I'm off to a conference in Los Angeles and then to shoot another house tour video in San Francisco (have you seen the Windsor Smith one?) next week, so the web department is going to play with my blog while I'm away.

They've thought about buying me furniture I can't afford, redecorating my apartment while I'm gone, and Amy Shearn is going to tell you about her quick bathroom makeover that shamed me into getting my act together to powder coat my lawn chairs.

I might try to get to Mansour and take a look at some rugs in person.

Someone loves me. Well, hopefully more than one person does. But the universe has been really strange the past few days. Today, I got this pitch from a publicist for rugs from Emma Gardner Designs in Lichtfield, CT. Look at this one. Ain't it purty? It even comes in this almost squarish size I've been looking for. Can you see it in my bedroom?

Thriftscore! Did I mention that I rode my bike from Ditmas Park in Brooklyn to Astoria, Queens on Sunday? Thirty-one miles, thank you very much. My friend, neighbor and owner of Cortelyou Vintage Nicole F. usually gets on her little blue bike, braids her hair and puts on a vintage bathing suit to go riding on Sundays with her girl gang. It was just the two of us on Sunday in search of Greek food. It took us a few hours, but we found it at a terrific place call Mezzo on Ditmars Blvd.

Across the street we found an old school thrift shop, where I picked up this collage entitled "Arragement of Bagatelles" by Suzanne Marsh. I Googled her without luck.

Paging Suzanne Marsh. I love your work and it matches my room perfectly. Did you make it for me?

Since none of you good people seem to be offering to buy me a rug, I'm still looking. And drooling. Over this one from Kravet in particular. It's called Devon/C in Blue. I'm too scared to call the 800 number to find out how much it is.

My coworkers were teasing me because I don't even know where to go to shop for rugs I can't afford. Then Monica says, just go to Sites We Love and look under rugs. Ha.

Nothing like that list to jog my memory.

Here's what I found:

Angela Adams' Islands in Midnight Blue.

Dash & Albert Siena in Sage.

Or, or, or, any of these from Mansour Modern. They're gorgeous. But what do they have in common? Does seeing these pie in the sky rugs help me figure out my beef with the bedroom rug? Mmmmm, all those mixed metaphors are making me hungry.

So much for aspiration. Got these little vintage burlap shades for half a song (who said anything about money?) at this little back house home decor store I stumbled on in Chelsea a while back. You like?

Think Emma likes it?

Can those of you who like me to keep my word please hold your horses. I'm looking for the domino rug guide we did a few years ago to start posting about rugs I can't afford.

My friend Adam sends me a camera picture of this lampshade he found in the trash where he lives in Seattle. I'm moving to Seattle. Wanna come?

I did hang a shade--they're these beautiful honey color woven things that I got at Bed, Bath and Beyond for about whoops, can't tell you. Money wasn't a big deal. Sadly, I can't hang the other two just yet because the window frames look like this.

It's odd, the frames are apparently metal with a thin plank of wood on top of the metal. I guess I'll have to pry off that part of the frame and reinstall. I broke two drill bits trying to mount the hardware, but I'm not sure what else to do. My neighbor Melissa suggested I use Gorilla Glue. Would that work on metal?

I'm spoiled. Just ask my estranged older brother. He'll tell you I always got and continue to get what I want. I hate to say it, but to a certain extent, he's right. I won't even let myself want the things I know I can't afford. Let me say that again: I won't even let myself want the things I can't afford.

Take a recent visit to ABC Home & Carpet where I agreed to go with a friend. The rugs at ABC are gorgeous--lots of things are--and they're also pretty expensive. So I armed myself before I walked in the door, steeling myself against the beauty. I felt a palpable resistance, put on my thinking cap and started with the litany of excuses: everyone has that mid-century stuff now; I could find that at the Salvation Army for cheap; who pays $1,000 for a hanging lamp; I'd get sick of that too quickly; I work at a design magazine; how come I can't get this stuff for free; I can't figure out what I want, etc.

