree with this.
4. This was just mean and hurtful. If you’d been following along for more than a year, you’d know that we are huge Dave Ramsey fans and spent years paying off all our debts. We sold our $45k minivan and lived with one car for almost a year. We bought our 2nd car (finally!) in cash that we saved up for. Both cars are old, and are paid off. We sold our big fancy house and moved to the country and bought a house $60k cheaper than the previous one just so we could get a 15 year mortgage instead of a 30. We saved up CASH for our kitchen renovation. We live on a cash budget, never use credit cards, have no debt, and refuse to go into debt. I never buy new clothes, my kids wear clothes from Walmart and Costco. We are the opposite of “keeping up with the Jones’s”. Our friends think we are the weird ones for uprooting and moving, and selling the expensive cars, just so we can get out of debt. We have worked very hard to get where we are at, and to say I keep up with the Jones’s while I’m driving an old car with 140k miles on it is very hurtful to me. Also, I DO live in the country now, so your hillbilly comment made me laugh. We joke frequently that we are hillbillies now.
It’s obvious you don’t enjoy my blog so you really don’t have to read it. I’m not twisting your arm. I’m just putting words and content up on my site – for free! – for you to enjoy. If you don’t enjoy it, please feel free to go find a different blog to read. I would love it if everyone out there loved my blog, but that isn’t realistic. We are all different. Some people love it, some people hate it. And that’s okay. If I tried to please everyone I’d end up pleasing no one, so I’ll just continue to blog the way I want, and some will like it, some will hate it. If you hate it, you don’t have to stay and keep reading.
We are at Costco as there are two Costo’s within 1/2 hour of home but the nearest Sam’s club is 45 min to one hour away. I love Costco but their rugs are no where near $100!
@angelique!!! Why would you follow someone for a YEAR!! If you thought they were boring and fake??? I read several blogs and this just about the only one I have actually done some of the things demonstrated. I made a nice transition painting the ceiling and walls using green tape, have put up wainscoting in a spare bedroom, made curtains and made a curtain rod for the curtains, all following Allison’s directions closely, all just this year. Everything came out beautifully. I also admire Allison’s work ethic, putting her family first. I worry about generations of bloggers kids warped by constant presentations and perfect photographs.
Anyway, I always liked Sam’s just fine and then I moved to a state with Costco. I love Costco. I think, overall, Costco’s quality is better. Then, I married a man that works for Costco and know for a fact they are a very good company with great benefits. They have a pretty small profit margin. They only work with companies that are really willing to mark down their prices, that is why they haven’t sold Apple products. (Until soon) The membership fees is where they make the bulk of their profit. And one more thing. I am an ER nurse and when I meet a Walmart employee, if it’s appropriate, I ask them how they like working for Walmart since they have such a bad rep. Always, they have a reason, such as family or school, for wanting to work part time and exclaim that they really like their job. Just my observation.
LOL @ Angelique….What nonsense. Do you seriously have nothing better to do with your time?
Allison, I’ve been following you for far longer than a year, and I have always liked what I’ve seen.
ANYway, love the rugs! I would totally get one if I could make it work in my living room, but the brick bottom of the fireplace ruins that opportunity. Oh well! We have a Sam’s membership, because at the time it was cheaper than Costco and had more of the type of stuff that we needed. And their gas stations aren’t as crowded as Costco. LOL. Oh oh, and their pretzels are SOOOO good! 🙂
I LOVE the new rug! That color is fabulous. And I totally know what you mean about being hesitant on the brighter colors. I just bought a rug that’s similar in design and it’s orangey-reddish. I was so nervous! But I love how it looks. And talk about an awesome price!! It’s so hard to find nice looking rugs for a good price. I’m so excited for you!
@ Nancy & Janet – Not that I “need” to justify my actions, I will at least explain myself.
I have (only half-heartedly) followed Allison’s blog for this past year in hopes that at some point it would pick up. I even gave it some thought that maybe she was just going through a rough patch or two in life.
Then it became somewhat of a game to see how many “shaking my head” moments there would be in her most recent blog entry.
Nancy, it’s very true that there have been a few of her posts that were pretty right on. I never said that every one of them were completely lacking.
Sadly, more often then not, her how-to’s and just showing how she had done something around her home were full of shortcuts that….I’m sorry….showed that she did indeed take shortcuts.
Why bother doing something yourself, spending so much time, energy and money – to only ruin it or make it look shoddy by taking shortcuts?
