Annie Meyers-Shyer’s Favorite Under -$100 Home Items
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When I started documenting ourrenovation, I never imagined any of this would happen. A few things I knew for sure: It was going to be a tremendous amount of work, I wanted to preserve what made the house special, and I felt a new creative spark in myself that I hadn’t felt in a long time. The renovation ended up taking almost four years, from my first email to our architect to move-in day. Along the way, I shared what we were doing, what I was learning, what I was buying, and, most important, where everything came from. I’ve always been a big believer in no gatekeeping. If I found a great light fixture, knob, paint color, or $20 thing on Amazon, I wanted to tell people about it.
The house is finally finished, and now there’s a book,This Oak House, which tells the much bigger story of making this house ourhome. But one of my favorite aspects of the whole process has been discovering that the things that make a house feel good aren’t necessarily the expensive ones. I firmly believe that beautiful items should be part of everyday living. Sometimes it’s the tiny details you use every single day: the rightlightbulb,a really good hanger, a pretty tissue-box cover, or themattress padI’ve now told basically everyone I know to buy.
So, in the spirit of sharing my sources, these are some of the under-$100 things I bought forThis Oak House, use constantly, and would absolutely buy again.
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Linen Tissue Cover
Tissue-box covers have been a staple in my life for a really long time. They come in all sorts of colors, they’re simple, and they make something you have to have sitting out look so much better.
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LuckyPencil Custom Engraved Pencils
We have personalized pencils in my kids’ rooms, and I also haveThis Oak Housepencils in a cup on our kitchen island. It’s such a small thing, but I love making everyday objects feel a little more personal.
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Airnex Natural Kitchen Sponge
These are the least offensive sponges ever. A sponge is never going to be beautiful, but if it has to sit next to my sink, this is the one I want to look at.
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We use these in my kids’ bathrooms for their toothbrushes, with their initials on them. I love the calligraphy. They’re just so cute and make a bathroom counter feel a little more considered.
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This is the mattress pad heard around the world. I tell everyone about it. It will literally turn any bed into a Four Seasons bed.
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This is our mailbox. Clean, chic, simple. I looked at so many mailboxes when we were renovating, and ultimately I just wanted something that almost disappeared.
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Amber Glass Soap Bottle - 16 Oz.
I don’t really believe in decanting everything. I’m not moving my olive oil into a prettier bottle just for the sake of it. But I also don’t particularly want to look at a bottle of Dawn next to my kitchen sink. These are a really easy solution and the labels last forever.
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Flower Frogs
I really love flowers and always have them around the house. Flower frogs make arranging them so much easier, especially when you want something to feel loose and natural rather than overly arranged.
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We used these in our guesthouse bathroom, and they’re beautiful. Hardware is one of those small details that can make something inexpensive feel much more special.
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Velvet Clothes Hangers
I love a velvet hanger, but I could never understand why the white ones were always that weird off-white that somehow ends up looking cream. These are actually white. It sounds like a tiny distinction until you open a closet full of them.
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We have a lot of polished nickel in our house, so I’ve tried a lot of metal cleaners. This is the best one I’ve found. It gets everything looking shiny again without making it a whole project.
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These scissors are small but mighty. They will literally cut anything: tin, wire, whatever you put in front of them. I keep finding new uses for them.
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These are my favorite lightbulbs, and I have them in every single lamp in my house. Lighting can completely change how a room feels, and the wrong bulb can ruin even the prettiest lamp.
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I use these little baskets all over the house and love them in every size. They’re really beautiful but also genuinely useful, which is my favorite combination.
[Editor’s note: This basket is currently unavailable, but you can sign up for restock notifications on theproduct page.]
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I love Fortuny fabric, and these boxes are such a great way to bring a little bit of it into a room without committing to yards and yards of fabric. They’re beautiful enough to leave out, but you can actually use them to hide all the little things you don’t want sitting around.
When I was designing my collection for Target, I kept coming back to something I really believe: Great design doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Every piece in the collection is under $35, but I wanted each one to feel special, considered, and be something I would genuinely use in my own home. Many of the pieces actually came from things I had searched for myself and struggled to find at an accessible price. The lumbar pillows are the exact 12-by-21-inch size we use throughout our house and previously had to have custom-made. The glass hurricanes were a must from our very first design meeting because I love using hurricanes to decorate, and the incredibly soft, creamy throw honestly feels like it should cost ten times as much. They’re beautiful, useful pieces that can instantly make a room feel more layered and finished without requiring a major investment.
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The Strategistis designed to surface useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Every product is independently selected by our team of editors, whom you can read abouthere. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.
