As I sit here, with my fingers crossed that we are able to close on our new home within a day or two of our scheduled closing, I’m also thinking about outfitting our new home with furniture and window treatments. If you’re an online shopper, like I am, Rout.com is your shopping nirvana.
In the five years my husband and I have been married, we’ve not purchased a lot of furniture together. We both came to the marriage with our own homes full of furniture and favorite pieces, carefully selected throughout our 20s and 30s, which we’ve attempted to pare down over our years together. We’ve also rented homes because we’ve moved frequently for my husband’s job, and we weren’t ready to commit to custom furniture, selected specifically for a home that we would just be, well, renting.
After we started the home buying process, just six weeks ago, I got busy planning each room in the house (my office being my favorite project). I can’t tell you how much fun it’s been, creating vision boards for each room, able to decorate any way I want! Since it’s not especially practical to buy all of the furniture at once, unless you have a ton of disposable income, it helps to have idea boards with select pieces for each room. What helps even more is to have our ideas saved in our Rout.com account, so that we’re notified when an item has a price drop — who doesn’t love buying at the best price possible?
I’m thrilled when I feel as though I’ve been able to negotiate a deal on something (our car and home being the last two “big” negotiations of mine), and Rout.com helps me feel that I’m getting the best price on items I want. Take a look at my master bedroom board:
With Rout.com, you’re not just limited to housewares (that’s just my current focus). With over 150 participating stores, and over 85 million products, Rout.com allows you to search for virtually any item you’re looking for — and it’s perfect for planning your holiday shopping!
Price Tracking
Once you’ve created your free Rout.com account, it’s time to start “window shopping”! I decided to create boards based on each room I’m planning to outfit: Master Bedroom, D’s Room, Office, Living Room. When I’m ready to start serious shopping, I select those items I’m positive I want to purchase and select the “Start Tracking” link for each item:
I’m pretty positive that this is the upholstered headboard I’m going to purchase for our bedroom, so I enter the price at which I’ll jump on the item — $295 sounds good to me — and input that number to begin tracking. I’m not sure I’ll get the headboard at that price, as it’s currently at it’s lowest price historically (down from $329), but we’ll see (I have time to wait).
Price History
If you’re a numbers or statistics person, you’ll love Rout.com’s price history feature. You’re able to input a date range to take a look at your item’s pricing history, and can possibly spot trends in price drops. Here’s an example chart for an area rug I have my eye on:
So, while I await word from my agent about closing, I’ll happily distract myself by adding items to my Rout.com boards (hoping that we’ll be able to outfit our home soon). Well, what are you waiting for? Get shopping!
You can learn more by visiting Rout.com and opening a free account for yourself. Be sure to visit Rout.com on social media via Facebook and Twitter.