I love planning

You might remember my idea book. Were I keep most of my ideas, torn from magazine, sketched from memory or imagination, pulled from catalogs or printed from the web.

Here is a page from my idea book, I've known since October that I wanted ladder back chairs for the kitchen. The closest I could find were these:

But there was no way I was paying over $300 per chair... PUH-LEASE!!!

And I really wanted rush seats to match the bar stools we've had for years:

My search has gone on and on since October. I found some things that were the right shape, with the right seat, but the color was wrong, or the color was right but the seat was wrong. Found a couple that were really close online but they were either way too expensive or they had pretty bad reviews and I wanted to be able to sit on them myself to test them out.

Then last week, I made the "mistake" of going to TJ Maxx with my friend Cass. She is my good luck charm when it comes to shopping. I believe Jim might look at her as a curse... as anytime I've gotten shopping with her, it costs us about $100. (Exhibit A: master bedroom redo. Exhibit B: our zebra bench)

And what did I find, the perfect chairs, right color, right shape, right seat and pretty good price, $69 per chair. They were even really sturdy. I tried to put them on layaway as they so weren't in the budget right now. They've ended layaway at this particular store. Since they only had 2 chairs and that is just what we needed, I bit the bullet, reworked the budget and brought the chairs home.

I'm so happy I got the chairs, they are just what I wanted, just what I planned for... so for the next week, we're eating out of the freezer and pantry instead of a big grocery shopping trip this week.