Tag: craigslist

Furniture

Console Table Magic

Jessica Smith

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve posted on the blog and I’m happy to share that my tomato tally has crossed the 100 tomato threshold! Yes, this weekend we hit a Tomato Tally of 102. I probably have a dozen more needing to get picked, too. Craziness.

Anyway, this isn’t actually a post about tomatoes. Shocker, I know.

Ever since we rearranged our living room to accommodate my slipper chairs, I’ve wanted to get a console table for our living room.

Slipper chairs

The room is starting to really come together. New chairs, new pillows… and now, new table!

Console before

I found this console table on Craigslist for $25 and an office building 4 minutes from my house. I emailed and was super pleased to hear that I was the first person to reach out and the table was mine if I was interested.

I left work in a hurry to make it to the office complex before they closed at 5, bargained them down to $20 and left with a new table!

The table was wobbly and a bit dated with the gray glass, so I took the glass out and tightened all of the bolts with a ratchet set. Then, I whisked myself off to Home Depot to buy some wood to replace the glass.

IMG_0434

I roped in this kind gentleman to help me cut the wood down to size since we don’t have a table saw (and 51″ is too long to cut even remotely straight with a circular saw). Twenty minutes later, I walked out with two new shelves and some scraps.

IMG_0435

I set up shop on our patio, sanding and staining the wood. I mixed a walnut brown with a light gray stain to lighten the brown color a lot. I ended up with a light brown with hints of gray in the knots of the wood. Two coats of stain, two coats of poly, one light sanding and voila!

Console After

Love love loveeee. It fits perfectly against the wall opposite our bay window where the couch used to sit.

Console In the room

It even matches the style of our coffee table (You can see the style better below when we used them as end tables).

End Table

I waited a day to let everything dry and cure completely before staging it.

Console2

I’m still working on that, but this is stuff I had all around the room just waiting for a home on a nice console table like this one.

Console3I just love having a spot to put out pictures and flowers 🙂

All in all, this project cost a little less than $70 — not too bad for a new console table, especially when it’s twin at Ballard goes for $350!

Next up, a mirror for right above the table, which is centered with our bay window. The mirror will bounce the natural light around the room and really anchor the table with the wall. Now I just gotta find one I like!

Hope you all had a great weekend! Between the console table (I did this whole project in one night after work last week), a BBQ and a river walk, my weekend was a blast.

RemRiv

Rem had a pretty good weekend, too.

Happy Monday!

Furniture, Life

Gotta love Craigslist

Jessica Smith

I’ve been a total Craigslist stalker these past few weeks, trying to find a few inexpensive pieces of furniture for our house. I’m looking for a large desk for my craft room, desks for the office, a coffee table for the family room and bar stools for our new bar. I’ve found a bunch of great stuff, but man do people over price what they are selling on Craigslist. It’s been tough to find reasonably priced items that I like, and then be the first person to e-mail the seller. But that’s also half the fun.

I was on the prowl this weekend seeing what people in our area were selling and I found someone trying to get rid of a pair of bar stools for $15. Yes, $15! The set I wanted to buy online are temporarily out of stock, not to mention priced at $120 per stool. I’ve also seen a few other stools I could settle on, but they still have a hefty price tag of at least $60 per stool. Who knew bar stools were so expensive!?

I e-mailed the guy selling the stools and he told me they were first come, first serve, but that I was the first person he was e-mailing back out of those who seemed interested. I e-mailed him back saying I definitely wanted the stools and that I could come anytime. And with that, the hubby and I piled into the car and drove 10 minutes to fetch our loot.

We got to guy’s house and I was happy that the stools looked even nicer than they did in the dimly lit photos he had posted online. They are completely different from what I originally wanted to buy, but the price was too perfect to pass up. The backs of the Craigslist stools were loose and there are a few scuff marks at the bottom, but overall they are in great condition. So, we paid the man and loaded our new stools into my car (We may or may not have had to pay part of the $15 in quarters). They didn’t fit so well, so we had to drive with the window rolled down in the back so the top of the chair could stick out. Yes, it was raining. Hard.

When we got them into the house and next to the bar, I was even happier. They look really great.

I was also able to remove the seat cushion and tighten up the backs of the stools, so they don’t even wobble anymore!

I like that the stools have a foot rail to rest your feet on. That was one thing I wished our bar had, but now there is no need for it. They are also the perfect height for our bar!

I’ll probably recover the seat cushions. All of the other fabrics in the room are brown, so these could definitely be a little more fun. Either way, you gotta love a good Craigslist find.