Victory is mine!

Well, well, well.

What do we have here?

Remember that table I thought was long gone? Well it's mine now! Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!! When the owner told me he was taking it off Craigslist all I could think is, it will be mine....oh yes.....it will be mine.

A day after hearing the bad news from the previous owner, I though what the hey, I'll send him another email asking if he's still willing to sell it if the price was right, and what he thought a fair price would be. Turns out he was still willing to sell it and had got a pretty low offer for the set from a local dealer. If you're a fan of Auction Hunters or Pawn Stars like I am (I know, super nerd) then you'll know that dealers want to buy items for less than half of what they're really worth so they can make a large profit. The clever owner told me he'd rather cut out the middle man and deal directly with the buyer. He also said he was going to turn right back around and put it on back Craigslist and eBay, but would hold off if I was interested. Oooooh rrrrreallly? 

SOLD! 

Sadly, it was not $300 anymore....but it was also nowhere near what the same set was going for at a local shop or online. So not a coup, but a good deal nonetheless.

And I love it!! 

What a cute little chair.

I hadn't noticed the little diamonds before either.

Me and this table were just meant to be.

I was also able to finally put up an Ikea light fixture that I bought a few weeks ago. Not bad for $20.

It stunk though that the pendant light fixture kit Ikea gives you doesn't come with a cover or "canopy" to cover the hole in the ceiling. So after a trip to Home Depot I was able to install the new light.

Before.

During.

Remember, in old houses, red wire = black wire.

And another after shot.

Yay! Moving on!

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!! I haven't been posting because I have been maximum relaximum. Total laziness! Kudos to you bloggers that kept posting over the past week. 

Did Santa bring you anything good? Our gifts to each other were both snowboarding themed (not planned - just happened that way!)

Ed's gift to me? A new Rome SDS Blue snowboard. WOW!!!!

My gift for Ed was a custom vintage subway poster of every resort he's been to. He was stoked.

(bad picture - still has the plastic on)

I ordered it from Native Vermont Studio on Etsy. I definitely recommend this shop, they were great to work with.

Hope to be posting some more projects soon - there is much work to be done in 2012! 

Happy New Year everyone!!

Cash in my attic?

The last couple of days I've been on a bit of a mid-century modern bender. Searching endlessly for another deal on a dining set (or anything really) that was a good enough substitute for the table I lost. This searching led me to ebay where I saw this picture.

                                     "Vintage Rid-Jid Space Age Pod Table and Chairs" $595.

Wait a minute......I've seen a chair just like that.....

Up there....

In our attic.

Helllllooooo.....

This cute little space pod chair has friends!

Three of them! AND a table!!

SCORE.

They're in pretty bad shape so I'm sure there's no way I could get $595 for them, but I don't plan on selling them anyway. We don't have any patio furniture and I can't wait to bust these out next spring. 

This got me thinking...what else did the previous owners leave up here???

Turns out not much. 

Buuuut I'm gonna talk about it anyway.

Some old gift boxes that turned out to be empty.

One was an Abercrombie & Fitch box that said "New York, Chicago, San Francisco." How old is that???

According to this source, Abercrombie & Fitch used to be an actual sporting goods store similar to today's REI or Hudson Trail Outfitters, and opened their third store in San Francisco, in 1947. It wasn't until 1988 that A&F was purchased by The Limited Corporation and started focusing entirely on apparel. And placing topless male models in their storefronts during the holiday season. 

Over on the other side of the attic, I saw some old Samsonite suitcases.

It's all dark and dirty and creepy in the attic. I had to muster some serious courage to open those suitcases. And I didn't even think about checking out that scary black thisiswherewe'llputthebodies barrel. WHAT is that barrel....I don't want to know.

But I was pleasantly surprised!

(White stuff was just packing material to keep the ribbons in place.)

Such a cute interior! 

And stored with such care. It's such a shame the exterior is beyond repair.

Little hangers!

So that you can hang your garments once you arrive.

via

Complete with TWA sticker.

Makes me want to watch a Pan-Am and Mad Men marathon.

Craigslist sadness

****update: The owner responded! He had this to say, "Thanks for the response, but I discovered the table is worth significantly more than what I listed it for [$300 for the table and 6 chairs], so I have removed it from CraigsList." So annoying when they realize what they have!! haha****

Well the owner of the table I've been checking on every five minutes for the last 48 hours has still not responded. So I think it's time to call it quits. Was it sold to someone else? Was it that I said I wanted to see it first instead of just saying I would buy it? I'll never know. 

Here is the mid-century dining set that would have been right at home in our 1956 raised rambler. (Such a sexy name for a style of house. Raaaised raamblerrr.)

The green would have to go. Some off-white/cream fabric would have brightened the chairs right up. Can you tell I'm having trouble letting go?

After deciding around noon yesterday that the dining set owner wasn't going to get back to me, I started searching around on Craigslist some more. I think I like junk Craigslist a little too much. I can search around on there for hours....literally. It's a giant online garage sale that I get to pick through at my leisure. My favorite items are ones that make me think Who owns that? and Where would you even buy that in the first place???

