"Have you ever bought something that you thought was completely impractical and foolish that turned out to be the best purchase you ever made?"

A great many things - my apartment is filled with impractical and sometimes pricey things that bring me great joy.

Well, I bought a dress that was super expensive, but it was such a cute Breakfast at Tiffany's lbd AND it had pockets AND had the most perfect fit everywhere. I couldn't resist it and I've been so glad I bought it.

With clothes and home items, if I see something I love and see it several times and weeks later am still in love with it, then I'll buy it even if it's kind of expensive. When I buy on impulse thinking I love something, I tend to regret spending so much for it.

So if she really loves the tables and has for a long time and has a use for them in her home, then sure. If they are very trendy or will just be "decor", then I (personally) wouldn't get them.

Expense and value are two very different things! I choose personal value over expense when making a decision like this.

It sounds like you cannot afford this Item. Do not buy it. Be wise; put the money into a Roth IRA! Invest in your future. When you get old, you may wish you saved your money. If you can afford it and have money saved up, then buy it and enjoy.

The way in which the narrator morphs from "I" to "we" is disconcerting to the reader, but no doubt less so for the "colleague" since she must be fluent in AT-speak.

Be that as it may, my own theory is that one tends to regret what one does NOT do (or buy), more than what one does. I say go for the tables, especially since they're on sale. There are so many ways to rid yourself of them later if necessary, but probably no way to acquire them down the road, especially not on sale.

i say show us the tables, and then let us decide! :)

we'll splurge on things that are (1) well designed, (2) have good craft/material selection (i.e.: "worth it" from a materials POV) and (3) have a provenance worthy of the hefty price tag... and it must meet all three criteria.

many of the pix in the DWR window above do not meet this -- i.e.: the eileen gray table... pretty, but chromed steel and glass is not worth $550 tax/shipping imho... (which is why we have knock-off versions).

if we stick to this, even our most expensive purchases should be re-sell-able at some point should we want/need to rid ourselves of it.

presumably if you've been thinking about it for six months, then you've had the time to look at other options and ask yourself if you really value it. if the answer is yes, then splurge.

as for value vs. expense... it's good to look at why something is expensive. if it is because of quality design/construction then that has value to me. but if it is because of the name, label, or because everyone else has one, then it's probably not worth it.

I bought a piggy bank in elementary school. I was out shopping with my best friend and her mom. Her mom tried to talk me out of it, but I was in love. I still have - and use - that bank 20 years later!

An accent plate from Pottery Barn. It's celadon green with a bee on it. The friend I was out with tried to talk me out of it. It's still my favorite.

Another friend managed to talk me out of buying this awesome sweater. It's a chunky knit in shades of beige with a big cowl-neck. Makes me feel like I'm wearing a comforting bowl of oatmeal. But it was also super expensive so I walked out of the store empty-handed. A month later I was back and the sweater was on sale. I scooped it up and am still wearing it 7 years later.

Furniture-wise, my bed. It's a four-poster from Ikea and when I bought it in college 10 years ago, it was a little out of my price range and oversized for my room. But I loved it and it's survived 4 moves. The rails are also thin enough so I can use it to hang clothes when cleaning out my closet or packing for a trip. And frankly, if it were to finally break, I think I would replace it with Ikea's current version.

this is why god invented ebay. if you see something you like at DWR, chances are the original period version (or something very similar in style) can be found on ebay for much less and it will probably hold its value longer. especially for the mid-century / danish modern stuff DWR specializes in - troll ebay for a while and you'll probably find something just as cool (if not cooler) for a lot less.

I think it depends on her personal financial situation and how badly she needs the items in question (and I do realize that "need" is sometimes subjective), but in general, if she's been thinking about them for months and can't get them off her mind, and if buying them doesn't mean she's making sacrifices to important things elsewhere, then it's probably meant to be.

That said, I don't know if I'd splurge on end tables. I think I'd be more likely to splurge on a great sofa or bed.

Seems like there's a whole range of potential scenarios covered in this question.

Decisions that were stylistically whimsical? Yes, I've definitely done that. Those can be some of the best choices!

