Homegoods

It’s awesome to decorate with artifacts from your travels, but realistically you need to fill a whole house or apartment so you’ll need a local and affordable source for home goods.  Enter Homegoods, a discount store similar to Lohman’s, but for the home (the name says it all!)  If you’re living in San Francisco, there is one across the Bay in Emeryville or one on the Peninsula in San Carlos.  They have an assortment of lamps, dressers, towels, framed art, kitchen supplies, and anything you need as you move in.  I bought my copper trashcans, cork lamp, striped dress-form, cheetah towels, and silver bedside tables there, but it’s also a great place to find usable household items, like soap dispensers, that don’t need to stand out.  I’ll caution you, stay away from the generic framed “art” with pictures of the Eiffel Tower or phrases like “Live. Laugh. Love.”  That stuff was excusable when you were in high school, but it’s mass produced and visually offensive, says the girl with naked artwork and animal skins adorning her home.