My New Rug (A Year In the Making)

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(I still have a ton more to recap from the Haven Conference last week, but I thought it might be more interesting to break them up with a few home updates. This one in particular took a year to find!)

About a year ago, I spotted this goooooorgeous room on House of Turquoise:

I obsessed over the pictures of this room. What got my attention the most was the gray and is-that-yellow-or-orange rug:

I recently spotted these photos again on The Inspired Room, which only means that this room is enviable by everyone who sees it.

Any who, I do what I normally do when I spy something that I can’t take my eyes off of:  I tried to make it mine. Unfortunately, when I did track the rug down, I couldn’t find anything online that would fit into my budget.

$855? Ahem. But she is lovely, isn’t she? The pattern. And the color combo. Cue the Homer Simpson drool.


A week or two ago (time flies when you no longer have Saturdays free), I was on my way to an appointment after work and had about thirty minutes to kill. I heard HomeGoods beckoning. You hear HomeGoods too sometimes, right? That siren song is always trouble.

Just stop in for a quick look, it said. You will just window shop.

Riiiiiiight. But somehow I still found myself in the store. I’m pretty sure I floated in, legs tucked behind me like a cartoon, fingers-of-aroma-style like whenever there’s a pie on a windowsill. And then, I found myself starting open-mouthed at this lovely guy:

That color combo. I’d seen it before. I’d obsessed about it. And at the much more reasonable price tag of $169, I had to have it! But I was out of time before the next thing I had to go to. I knew I wouldn’t be more than an hour, so I kindly asked the store clerk if he would let me put it on hold. He said no (bummer), but was very friendly and assured me that because the rug was tucked toward the back of the rack, it wouldn’t likely be plucked by anyone else. See the sliver of another rug to the right in the photo above? Often Homegoods will stack smaller rugs (these are roughly 4×6) side by side on the hangers (which fans out to the open, so some rugs are stacked on the inside toward the wall, and the others are more visible since the ends don’t have to be opened as far to see the whole rug). So since mine was closest to the wall, it couldn’t be seen unless someone completely extended the rack. I zipped to my appointment and back to Homegoods as fast as I could, and sure enough, my yellow-orangey-gray rug was still there waiting for me.


There are a few lessons to be learned here:

• Use the thing that’s too expensive as inspiration.  Instead of dismissing the rug, I kept it in mind whenever I went browsing. Knockoff finds are everywhere!
• But start saving for the item pronto.  If I hadn’t been squirreling a little money away for this rug, I wouldn’t have been able to buy it. I usually keep my rug budget around $200 (but much, much lower than that if I can). Once I’ve hit my target budget, I can feel comfortable with window shopping that turns into an actual purchase (still, shop at HomeGoods at your own risk – I’m not responsible for your spending sprees!)
• Patience pays off.  Sure, it took a year, but that’s easy when it’s décor. I can’t do the same for something as essential as a bathroom tile floor, but for a rug, I can be a little more selective. And once I find the right one, I know it’s worth the wait.
• Always fan out the rug section completely.  This might apply only to HomeGoods and other stores (like World Market or Pier 1) that use this type of hanging catalog display for their rugs. But it’s still good to try. You never know what might be tucked away!

Now, to find which room to put it in… got any of your own HomeGoods shopping tips you’d like to share?

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