Here are the top 5 picks, in no special order, you are likely to find interior designers shopping for their clients or their shops:

1. Online - Interior Designers have found the internet a place where they can shop for and find products on Ebay and Amazon they would be unable to find anywhere else and at affordable prices.

2. Estate Sales - Probably the best estate sales are the ones actually held on the grounds of an estate. Although they can be held at auction houses, hotel ballrooms, and other places. Designers know there are some really great finds for one-of-a kind objects at spectacular price reductions, depending on the circumstances of the people selling. Look for them among the early birds, sometimes with specific things in mind and sometimes adding to their inventory.

3. Home Renovation Stores - This doesn’t seem an unusual place to find an interior designer--but in the plumbing department? The hardware section? And even the electrical department? Aren’t those areas left to the contractors? Designers have to be creative about executing every aspect of their project, and repurposing materials more related to construction than design to create a unique lamp, table, accessory or other object that requires some imagination and thinking outside the box.

4. Salvage Yards - Climbing among rusty metal parts, old, broken, painting-peeling doors, windows, fences, and other debris seems more like a scavenger’s style than that of an interior designer. But you will find designers snapping up those pieces and parts and finding new ways to combine and transform these piles of junk into country furniture, abstract art, and other useful items.

5. Hotel Liquidators - Designers love finding items in large numbers from some of the top hotels that discard fifty and a hundred dining chairs when they refurbish a restaurant; or an equal number of headboards, desks, lamps--you name it. And the price is right. Recovering stained upholstery on eight, ten, twelve or more dining chairs can make a very unique, custom-made dining room in a residence.

Do-it-yourself homeowners, take a page out of the professionals’ book and grab some of these bargains for your next project.

Connie LeGendre empowers homeowners designing their interiors through e-courses and newsletters. Do-it-yourself homeowners are encouraged to ask questions about their projects when signed up for a Free, downloadable e-course, "7 New Secrets to Unleasing the Designer in You," at http://www.interiordesignclinic.com.

A trained architect and interior designer, fifteen years teaching and running her design business with high-end clients demanding cost-effective and unique solutions, Ms. LeGendre brings that considerable background to her online tips, information, solutions, and Q&A website. The mission is to help translate financially out-of-reach design into affordable creations for anyone who wants to do it themselves.