Things like this:

Yes.

That's a cow's foot lamp.

My favorite part of this listing? The seller's first sentence: "Please put 'cow' in heading of response or I won't respond." 

Yes ma'am!

Here's another winner.

Only $400! What a bargain...

But mixed in with the crazy things there are beautiful things! Unfortunately anyone selling trendy furniture in our area knows they have something valuable and jack up the price. If I had endless space and funds I would snatch these things up asap!

$150 Campaign style desk. Painted peacock blue or emerald green. YES.

Faux bamboo nightstands. $250 each.

Sunburst mirror. $199

Knock-off Dorothy Draper Espana chest. Also $199.

Glass nesting tables. $250.

Then there are the items that you see and I think Yikes! CRAZY! But then look again and start thinking....crazy awesome?!?!??? I'm going to mix some crazy with some great and let you decide. 

Crazy? 

Purple velvet armchair with invisible casters. $600.

"Contemporary Scandinavian-type chair." $10.

Rolling bar cart with glass shelves. $30 (Ok this one's not that crazy...)

Egyptian crystal chandelier. $200.

Or great?

What do you think?

Lesson learned

The other day my sister and I took a trip to Ikea. Ikea is hit or miss for me. Sometimes I go in there don't see anything exciting.... and sometimes everything is flying into my cart at record speed. This recent trip happened to be one where everything looked amazing. Especially the carpets. As I threw two rugs into my cart intended for the dining room and living room, my (smart) sister asked twice, "Are you sure they're the right size?" "Yeah yeah sure sure they look about right, they'll be fine," I said.

Not the case. 

This rug looked so pretty in the dining room but unless we wanted to use an end table as our dining table, it just wasn't big enough.

Close up.

It might look like it fits the room in the picture but it was really too small. 

I also bought a carpet for the living room that was not big enough but also not small enough (if that makes any sense...) It made the room look a lot smaller. I didn't even take a picture before rolling it right back up again. 

So. What have we learned? 

MEASURE YOUR SPACE! 

Measuremeasuremeasure. 

I've also been shopping for dining room tables but don't even know what would fit! So last night I got some masking tape out and made a rug/table floor plan.

I have been stalking a table on Craigslist (the owner hasn't responded to my email yet - grrr!) that is round without the leaf and an oval with the leaf. So first, I taped off the 44.5" circle in the center of the room.

Then I extended the length to account for the leaf.

Looks like this table could be a perfect fit! If only the current owner would respond!! Aaargh!

To get an idea of what size rug I should be looking for, I taped an outline (just eye-balling it). The rug I bought from Ikea was 5' x 7' and the tape outline turned out to be 7' x 9' - quite a bit bigger.

I'm sure there is a much easier way to do this but taping the outline really helped me see the layout and dimensions. If you are in the rug market and aren't sure what size to go for (and don't feel like getting out the masking tape!), here are some good rules of thumb I found for choosing the right size. 

1) Ideal dining room carpets are large enough so that all chairs are still entirely on the carpet when pulled out. The best way to estimate this is by adding 4' to the length and width of your dining table. In my case, this means I should bump the tape outline out about 6" on all sides.

2) If a large carpet is not possible, try to have at least all of the front legs of dining chairs remain on the carpet when pulled out. 

3) In any room, a rug should never be so large that it reaches the baseboards. Try to have an even border of floor around the edges. The size of the recommended border differed quite a bit depending on the source. One designer said at least 18" away from the walls when another designer (one of my favorites!) said she usually does 7" - 12" max. Guess it's just personal preference.

4) If your living room furniture is anchored to a wall, place the rug under the front legs of each piece of furniture. If your furniture is floating, the ideal rug will be large enough to be completely under all pieces of furniture.

Wish I had looked into this before shopping! Back to Ikea I go!

Sources: The Perfect Rug Size Guide; HGTV Rug Size and Placement; High-Heeled Foot in the Door; Haskell Interiors

Bedspread options

I did a little shopping the other day and came home with two different bedspread options. Both are pretty colorful patterns which I thought was needed in our otherwise bland master bedroom. So far it's all gray and white in there.

Here is option #1 purchased at Home Goods for $79 (bed in a bag):

Option #1 happens to be reversible...

Option #2 purchased at World Market for $10 less.

I've decided to go with.....................

Option #1!

What do you think? Did I make the right choice? 

Also you can see I have not solved the curtains dilemma....but I do know that I'm going to drop the curtain rod. The illusion of making the window look larger and ceiling look taller by hanging the curtains higher doesn't work when the curtain panels are not on both sides. At least is doesn't seem to in our bedroom. So the large color block idea is out but I think a coordinating (not matching!) border would still be nice. Also, I have decided that hanging the curtains by the tabs is better than scrunched which is the opposite of what I thought when I first hung them up! Next week I'll probably be back to scrunched haha.

P.S. Check out the new "Our Wedding" tab!