Show & Tell Friday is hosted by Kelli at There Is No Place Like Home. Click here for a list of this week's participants.
In between coats of paint on my cabinet doors, I've been reading about all the great end-of-January sales everyone has been shopping, and getting photo-envy over some of their great buys. Stores with huge discounts this week have been Pier 1 (up to 90% off), Target (most of the items in their on-again-off-again home furnishings department is 50% off), Lowes, HomeSense (we don't have one), IKEA (don't have one of those, either, though they tease us with their 1.7 million square foot Western Region Distribution Center, half an hour south or town), and everyone's all-time faves, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Ross.
Thursday afternoon found me -- once again -- shopping for kitchen countertops. Since I was already out and about, I made the rounds of the stores with sales, and came up totally empty, a very unusual occurance. Either the stores had nothing that I wanted or needed, or what they had wasn't on sale. I'm a very picky shopper right now, with the kitchen half done ... storage is currently at a premium and my focus is nearly 100% on Stuff I Need For The Kitchen.
One of the things I've decided I need is several dozen identical spice bottles, since our current storage system isn't working and I want to reclaim that cabinet space. So I stopped into Cost Plus World Market, as I knew they had a variety of different spice bottles for 99 cents each. None of my bloggy friends had mentioned that World Market is having an incredible clearance sale on items throughout the store, with discounts beginning at 50% off the original price. I bought my spice racks and jars -- not on sale but very afforable -- and I'll write a post about them this weekend, while writing about the kitchen reno.
My Big Find at World Market was this set of four cheese plates, packaged in a round box that looks like it holds a wheel of Camembert. The plates were marked down from $24.99 to $12.49 per set of four, so the actual cost per plate was just over $3.00 each.
These plates are absolutely PERFECT for the new style of our kitchen and breakfast room, which is going to be a meld of French/Italian bistro, with a bit of wine cellar tossed in for good measure. Although these plates would look great hung on the wall, I decided I'd like to have them for everyday use, so I purchased two sets. The plates are coupe style (slightly rounded edges, no rims) and are 6.5" across, just the right size for cheese, dessert, a salad, or a snack. I'll be swapping out my rectangular pine kitchen table with a round wooden-topped wrought iron table (currently in the large rotunda-like entry hall at my office/studio), and I'll keep these plates stacked in the middle of the table, restaurant-style. That's the ambiance we're aiming for, minus the greasy shaker of fake Parmesan cheese :o)
Have a great weekend!