On the other end of the spectrum is financially irresponsible. It doesn't matter if these particular end tables are crafted from solid gold ingots. If she doesn't have the money saved up to buy them, it's a whole different type of question. If you love an item that much, start saving!

show us the tables!

The museum where I work was selling the Umbra Baloona stool in the shop and after eyeing it for months, I finally noticed it on the sale table. Even on sale, it was a splurge for a decorative stool, but I LOVE it, and it is always the first thing people ask about when visiting our apartment. No regrets!

See the Balloona on my blog!

This article started so well with the first person singular...sigh.

I don't believe in going filling up the credit card or not eating for a week in order to have a piece of furniture. But if you can afford it, or can save for it, and you love it, then money should be no object.

And I do agree with the "coup de foudre" theory--there are a few things in my apartment that were probably too expensive, but I love them, and they make me happy, so why not?

(I am still hoarding my pennies toward a $3000 dresser, though, and probably will be for years.)

Absolutely...I have this huge rattan and wood chair that I fell in love with at a home goods store where I worked at the time. It was completely out of my budget but 6 years later, I'm still crazy about it. It's so big that I've had to take the doors off, in order to fit it in a room. I don't care....

This issue gets at perennial problem for me, and I think for most people. But it's less about the "should I or shouldn't I buy it" issue, and has everything to do with nursing a vision -- either an ill conceived vision or vision that was held long past the need it served.

Case in point:

In my family, everyone has (or had) a china cabinet. My mom, my stepmom, my paternal grandmother, my maternal grandmother, her sister. Everyone. I inherited THREE of those cabinets. I decided one day that none of the cabinets were in keeping with my taste, so I sold them all. And went and bought a Maria Yee china cabinet I really love. On sale, too.

And THEN it hit me. What I really wanted, what suits my lifestyle more than a china cabinet, is a buffet.

I still love the cabinet. But ooooh how I wish I'd purchased the coordinating buffet instead. I could put things on it, put a mirror or art over it, etc. etc.

Moral of the story: when you find yourself thinking about and wanting something for months, years, even a decade, REALLY ask yourself if the vision still fits the need that conceived it.

Imagine wanting a Tudor house when you're 16, nursing that dream for decades, and finally buying one when you're 40.... but realizing too late as you flip through Architectural Digest that your tastes have grown up in the mean time and you really should have bought the modern home instead. OUCH.

I was swooning over a particular insanely expensive (for my tastes anyways) bed linen set about two years or so ago, waiting and waiting and waiting for it to go on sale, pining away about how much i loved it. Of course, it never went on sale. Finally, my mom, of all people, told me to just "buy the damn thing if you love it so much". I did, and I love curling up under it every night. Worth every penny.

Redneckmodern:

You were assuming that the the Eileen Gray table from DWR was the real thing for $500. In fact it itself is a copy, they don't really come out and tell you it is a copy. There really is no re sale value in copies.

The waiting for the "thunderbolt" doesn't really work for me because my choices are in the used or really low price categories. It's easy to "feel" the thunderbolt when something looks brand new & is featured in a setting that is concentrated with your design aesthetic. Since i get most of my stuff second hand, i have to kinda squint and see if I love its natural shape enuf to fix it up. So far this has worked for me -- i have items that may need something done to them but have lines & curves that you just can't buy today.

Kimg924 - please get out of my head! :) I did the exact thing not more than 2 weeks ago. after putting in a bid on my favorite house in the "whole wide world" (a house that i would walk by on my way to grade school each and every day, the house that i was remorseful sold to another person 5 years ago after *ahem* 15 years of waiting.)

fast forward to March of this past year, for sale sign up in front of my childhood dream house, my husband and I walked in and put an offer down on the spot. it was a short sale and as it ended up, 7 months later our offer was still not accepted by the bank.

thank goodness for the delay because in that 7 months time i came to the realization that what i really wanted was a ranch in the woods...

I offered, closed and moved all my stuff last weekend. now i live in a ranch in the woods. :)

the moral of my story is; don't over-estimate the power of want. when you really have the time to think about something monumental (like the purchase of a second home) you might decide what you thought you wanted in the beginning isn't really what you want in the end.

