I heart Craigslist!

FYI, I'm posting like crazy because I want to keep track of my condo progress, and I'm going away next week. I promise I won't always be like this. I will get bored and probably stop blogging altogether in 5 minutes.

Usually I don't have the patience to find the really sweet deals on Craigslist. But I lucked out last week. You already saw my lovely dressers and nightstand in my last post, and the huge chair. I cruised CL for the past 4 months looking for a bedroom set without a bed, but they were always too expensive or old (ugly granny old, not cool vintage old). Plus I had to worry about how I would get the darned things up to my 3rd floor condo (remind me to tell you about my sofa/kitchen island woes). But those dressers were such a steal, that I figured I would hire movers to do it for me.

If there's one thing I've learned in my "old age", it's that it's worth it to pay people to do hard/annoying work for you. I am too old to be lugging crap up stairs, and so are my friends. When you're +30 and you hurt your back or pull a muscle, that's it. You will never fully recover. It's time for the glue factory. Plus, the dressers were in a 4th floor walk-up and I have a tiny Civic and no bodybuilding friends. So movers were the only option.

Since the movers had a two hour minimum, I asked the seller what else he might have for the taking. Turns out - a lot! He and his wife are moving to Hawaii and have to get rid of all the beautiful vintage furniture that was down to him by his mom. These are some of the items I ended up with (sorry the pics are from the CL posts, so not that hot. I'll post better ones when they've found their new homes):

Extendable dining table and chairs

Nothing fancy, but a great deal at $100. Nice quality wood, possibly also from Ethan Allen. I'm not totally in love with the chairs. They are very tall ladderbacks and have woven rush seats (I'm learning a lot of new vocab in this design process). I'd like to restain or paint these and upholster them in a classy, modern fabric to make it a little more design forward. This is probably blasphemy for those rush seat purists out there, but you are probably not reading this blog. Also my padded seat likes a padded seat...and they're my chairs!

Vintage record cabinet

The wood on this is stunning, like it's flecked with gold. It also comes with an old skeleton key. I will make zero changes to this beautiful piece. It is now holding all my sheet music. Maybe now that it's nicely organized, I'll actually play some of it.

Dough box

I didn't even know what a dough box was, but Google tells me that in the old days, they "provided a warm hiding place for dough to rise". (That sounds dirty, doesn't it? hee hee). It makes a nice end table and the top lifts up for hideaway storage. I'm not crazy about the stencil design and it's very dark, so maybe a nice painting project? Then it will be a Do box (ha ha).

Dry sink

Again, I  had no idea what a dry sink was but I guess they used to put pitchers or handwashing basins in/on them, which makes me think of Little House on the Prairie or Anne of Green Gables. It has a cool copper basin in the "sink" part. I'm using it in my kitchen as a cookbook shelf and bar. There is a lot of booze hiding in that little thing. Party at the not-so-dry sink!

I also got 2 lamps, a nightstand and a ficus plant. All in all, I spent about $650, including the movers! That's for a bedroom, dining room, lighting, and miscellaneous storage. I had almost given up on CL and was going to just splurge at West Elm or Ikea. But thanks to CL, I saved my back and some bucks, and I got nice quality vintage items. 

And that is why I heart Craigslist!