World Market is Coming!!!!

I can't conceal my excitement!!!  A few months ago when shopping at one of my usual haunts- Shoppers World in Framingham, MA and I noticed a precious little sign in an empty store window:  "Cost Plus World Market Opening This Fall" Like any good DIY/design blogger, I totally had a geek-out moment.  You see, I've only been to a Cost Plus World Market once, years ago, while on vacation in Florida.  The entirety of New England has sadly been World Market free.... until now!  Would you like to join me in a happy dance?

First thing first for my dear New Englanders or any other silly people who may not know World Market- what is it?? It's kind of like HomeGoods meets Pier1 meets a specialty beer and wine store all wrapped up into a global bazaar vibe.  Basically if you live in an apartment, condo, or house, or you eat food or drink wine or beer, there's probably something stylish or tasty here for you.

Oh the chairs!  I remember at my first World Market experience, I was trying to figure out how to smuggle chairs onto the plane home.  I resisted then, but with the new store under 10 minutes from my house, I may need a new house just to store all the chairs I want to buy. #chairhoarder  Don't say I didn't warn you, Hubby!

The beer and wine section is a dangerous game changer- it means I can bring Hubby shopping with me and drop him off in this side of the store while I buy all the home items.  Successful shopping trip for all!

I'm already working on my shopping list for Thursday since buying one of everything is probably not feasible.  probably. Well, at least not all in one trip...

Ready for all the juicy grand opening details??

Cost Plus World Market Shoppers World 1 Worcester Road Framingham, MA 01701

Thursday, October 1: Ribbon cutting and Grand Opening at 9am.  The first 100 customers in the door will get a $10 gift card!

The excitement continues all the way until Sunday, October 4th with daily raffle drawings (including 2 $250 gift cards each day), free tote bags daily for the first 100 customers in the door, and free tastings and live entertainment 4-7 on Thursday and Friday and 1-4 on Saturday.

Sunday is another very exciting day- especially for HGTV fans.  I mean who doesn't want to meet the Property Brothers??  Jonathan and Drew Scott will be special guests from 1-3 and a meet and greet will be open to the first 200 customers who bring 5 non-perishable, non-glass food items for HOPE Worldwide Framingham Food Pantry.

On top of all the rest of this goodness, you can get TRIPLE credits for joining World Market Explorer Rewards Program and up to 20% off your purchase? Click here for the coupon.

If you couldn't gather already, there's a veeeery good possibility that World Market might become my new happy place.  I may start hosting dinner parties and redecorating (more) just so I have an excuse to spend all my money.

disclosure: this post was sponsored by Cost Plus World Market, but all giddy dorkiness and opinions are 100% my own

Dori the Flip House: week 13

I hope you enjoy these weekly updates as I learn to navigate through the business of flipping houses.  My latest flip house, Dori sports the 3 L’s in real estate, but will need more than a bit of creativity to make the house sellable. You can find more about this house and about my 4 previous flip houses here. A few steps forward and one huge step back.  I am now officially out of budget, time, and patience on this house.  I get overly dramatic when I'm stressed out apparently. (**please excuse the iphone pics- I once again forgot my real camera, but am telling myself this will make for much more dramatic reveal pictures in the end**)

Let's start with the steps forward.  The most visual one is now the fact that I had staging furniture moved in.  A little prematurely since I still have more painting to do, but it had to be done at some point, right?

As you can also see in the pic, the engineered floors in the living room and hallway are done!

And the bedrooms are all cozy and carpeted and almost done being painted.

And then we have the dining room.

The dining room is an addition off the back of the house and the only space not on a concrete slab.  This is the room that you get to through the kitchen and has the nice new slider.  And soon to be a nice new floor and subfloor as well.  Back in week one, I discovered old termite damage in other parts of the house.  I called in a company and had baits installed all around the house and repaired all the damage that I knew about.  Problem solved, right?  So naive.  This little hole in the upper right corner of the floor is a very big trouble maker.

In the dining room here, I was originally planning to save this wood floor.  I covered up the floor while I painted, got the space drywalled, and the baseboards got installed.  When I pulled up the paper last Friday I noticed that this little corner board had termite damage that I hadn't noticed previously.  I (stupidly) thought "no problem! my flooring guy can just patch the floor board and it'll be all better."  And so he cut out a piece to replace it and the damage abounded.  The more we investigated the more we realize that the problem was in at least 1/3 of this darn floor and since I have a conscience, I can't put a bandaid over this problem.  So, listing the house is getting pushed back and this floor and subfloor is being completely replaced.  I'm just crossing my fingers, and toes that the joists don't need to be replaced too, because that will really kill my budget.  Welcome to the joys of house flipping.  Trying to look at the bright side, though- this buys me some more time to finish painting #silverlining.

Swapping it Soon

First of all- Congrats to Carla S!  You are now the proud owner of a wooden pineapple bowl!  I'll be e-mailing you shortly, so be on the lookout. Aside from finishing up this flip, I'm gearing up for the next round of Swap it Like it's HOT!

Once again arranged by the lovely Charlotte at Ciburbanity.  I'll be posting my final project on Wed October 7th, but I wanted to share my challenge with you before that.

If you don't recall from the last round of swapping, with a budget of $10, we all sent another blogger/DIYer a thrifted find in need of a revamp.  Ever since I recieved my treasure from Tasha from Designer Trapped in a Lawyers Body I've been staring at it trying to figure out 2 things: firstly- what in the blazes IS is??  and secondly- what in the blazes do I DO with it???

While I'm still in search of the answer to the first question (If you have any inkling, share in the comments!!), after weeks of it sitting next to my computer mocking me, I finally have a plan of what to do with it!

I clearly am not going to give all my plans away, but I will reveal that they will most likely involve a couple light kits from IKEA, a dowel, and maybe a brass bowl or 2. *insert evil laughter here*  Are you intrigued yet?  Fingers crossed that I can make it happen as planned!

How would you re-envision this old rustic rolling pin muddler head basher wood thing?