Yard Sale, Craigslist Etiquette and Random Whining

So I've been gearing up for a yard sale for quite some time, and originally planned it for last weekend, but then I got sick and just wasn't prepared so I pushed it back a week.

Then after pushing it back a week Thursday rolls around and I'm still completely not prepared enough to start a yard sale the next morning, so I decide to do Saturday only.

I realized quickly that Friday's do the best in OKC for some strange reason.  I guess that is when all the hardcore yard sale folks come out because even though we had a steady stream of traffic, in comparison to previous years we were really lacking foot traffic.

By the end of the day we didn't do too shabby, a couple hundred bucks in our pocket, but we still had MANY big ticket items left that I was sure would have sold.

I'm also learning that at yard sales, you actually can make more on the tiny dollar here, five dollars there items than the big ticket things.  I decided that I would list some of our larger items online at Craigslist thinking that it would be less headache.

It wasn't.

I was wrong.

REALLY wrong.

Sometimes everything goes smoothly on Craigslist with the transaction.  You post an item for said price, person contacts you in kind an courteous manner.  They show up at said time, hand you cash, pick up the said item and are on their happy little way.

I said SOMETIMES.

There are several things that people do to annoy me on Craigslist, but I'm gonna stick to the top THREE of my Craigslist pet peeves.

Craigslist Idiot #1 "What is the lowest that you are willing to go."

Really? (In my best Amy Poehler voice)  CI?  (craigslist idiot)  Really?  If I wanted to sell my $40 item for $10 I would have posted it for ten dollars, not $40.  I understand negotiation, and wanting to get the best deal possible, and even I expect a little price negotiation and haggling, but lets learn how to do it properly.  Quote me an offer of an actual dollar amount and we can go from there.  Coming right out and asking me though "How low are you willing to go?" Really? Makes me insane.

CI #2 - "Can you please txt me a pic of it?"

Really?  I am one of those Craigslist shoppers that 99.9% of the time I will not even LOOK at your add if it does not contain photos.  Therefore I always do my buyers the courtesy of adding a quick photo or two to my posting.  Asking me to text a photo of the picture to you (while using short text) just makes me irate.  I mean REALLY? My response to this last night was the following "there were photos added to the post.  Here is a link once again to my post showing the photos." and I sent them a link.

CI #3 - "Can you deliver the item?"

Ok, I guess that maybe I may be the CI in this circumstance for not posting "pickup only" but sometimes I just think that is a given.  In the retail world I do not call up Petco and ask them to deliver me a dog crate, I go and pick up the item that I want.  If you don't want to pick it up sometimes stores WILL offer a delivery option but REALLY you have to expect a fee for this, and you definitely can't be trying to talk me down on my price while asking me to drive an HOUR to deliver you a DOG CRATE.  Really?  There is a section on Craigslist informing you where I'm located in the city so please don't act shocked when I tell you my nearest crossroads folks.

Ok, I promise I'll stop my rant now.

So, I got the purple sofas out of my den.

Here is what my den looked like if you recall:

Those overstuffed sofas just were not doing it for us anymore.  They were taking up a TON of space.  They never sold in the yard sale, but I have a couple interested folks on Craigslist, so we will see how it goes.

I've gone back in forth in my wonderful world of crazy indecisiveness over the past week whether to try to recover these two Wingback chairs that I currently have in my possession or just buy new chairs for this room.

Recovering furniture is NOT an easy task, and since the two chairs are not matching I'm afraid that it will look odd.

When we got them side by side they really don't look THAT much different.  One is slightly bigger, but I plan on putting a table between the two of them so they won't be THIS close when complete.  Also maybe I could add a "his" and "hers" pillow in each chair just to be kinda cute. 

Right now I'm like 99.9% sure that I'll recover them. 

I will probably change my mind tomorrow.

I tell you folks, I'm crazy.  I don't know how my husband puts up with me.  That's all I need is another project that I can't finish.

Oh, by the way, I finally got the baskets and fabric for my entryway bench.

forgive me for this craptastic photo of my bench

 We are almost there folks, almost there...

The Bench

The bench is finished! 

The bench is completely painted.

Oh poo, the bench is in the house....

Ok, so FINALLY this weekend I called the bench "done" enough to bring it in the house and start using it. 

I started this project back in January.  

I went out and purchased the lumber.  It sat there.  For WEEKS.

Then, one free weekend my husband gave me a crash course on the table saw and we got a LOT of it done.

