Double-Wide Design: Save vs. Spend Part 1

Areas of our home where I've invested, pinched my pennies, or met in the middle.

I’m starting this piece with a very long-winded story; please bare with me and read for a little background story!

In the spring of 2018, at a St. Patrick’s Day crawfish boil, I met a woman who left a great impression on me in that moment and would continue to do so in the years to come. Ashley is the mother of two young children and had started her own interior design business. She and I chatted at length, over a drink or two, while peeling crawfish, and she told me how she had this intense passion for interior design and had recently decided to turn what had been her hobby into a business. I was so inspired by her gumption and determination; she just went for it, she just did the dang thing and started her own business! She had no formal interior design education or degree, simply a deep passion and God-given talent. My husband and I left the crawfish boil and I couldn’t stop raving about her. I asked Kolton, “Do you think she’s hiring?” He said to reach out and see, so I did.

Ashley replied saying she had been praying over her business and seeking the Lord’s direction in whether she should grow her business further by hiring someone full-time, as interior design work was quickly accumulating for her, or stay the steady course in keeping it small. She told me that when we met and I emailed her, she felt that was a clear sign from God to go for it and since that day, she’d been crunching numbers to see what she could pay me to come on board.

Two months later, I quit my safe, secure, reliable corporate marketing job to go work for Ashley doing the marketing and social media for Moore House Interiors. I started two weeks after my husband and I were married, at half the salary I’d been making at my former job, and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. My corporate job was great, and it was a place with amazing people who became good friends; it was the perfect job for my post-grad, dive into ‘adulting’ stage of life. But working for Ashley, a woman who quickly became boss, friend and mentor, taught me life lessons that will be with me forever, as I watched her be entrepreneur, wife and mother.

I worked for Ashley for about two years before leaving to be a stay-at-home mother. Ashley showed me nothing but grace, as I cried to her saying I couldn’t be both the employee I wanted to be and the mother I wanted to be, and she understood, as she had done the same thing when her daughter was born. Three years later, Ashley closed her incredibly successful and thriving business so that she could be a more present mother and wife, prioritizing her family, motherhood and her own happiness. We are still good friends to this day. You can follow Ashley on her website here.

All this to be said, I learned so much about interiors while working for Ashley—someone with natural gift for home design! Perhaps one of the most important home design lessons I learned during my time with Ashley was how to design a home that is functional for how you live and the season of life you’re in.

This Save v. Spend series (it will be broken into parts) is full of tips and ideas that I learned from studying under Ashley, as well as what I’ve learned on my own through trial and error, my own intuition and slowly discovering what my style is, as I’ve tended to my own home. While this list isn’t all-inclusive, and there might be many things readers disagree on, this is simply what’s worked for me in cultivating home for my family. My goal in curating our home is to select pieces that are budget-conscious but also a quality that will last, which works better for a budget than replacing on a frequent basis. Cheap does not always end up being cheap, and often times, you get what you pay for!

This list is specifically directed at my current season of life with very young children. As the children grow, lifestyles change, homes change, the list might change with it, but, for now, this fits our current chapter. We’re a busy family of five (soon to be six) who live in the country, we homeschool, we live in a 2,300 square foot doublewide mobile home and this is not our ‘forever home.’

Prior to moving into our current home, the doublewide, we hadn’t bought new furniture in years. Most of what we had, we had in college, it was hand-me-downs, very inexpensive and all budget-buys. We were newlyweds and then first-time parents on a serious budget! I had to be incredibly selective and thrifty with anything we bought. When we moved into our doublewide, we had the opportunity to upgrade some of our old furniture, which was really exciting! But being able to do so was because of hard work, lifestyle choices and patience. Had we chosen to build a house, we’d been living on the floor in sleeping bags. I was very intentional with what we put in this house, I budgeted everything, I planned and mapped out all the furniture to make sure it would fit (literally and cohesively) and made sure what was chosen would last a very long time.

Ten Questions to Consider

Before diving into the various areas of our homes and where I would personally save versus spend, I wanted to share 10 questions I ask myself before buying anything for our house, whether that’s a large furniture item or a throw pillow.

