What I Want vs. What I End Up With

I feel like my life can be split into two very distinct categories: what I want and what I end up with. Now that sounds pretty Polly Pessimistic. But it's not always a bad thing. This happens to me a lot and part of the reason why I end up with something other than what I intended is because I'm impatient. Ridiculously, insatiably impatient.

Decorating my home is no exception to this rule. I need two bookcases for our living room. I'd like them to be approximately 24" wide by 78" tall. I can be flexible with the height, the width not so much.

Now on to what I want. I want to find bookcases like these

{ Noir Bookcase, Ballard Designs Sonoma Bookcase }

{ Unknown Bookcase from Brooke Gianetti's Home Store, Kerry Joyce Bookcase }
Now let's be honest with each other here. My taste and ideas about what I want are pretty specific. Industrial. Chic. Clean lines. An X shape somewhere in the piece. Wood. Metal. Specific, specific, specific. But all these bookcases are either WAY out of my price range or (in the case of the Ballard Designs bookcase) too wide for my space. I may know what I want but I'm (somewhat) realistic about what we can afford.

I read recently on a blog or in House Beautiful or some other design rag, that one should never settle when it comes to decorating their home. That a space is better off empty until you can save up for what it is that you really want. I almost agree with this person. Except I think that they probably never lived in a house with 5 empty rooms for three years.

So even though I know exactly what I want, I'll probably end up with this


an unfinished pine bookcase, that I'll spend $100 on and 4 weekends staining and painting and polying. Why do I do this to myself? I want exhibit A, not pine box B.

I'm impatient. That's why. Oh, and I also don't have $4500 to spend on two bookcases.

p.s. if you know of a beautiful industrial skinny bookcase that's under $500 please tell me about it.