Oops, I did it again!

Bless her heart. Poor Britney. It seems like she's back on a good track, though, as we haven't seen her private parts, caught her shaving her head in public, passed out on a park bench or screaming at her boyfriend while carrying a baby in one arm an an ice-blended mocha frappacino in the other. Thank goodness I don't have her problems (but if I did, I have some high-powered attorneys in my family who would help me out in a second!). Sometimes, however, one persons mistake can be your shining moment. Take, for example, a little project I have this week staging a home for the real estate market. I finished the job last week and went overboard (just a tad) dressing all of the eleven thousand square feet of home with yard sale finds, inexpensive lampshades from Home Goods, rugs from Ikea, dishes from eBay, and towels and sheets from Target. While the homeowner gave no budget for dressing this huge, open, empty home, he was shocked when I did the entire place for under $1,000. Once photos are taken I will upload here so you can see how far a dollar can stretch in 11,000 square feet! Because I'm a perfectionist, the scratches on the walls in the entry left by a previous renter made me totally crazy. The homeowner, ready to get this place on the market, didn't want to wait a few weeks for a painter to show up. So, I headed to the Home Depot to the "Oops" aisle. Ever been? Well, I've talked about it before. If someone custom makes a color and decides midway through their shopping expedition to discard it somewhere, Home Depot gathers those paints and offers them for resale at drastically reduced prices. Two summers ago I discovered a beautiful color for outdoor trim from a can of discarded paint. Retail for the Ralph Lauren custom mixed paint was $37 and I paid $5. Today I picked up two gallons of paint; one in white for the entry and one in black semi-gloss to paint a table I found abandoned behind the house. If I had purchased them for full retail at a total of $67.00 I most likely would have pulled a Britney, instead I took advantage of someone else's mistake and walked out the door for $9.50.
TIME TO COMPLETE TASK: Painting entry and table top: Two hours. Saving money at Home Depot: Ten minutes
COST: Two gallons of paint from the OOPS section of Home Depot: $9.50
STRESS LEVEL: Finding a great deal without having to steal: LOW