1. Is this a need or a want? Does our home actually need this item, or do I just like it because it’s pretty and I took a rare 30 minutes to peruse Target while in town?

2. Will this add joy to my home or create clutter? Again, that trendy Magnolia Home decor piece I’m holding in Target, is this going to genuinely add to my space in a positive way or just clutter it up as ‘one more thing?’

3. Can I wait to buy this until it goes on sale? Are we approaching a time of year when there are furniture sales that I could take advantage of? Can this wait (almost always, yes)?

4. Is this a piece that could be found on Facebook Marketplace or browsing a local antique mall? Does it have to be new or can it be older, used and previously-loved?

5. Is this practical for my family’s current age and stage of life? Does this make sense to buy with small children or am I setting myself up for frustration when it gets broken/stained/dropped/etc?

6. Do I actually like this item? Or do I like it because it’s trendy and I saw it in someone else’s home? Is it me? Is it my style?

7. Do I need this now, or does it make sense down the road at another time? Can I practice delayed gratification, or is buying now the sensible thing to do?

8. Is it in budget? Pretty straightforward yes or no answer here. No? Close the internet tab, put back on the shelf, walk away.

9. Am I investing in something that I can see carrying over to a future house or future space? Or would it likely end up in a donate pile?

10. Is it a quality piece? Will it hold up or fall apart quickly? Is it something that’s cheap for now, but would ultimately need replacing and cost me more down the road? Is it worth spending more now and invest in good quality to last many years?

Save vs. Spend Home Edition

Living room: Spend
If you’re like our family, the living room is the most-used space in our home and it takes the hardest beating. Because of the constant use, I think investing in a few solid pieces in the living room is worth every penny. To me, this means upgrading to performance fabrics on any sofas, couches or chairs, a rug that can survive under heavy traffic and spills (I’ll chat about rugs in a bit), choosing storage pieces or consoles that are not only extremely functional, but can withstand plenty of opening and closing, getting hit by various sticks, bats, swords, balls and trikes, drawers being aggressively pulled, books, toys and baskets shoved on shelves. We don’t have a playroom, the living room is our playroom, so everything in this space needed to be able to last.

Now, items like accent pillows, side tables, lamps, decor and art, are all pieces I would save on and I’ll talk about that later, too, under the ‘decor’ category!

Our sofa, swivel chairs, living room rug and sideboard were pieces I chose to put more money into when we had the opportunity to upgrade them moving into our current home. I knew between having young children, living out in the country, having dogs and being inside/outside as often as we are, we needed pieces that would last and I needed ones that would be easy to clean. This has paid off immensely, as the furniture has seen more than it’s fair share of spills, stains, traffic, beatings, illnesses, mud, you name it, and, in my opinion, it all still looks great and has held up beautifully. Every time I go to wipe stray play-doh out of a chair, or clean up a bodily fluid on the rug, I think, “Thank goodness for performance fabric!!” "Thank goodness for this rug!”

If you are choosing anything white and have children or pets, I highly, highly recommend performance fabric. Adults have whoopsies too, think red wine, food, coffee, matcha, whatever it might be; white is a magnet for accidents.

I had our living room sideboard custom made by a local woodworker and have been incredibly pleased by it. I think it was a great price for solid wood and custom. You can find great local makers on Facebook Marketplace, Etsy or searching social media, and they typically offer better quality, better customer service and a better experience than big-box stores. I had ours designed with kid’s storage in mind, as we don’t have many closets and the living room is our play room. It holds all the kids books, games and toys, in a way that’s easy for them to access and easy for me to clean up and put away. This is a piece that will easily last for many, many years and one that can serve many purposes. The solid wood has held up beautifully, whereas particle board would be toast by now.

I recently added an antique pie safe I found on FBMP for additional storage! We’d had a large blank space against one wall that I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do with. I contemplated various ideas and sat on it for two years before pulling the trigger on what I thought would be the perfect piece, and it worked out better than I’d hoped! The beauty of delayed gratification. There’s no need to rush into buying something just for the sake of buying it, take your time in curating the right pieces, even if it takes awhile.

Here’s the look of our living room.