Obviously I buy expensive things, but only impulsively. I am by turns frugal and profligate, proud and guilty, and therein lies the rub. Having grown up on the periphery of great wealth, sometimes I am ashamed that I can't afford everything I want. In a way, I never learned to dream. All that stuff about aspirational this and that never made any sense to me. But maybe it does make sense. And maybe letting myself want the priceless things that everyone else wants is exactly what I need in order to figure out what I want.

Let this then be a week of posts in which I do not mention money. Call it the brainstorm, and watch me not shut it down.

Here's where the rug's going to go--sadly I measured and need a rug about 8 by 8 feet or something. Worries me to get such a weird size. But...you can sort of see the honey colored shade--much better picture of that coming up tonight when I get home and can load it.

Still think Copenhagen?

I'm buying a rug for the bedroom next and I think pt is right that if I'm going to get a pretty patterned one I don't want to cover it with furniture. So that makes it cheaper too. I can get something to fit between the bed and the shabby chic dresser. Here are a few options.

A "Craze Black Wool Rug" from Overstock again. I know it's not a great idea to buy a rug without touching it, but it's "crazy" and somehow seems Wildean to me. Or am I crazy?

Reader karyn recommended the Avondale from Ballard Designs -- just a simple damask print. Interesting idea too. Black or brown? What do you think?

I also kind of like this botanical from Overstock. Copenhagen is the design, but green is the wrong color.

Could I use the word "really" one more time in that last post? Sheesh.

I think Nick Olsen is trying to tell me something. He's reviewing rugs. I don't really like any of his picks for my place, but it's really rugs next. The spice wool one from Cost Plus World Market is okay, but it really reminds me of this small one I saw at IKEA a few weeks ago that I can't find on their website. It was these really beautiful wheatfield in the setting sun color (I'm so all about honey lately), but far too small for my place. I need an 8 x 10 or a 9 x 12.

I have a few beautiful rugs -- will pull out the ones you haven't seen this weekend -- that I bought in Turkey, but the cats scratch them up so I think I need to spend a few hundred dollars on something less precious. Not sure where to start, but I do think I'll go with the patterns in rugs and stick with simple monotone bamboo shades.

I kind of love this New Zealand wool one from Overstock. Maybe in the bedroom?

Does anyone know if cats are drawn to wool over other types of rugs?

There's been some confusion about the domino decorating contest.

Here's the deal -- one person will win a gift card for $10,000 -- to spend like cash wherever they'd like on home decor. The winner's house will definitely be on the website and somewhere in the magazine as well. The judges are editors at the magazine and they'll be looking at every entry. They'll pick five finalists and we'll post finalists October 15. At which point, you, my kittens, get to vote for the grand prize winner.

You have to be a legal resident of the US and you have to be an amateur decorator -- in other words, no professional decorators or people who had someone else decorate their home.

Incidentally, you can skip sending a photo and still be eligible to win a $3,000 spa trip.

I'd enter if I could...

Enter here!

Read the rules here.

Check out some other entries here.

Look who finally scraped her wooden dowels. Judging by the satisfaction I got out of the pile of thick black paint accumulated on the floor when I was finished, I'd say I was a demolition woman in the a former life. Remember that Police song, "Demolition Man"? I'm itching to destroy things.

See the sexy new lamp my friend David brought me to babysit for a while. She used to live in Paris, so I think Oscar Wilde would have approved of me asking her to stand next to the bed and look pretty. Glinda the Good Witch (who can be seen here floating above the bed) also approves. Do you?

I didn't spend the weekend drunk, dangling bottles of whiskey out the window so my friends wouldn't find them like they do in the film "The Lost Weekend," but I did waste three full days of time during which I could have worked on my apartment. I think that's what they call holiday but I can't really afford one, given the fact that I'm having a party this weekend and there will be many people at my house commmenting on my decor. Eeek. Be distracted by the pretty picture of Fire Island or please note the things I tried to do:

scrape the paint off the wooden dowels in the bathroom and repaint them (see how far I got...)

hang these honey-colored shades in the bedroom (I swear the color's going to be perfect, but my window frame is metal and I'm not sure how to mount the hardware.)

find round cushions (17 inch diameter) for the garden chairs -- (only found square ones)
find lampshades for the little glass lamps
find rugs

More photos to come.