I have the opposite problem. I often see something that makes my heart pound because I love it so much. But I talk myself out of it because it's too much to spend at the moment. Then I keep thinking and thinking about it until I decided I just HAVE to have it - get to the store and it's gone.

I need to listen to my heart more and just go for it! Especially when it's a one of a kind find from an antique shop or collectible/junk/vintage place.

Right now I need to avoid physical and online shops period. I can't want what I don't know exists. It's not too painful to look at design blogs, though.

The Frank Gehry "Wiggle" stool. Totally unnecessary, but it amazingly ties everything in my living room together.

There's something to be said for the "crazy crazy love of things" (http://redravine.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/pablo-nerudas-love-of-things/). I think there's a romance in loving a thing, yes even to the point of not eating for a week. This is so different from being a spendthrift who simply wastes money in pursuit of shopping, because its not about the purchase so much as the love- sometimes an item simply speaks to you, and you can't get it out of your head. If you don't buy it, you'll be kicking yourself indefinitely, but if you do, it will make you smile every single time you see it. Sometimes these things have a high price point.

I have a silk crewel worked kashmiri rug. Its definitely too delicate for my rough messy lifestyle, when I bought it it was definitely a budget stretch, I had to cut back in other areas for it, and it was too big for the apartment I was living in. I knew I'd have to lug it home the rest of my vacation, and then have to wait until I had twice the square footage, and learn not to spill all over the place and be constantly readjusting it when it was knocked askew and learn to ask people to not wear shoes on it, etc.

But. I love it. I loved it from the moment I saw it in a rug shop in kathmandu, and I would have paid twice what I paid for it, or regretted my loss for the rest of my life, because its so beautiful. Everyday I get up and I see it, and I walk on it, and I drink my tea in my cheap ikea cups near it and it fills me with joy. I would be content to give up my couch before I give up this rug, that's how much I love it.

Also sometimes in retrospect the price turns out to have been right. Once I passed on two card catalogues because they were pricey for my then budget and would have required creativity in the apartment I lived in, but to this day i kick myself- they would look perfect where I live now, and if they were pricey then, how pricey will they be if I come across something like them in 10 more years when they're even more of a collector's item? My mom still talks about a vase she nearly bought but decided it was too much by an artist whose works are now worth a gazillion times that.

Completely depends on the financial situation of the person in question. Will this item make you go into MAJOR debt, or will you just have to cut back on the grande soy lattes for the next couple months?
But if you can't stop thinking about it 6 months later, go for it. I've passed on a few to many wonderful vintage pieces to say otherwise, I'm STILL thinking about those awesome lamps I passed on... and the desk, the other desk, and the PERFECT bike because I have already have a not perfect bike.

Mostly clothes. I have these shoes, the ones I'm wearing today, actually, that I saw in a shop while I was on vacation. I didn't try them on. I didn't buy them. I knew I didn't need green shoes and they were expensive.

Two weeks later, I found myself online, scanning a review of the shop I'd seen them in to find out what brands they carried and then searching brand by brand until I found them. I LOVE them and they make me smile.

If you've been obsessing for six months, decide to buy the things. For me, that will trigger "GLEE! I get my obession!" or "Hmmm, you know what? Never mind." and I'll be able to get on with my life.

I really, really like pretty things. I always ask myself ...Do I like this XX dollars worth?

After 6 months of wanting something, if you don't have to charge it, then buy it.

depends.... it's been in your mind for months? you won't go into debt if you purchase it? you won't instantaneously replace it in your mind with a new "must have item" to have as soon as you sign the charge slip?

I don't care what it's worth or the investment. if you truly love it, and it's not normally your nature to lust after $$ items, I say treat yourself, as long as it doesn't hurt your financially.... and you don't do that once every couple months.

Just did it today on a soaking tub...ouch! Luckily my uncle is the contractor and I saved on the price of the build.

If you can afford them, you should go for it. Stay away if it feels like an impulse buy and avoid using the credit cards also.

If it is an investment piece that you want to buy and plan to hold on until it's time to give to your favorite granchild, save up until you can really afford the piece.