I had been brought up by being taught that if you’re going to undertake something, then take your time and do it right the first time. Take pride in what you are doing so that you can be proud of the end result for even longer.
Allison wants things done just so-so..her idea of perfection..which is fine. (We all have our own “perfection”, right?) But then she is in a hurry to see end results, and that is her downfall.
Patience IS a virtue.
She doesn’t think things through very well, although you might get the impression that she attempts to.
For example – she has complained on numerous occasions that her hallway is way too dark and she needed new lighting for it. While that may have been part of the problem, it didn’t help that she wanted to paint every door in the house black. (How many doors are in that very hallway…?)
Hello! In such a small, confined space you never paint a dark color. It will not only darken the space but cause the space to appear smaller than it already is.
There is no color darker than black.
But as we all know, it’s her home and she can do as she pleases with it. Right?
She’s just going to have to accept that if she blogs about these things – she might have a few people make a positive comment, she’ll have just as many readers that have sat there and banged their head against their keyboard after reading about one of her projects. No, not all projects but quite a few.
While on that subject, @Janet – So because you post a sugary sweet comment in the same amount of time as I put forth some criticism, my use of that time is not as good?
We all have our own opinions, but I assume you are entitled and I am not?
This would be a sad and boring world without diversity, Janet.
I’m guessing that in your little bubble world the only diversity is your own.
Have a good day, Ladies.
I replied to your original comment above.
@Angelique- Now you have me curious… Where do you blog at? I would be interested to see how you juggle your family, DIY, and other thoughts.
@Angelique Your comments are not constructive or helpful. They are hurtful, trolling, and boasting that you think you know everything about the hidden surprises EVERYONE finds when doing a home improvement project – DIYers as well as the pros.
I appreciate ALL of Allison’s posts. She’s funny and her family stories add warmth to her tutorials. It is also real life that sometimes unforeseen circumstances (like her island) mean you have to change something on the fly. I love that Allison isn’t afraid to show us her mistakes as well as her successes because again, sometimes you don’t know if something will or won’t work until you try it.
I also appreciate how Allison mentions where she purchases items and the cost. I’m considering a new area rug for my living room but haven’t because I know it will be expensive. Her Sam’s Club post was news to me and a source I never would have thought of.
Rock on Allison! Keep on keeping on. Your blog is great. Your projects are too and if I had the room I’d follow your board and batten tutorial to the letter.
I can’t believe I’m doing this but anyway. @ Ms Angelique. What a pretty name for someone that comes across as such a mean spirited person. Personally, I was taught if I didn’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything. Of course, everyone has a right to express themselves. But there is not always a need.
If you wanted to introduce diversity, why didn’t you give concrete examples in the first place? Here, I will demonstrate. “Allison, I read you were concerned about your hallway being dark. Perhaps the area would be lighter if you painted all those doors something besides black?”
“Trying to act rich people” do not mention the old tire laying around in their back yard. And make tire swings. Fun, real people do that. And even though I have no need for a tire swing, I read this post about 3 times trying to figure out what is sloppy about this. We always got our pants wet with nasty water because no one took the time to drill holes in the tire and allow for drainage.
The whole secure the granite island thing was pure on the fly genius. Allison did an awesome job with that. Someone, probably a child, could have been maimed or mortally wounded if the experts had been allowed to pursue their diverse opinion.
I don’t know Allison and don’t live near Texas but I admire her quite a bit and even more now. She took the high road and took time to reply kindly and rationally to your comments.
In my experience, diversity and tolerance are code words for one dimensional, “my way or the highway” type people.
So, I am really done, I just had to express myself. I am not returning to this comment section. God bless us every one. Hope all our houses come out real comfortable and pretty and our crosses are never more than we can bear.
I love visiting several DIY blogs periodically. I am amazed at the boldness of people who comment on these blogs. I can’t believe the criticism, personal jabs, and just plain negativity. I would wager that none of these commenters would ever have the guts to say the things they do face to face. I say these bloggers are putting their lives out there for us. The least we can do is encourage them and keep our opinions to ourselves.
Love the new rugs! Just a suggestion – definitely add nice rug pads as soon as possible! We put some basic rugs down on our beautiful hardwood oak floors when we moved into our house. A few years later when I was ready for an upgrade I found that the backing on the rugs had left permanent cross hatch marks on our floors 🙁 Now we will always need to keep a rug down unless we want to refinish the floors in the rooms where the unpadded rugs were. Just a hard lesson that I learned and I’d hate for anything to happen to your beautiful new floors!