Rugs: Save & Spend
I think for some areas of a home it’s better to spend on rugs, other areas better to save. Again, our living room rug takes the most traffic and biggest beating. It’s seen so much dirt and mud living out here on the farm (and we are a no shoes in the house family!), stomach bugs, drink spills, dog accidents, this rug has seen it all. I chose to get a hand-knotted wool rug for the living room, because wool rugs are the easiest to clean and very low-maintenance. They’re also a natural material, not synthetic, and I wanted something ‘cleaner’ for my kids and babies to be playing on.

I chose a wool rug from Milagro Collective, a small, mom-owned business here in Texas, and while it was certainly an investment, it’s paid dividends. All I need to clean a spill is warm water, soap and a rag. That’s it! It doesn’t shed, and it’s considered an ‘heirloom rug’ because it will last years and years and it’s comfortable to play on. Our previous living room rugs I had chosen very cheap, inexpensive ones, and that required replacing them after time, so much elbow grease trying to get stains out, copious amounts of material shedding, lingering odors and very dingy, dirty looking rugs that didn’t feel good to be on.

While I think it’s worth investing in good rugs for well-used areas such as the living room, I’ve chosen to save on rugs in other areas, such as the dining room, kitchen, door mats and my kid’s rooms.

I’m not going to spend a lot of money on a rug that goes under the dining table because it’s simply sitting under a table, it has so much food dropped on it and it’s not walked/played/sat on enough for me to really care much about it. I chose a textured rug that would easily hide crumbs, and grabbed it while it was on sale from a big online rug store, making it an even better deal at the time. I went cheap here!

One day I’ll upgrade the kitchen runner to a high-quality wool rug, because this is another highly trafficked rug, but for now I’m meeting in the middle with a lower-quality wool runner. The kitchen runner receives heavy usage, but mainly by me, the resident private chef of the home. I spill all the time on it, and so does everyone else coming through the kitchen. The wool makes it easier for me to clean, but this isn’t a place in my home I want to budget money for, so I’ve found wool runners on Amazon and at HomeGoods that have served their purpose just fine. I just replaced the runner I’d had for about four years with the same one, it was time to refresh it and I wasn’t sad to part with it, as I’d found it for $35 at HomeGoods.

For the kid’s bedrooms, I wanted budget-friendly, easy to clean and low on the toxic-material spectrum. I have no interest in spending a bunch of money on rugs going into kid’s rooms at this stage in my life! The kid’s rooms all have a natural-fiber rug in them, either sisal or jute. This makes them easy to vacuum on a regular basis. Loose dirt, mud and whatever else the kids get on the rugs sit on top of the low-profile fibers, perfect for frequent vacuuming. While things like play-doh can be terrible to get out of the fibers, I try to mitigate those issues by no food or no play-doh and the like in their rooms; that stays out in the kitchen. Sisal and jute are also low on the toxic spectrum, as they’re natural fibers and breathable, which I wanted for the kids bedrooms. Sure, they might not be top-of-the-line, green-standard, OTEX-whatever, but they work for me and I found what I consider to be budget-friendly sisal rugs on Amazon and they’ve been great! Maybe one day I could layer a pretty rug on top of the fiber rugs, but for now, I don’t need to spend the money on that in their rooms.

In our bedroom, I did another high-quality wool rug from Milagro Collective. This is a room I wanted to invest in, furniture-wise, as the plan is to have the pieces for many years. This room is also highly-trafficked, in that my kids spend a lot of time with me in our room, whether it’s playing while I’m folding laundry, reading together, sleeping on our floor, bath time in our bathroom, and simply being by my side as I get dressed and ready for the day. After years of our bedroom being an after-thought in terms of furniture and decor, a collection of mismatched, cheap, hand-me-down items, we were in a place where we could have a ‘grown-up’ bedroom and, to me, this included a nice rug that will last forever.

I have various 2x3 rugs throughout the home: by the front and back doors, in the mud room, in the powder bath, and they all vary in quality. Some are cheap door mats from Target and Amazon, some are wool rugs I got on sale. I think these ones are at your discretion, but are worth having!

Here’s the look of the rugs we have throughout our home.

