You guys! I can’t believe I haven’t told you about this yet! A couple months ago I stopped by the outlet mall near our house to pick up something. I’d driven past the outlets before and noticed that there was a West Elm outlet there. I never got all that excited about it because it seems like most outlets just have worse versions of the stuff they carry in their regular store and I’ve found that to be especially true of home stores. But, since I’d stopped anyway I decided to hop in and check it out.
Well, I wandered around trying to take it all in and was pretty pleasantly surprised. They have a ton of stuff there and it’s almost all stuff that they actually sell in their regular stores. I didn’t have a lot of time, but felt like it was probably worth a trip back when we were more settled and knew more about what we needed. Well, skip ahead about two months and we finally took a trip back. We went knowing we needed one thing: lamps for our bedside tables. I was so over turning on the insanely bright overhead light and it made me so cranky every night (well, it feels like it’s super bright when you’ve already fallen asleep on the couch and it’s all you can do to get yourself upstairs and in the bed, maybe in reality not so much). Not to mention it’s an all or nothing situation. Once you’re ready to get in bed you have to go ahead and turn the light off because there’s nothing worse than getting all cozy and dozing off a little and then remembering you have to get up and walk across the room to turn the light off. It’s a first world problem I know!
So let me just tell you – the store has SO MUCH STUFF and the prices are insane. We learned that some of the stuff is damaged, but some of it is returned and just doesn’t go back into regular circulation. One of the bedside sconces that we got had a note on the packing slip that said, “I didn’t order this.” So someone got the wrong order, didn’t even take it out of the box and it was still sent to the outlet because it was a return. You have to be ready to dig a lot. The store is really messy and there are lots of things that are still packaged up. But, it’s SO WORTH it. We ended up with these sconces for next to our bed, this floor lamp (probably for the living room), and the blanket and shams you see in the photos (couldn’t find them online). We were only specifically looking for the bedside table lighting because it was the most urgent, but we also had a mental list of other things we needed in case we found them there and that’s how we wound up with the bedding and the floor lamp. The best part is everything was such a steal! The sconces were $80 each. $80!!! That’s almost $100 off. It still blows my mind when I think about it. I love everything we got so much. The blanket was perfect because we had been looking for something much lighter than what we had now that we’re back to summertime in the south. We both really liked this one and it was the cheapest one we found anywhere ($40!). I think the sconces are so cute and a little different. Plus, they don’t take up precious space on our bedside tables, but are still big and help match the size of the room a little. Same thing for the floor lamp, it’s so big it’s really awesome. From living in small city apartments, most everything we have is like very petite versions of regular furniture. It’s nice to start adding some larger pieces to help anchor the spaces.
West Elm Living Room
What I also learned is that there are only 4 of these outlets in the whole country, so if you live near one count yourself lucky and then get over there right now! Just be sure you give yourself tons of time to scour the place, check any items you want to purchase carefully for damage or imperfections and be sure you really want it and that it fits where you’re planning on putting it because everything is final sale. I recommend going in with a general idea of what you want but also being open to the possibility of finding something else that’s great. There are lots of rare deals there that you’ll only get that one time, so even though it wasn’t what you were looking for it might still be worth it. And use the flea market mentality that if you don’t get it now it will probably be gone. So decide quickly what’s going with you.
Happy shopping!