The Corbusier LC4. I love it and use it all the time. Light and elegant and works in a variety of spaces.

When I find myself wanting something so much to the point of obsession, I think of that scene in Fight Club where Edward Norton is so upset his apartment blew up -- because he had just gotten all the perfect ikea pieces for it.

I have a pair of Doc Martin boots. My parents swore I would never wear them. They are still happily in my closet and often on my feet 10 years later. Thank god they are finally semi back in style now :) My poor grandmother will never live down telling me i wouldnt wear them. She has been trying to get them away from me for years.

If you can really afford it, ( I mean... a little sacrifice for a while, but being able to pay for it), i would definitely go for it.... If you don't, you'll always wonder what if.....

besides, the money thing will just be for a while.. .and you'll end up with something that you love everytime you walk into the room......

A good method to not feel bad or insecure about your decision is: Do someone a huge favor or help someone who really needs it.... If you don't know him or her even better, when you do it, you'll know what i mean. Then, you can really tell yourself you deserve to indulge yourself.... It is in a whole, a good way to be a good generous human being and keep your sanity.....

My rules are:

(1) No buying on credit.

(2) Wait and see if the love lasts.

In the meantime, keep saving and do lots of research to see if you can get the same result for less money or if you find something else you like better. If you're still in love after this, go for it!

Ok AT readers - I am the AT person Abby was out with last night on the town and guess what??

YES!!! Today I bought the side table (seriously had been coveting for 8 months - no joke!!) and am thrilled! I know I'll have this gorgeous table forever and while I waited a long time to purchase it, I know - to me - it's worth it!! I am sure you'll be seeing it a post here and there very soon!

-Rebecca
(Apartment Therapy writer, reader and new pretty side table owner)

Picture, Rebecca! Please do not torture us.

If you can afford it (cash only) and still love it after the initial thunderbolt moment, then why not?

This entire post seems a put-on. First "Rebecca" supposedly wants TABLES (plural) and then she gushes about THE table she supposedly bought ("I know I'll have THIS gorgeous table forever...")

Of course, AT personnel do seem to have a congenital problem with distinguishing between singular and plural...

That's a tough question. As for me, I'm not always practical and if I found something I really loved, I would find a way to get it. I usually ask the seller if they could do better on the price and if they would allow lay-away. In most cases, it's worked out and they accept. It makes it much easier for me and I make sure to pay in a timely manner. The past couple of years I've been buying some original art. The dealer or artist will set up a monthly payment ($100.00, for example) and are pretty flexible with the length of time. Most people will be accommodating. I can understand the reasoning of being careful not to get yourself into a financial hole. Especially with today's economy. If you really love the tables (and it sounds like you do...still thinking about them after six months), then get them. I think you will regret it if you don't. Maybe you can work something out with the store.

mirandabee, this post is 100% true. Abby and I were enjoying dinner and catching up and I mentioned these table I had been wanting. I didn't know Abby had posted our chat and my table-coveting until the afternoon and, ironically, after buying the table. My Wed post was about enjoying your right now house - which actually inspired me to finally buy the table I had been wanting. I decided to leave a comment on this thread bc I am an Apartment Therapy reader as well, just like you.

Thanks for reading!!
Rebecca

In my opinion, every successful interior is a combination of "Invest, Save and Splurge." I talk to my clients about this all the time.

So splurge on these (if you can do it without hardship), and find ways to save elsewhere.

If its quality, you plan to have it years to come, and you can afford it *now*, then by all means go for it. I did that with the furniture I own, and I've never looked back. Quality pays for itself in the long run.

My husband and I have a "splurge" savings account just for things like this. Every month we put a part of what's left after bills, rent, etc. into this account. We'll only splurge if (1) we have enough in the account to pay cash, and (2) we've thought about the purchase for at least a week (sometimes longer if it's a more substantial purchase).

So if your friend can pay cash without foregoing other things she needs more, then by all means, go for it.

One thing to be careful about though, is to make sure you love something, and not just the idea of something. There are pieces I just had to have because they looked so good in the showroom or were on sale, but when I got them home they just didn't really fit.