Bedding: Spend…wisely.
For bedding, I think it’s worth spending money on what you sleep in! But that doesn’t mean you need to break the bank either. There are plenty of options for good quality, organic material bedding that isn’t marked up to big-box retail prices. If you do your research, you can find great quality for middle-of-the-road pricing.

Bedding is so personal; whether you like cotton, linen, bamboo, tencel, flannel, everyone seems to have strong feelings about which bedding they like best. You sleep on this material every night, make it something that feels good to you and functions well for how you sleep!

If you want a luxurious feel, you’ll probably be okay with spending more money on brand-name bedding from retailers like Pottery Barn, Boll & Branch, Crate & Barrel, The Company Store, etc. If you’re okay with budget-friendly and not too picky, Target has great options for even organic cotton bedding.

For a middle-of-the-road option, I’ve sourced almost all our bedding from Quince. They have wonderful organic cotton and linen bedding, which is what we prefer in our home. The quality is unmatched, in my opinion, and the pricing is so good for what you get. We were gifted Pottery Barn bedding when we were married, and had that bedding for seven years. The Quince bedding is far superior and half the price! I have Quince bedding for all my children too, from sheets to quilts.

Bedding companies often run sales, so if you’re in need of a refresh, I always think to wait for an upcoming holiday such as Black Friday (or whatever month-long thing they do now in November), Memorial Day, Labor Day and summer sales.

Here’s the look of our bedding.

Dining furniture: Save & Spend
For dining furniture, I think having a durable table, especially with children, is worth it! We do so much at our dining table, in addition to eating at it, such as arts and crafts, school work, various projects and more. Boxes, bags, books, tools, everything gets thrown on the dining table! It needs to withstand a beating and I think it’s worth investing in a good table that will last. However, you can get creative with your spending here, and find some great local makers who will craft custom tables and there are always really good dining table finds on Facebook Marketplace! There was an incredible antique, solid pine table I saw recently that someone was giving away for free. Dining tables are easy to find on FBMP.

For dining chairs and other chairs, such as barstools or counter stools, I think you can save your money by finding inexpensive ones. Usually if you find a certain ‘look’ of a chair you’re wanting, there’s an inexpensive option for it via Target, Wayfair or Walmart. Dining chairs are something I’m not willing to throw a bunch of money at in this stage in life. I got our two slip-covered end chairs on major sale, our wood dining chairs we’ve had for nine years and our counter stools I bought on sale from Kirkland’s four years ago. They’ve endured plenty, are all easy to wipe up and I don’t freak out when they get knocked over amidst a foot race through the house or have spaghetti sauce wiped all over them. Sure, one day, I’d love to have beautiful linen slipcovered dining chairs, but that’s in no way practical or in budget for us currently!

Here’s the look of our dining room.

Kid’s room furniture: Spend… wisely.
For the kid’s bedroom furniture, I go middle of the road. Whatever goes into their room is going to get beat to pieces, covered in stickers, scratched and dented, jumped on and off, and used as forts, pirate ships, work benches, castles and football fields. I need the pieces to withstand all the play, but I also don’t want to spend a small fortune on furniture for those same reasons. For my son’s room, I chose a wood bed frame from Overstock that’s held up well, a dresser from a local big-box store and the sisal rug from Amazon that I mentioned previously.

My daughter’s room features a bed frame from Wayfair and an Ikea dresser, a sisal rug, plus her old crib for baby sister (they’ll share a room). Our younger son’s room has the hand-me-down crib and dresser from our oldest, a sisal rug, and the glider I bought six years ago and have used in all the children’s rooms when they were babies. I choose pieces that can grow with the kids; pieces that have a classic, timeless look and aren’t “themed,” so that as the kids grow, the pieces can stay with them (in the hopes they last). Almost every piece in the kid’s rooms, I did diligent online shopping research and browsing, so that I could get what I was looking for but at a budget-friendly price and I got everything on sale, but also chose items that could hold up over time.

Eventually when they’re older, they’ll need a refresh, but for now a mix of decent price and decent quality has served us well.

That wraps up Part 1 of this Save v. Spend series! Stay tuned for Part 2.