It actually seemed to be coming together!

Then I primed it.

Then I went out and got the black paint and I got sick.

Time seemed to stand still on this project.  I couldn't bring myself to clean the house, much less go into the garage and paint this bench.

But, I kept plugging on at it and finally I'm done.

Well kind of.

I still have to sand the plywood backing, paint it, poly it and nail it on.

I have to get the foam and sew the cushion cover on the top.

But really, it's nearly there.

Oh, and I still need baskets.  

 I've gone to about a hundred stores looking for baskets to fit the holes and my budget and it's been no luck.  My husband warned me I should have got baskets first, then modified the plan to fit the baskets.  I laughed at him.  Silly man.  Ross has about a million baskets I told him.

Yeah, Ross has been OUT of baskets the past month.  Like there is some sort of basket shortage there or something.  I found some at Target that will work, but I don't feel like forking over $15 per basket.  UGH!

Have I said before he is a smart man and I should listen to him more?

I guess I'll never learn.

Why I'm NOT making a bunk bed

So, if you've been around our family or this blog for any amount of time,  you know we like to be frugal around here.  We also like to make things ourselves.  We kinda pride ourselves in it, being able to create and take something for little and make it into something kinda awesome.

That is why it pains me a bit to be PURCHASING bunk beds.

I had all intentions to make this bed:

img from Ana White.com courtesy of Ever Heard of Eueless

This is Ana's bunk bed plan, made by Ever Heard of Eueless.  Beautiful.  LOVE LOVE LOVE it.  Problem is when I started pricing out the cost of the materials, plus mattresses, plus paint, plus my time, I was only saving about $50 bucks.  $100 if I was lucky.  Let's be honest people.  I'd pay someone $50-$100 bucks to sand for me.  As much as I love to build, can you imagine all the SANDING on this bed.  (no sanding makes me happy).

There are times in your life when time is more precious than money.  This is one of those moments.

Right now our family is smack dab in the middle of military stuff, boy scout banquets, a lead role in a school musical, workout and weight loss plans, tumbling practice and training for 10K's.

Oh also my youngest has learned to climb in and out of her crib, so a new bed is really needed ASAP.

Taking 2-3 weekend to build a bed, actually just FINDING two to three free weekends to build a bed is just not feasible right now.

So, I bite the bullet, throw in the towel.  I'm buying the bed.  I'm sure someday sometime down the road I may regret this decision.  (trust me I've gone back and forth over this for the past several weeks), but for now its the best decision to be made.

Table Saw 101

So we finally had a free weekend that my husband and I could both be in the garage together.  I needed him to be there when I started building the bench because I needed him to give me a crash course in Table saw 101.

I was pretty freaked starting out, because it's such a dangerous piece of equipment.  I wish we would have got the one that the blade stops if it senses skin on it, but we don't have the luxury of owning that one.  Maybe someday.

Like Norm says "measure twice, cut once".

Started out with all my measurements.

Then it was time for me to put my big girl pants on and make my cuts.  It's tricky holding onto the wood while pushing it through.  The table saw is also pretty quiet.  Our miter saw makes a BIG scary noise, this thing is pretty quiet.  That helps calm the nerves a bit.

You may be tempted to grab the wood next to the blade to move it out of the way. DON'T do that.  This is me jumping back after I make my cut.  Yeah, I was pretty freaked out.  I like my fingers and really want to keep them.

Here is all my wood, cut, sanded and ready for assembly!  I would say I made a good portion of the cuts myself, the rest my wonderful husband did.  SO proud of myself for using the big scary table saw!

First Project of 2012

The wood is purchased!

I finally went out last weekend to Lowes and spent my gift card from Christmas. When you have a hundred projects in your head that you want to do, it's so hard to narrow it down to just one thing you want.

Also because I'm so indecisive, I go back and forth on even the smallest decision.

So much so, I considered RETURNING the wood I bought last week.

Yes, I'm THAT crazy.

I finally settled on making the entryway storage bench/coat shelf from Ana White's plans. I've wanted this for like, um forever. Also because I get SO frustrated trying to get my gloves/hats and scarves out of the bin from under my stairs EVERY time the weather goes arctic.  I NEED a better storage solution, and I can't wait until my hallway and stairs are picture perfect.  I need this now for my own sanity.

Here is what we are going for:

img from anawhite.com

The problem is the wall where our coats currently hang is only a little over three feet and this is a four foot bench, so there will be some modifications!  However, I will progress my steps along the way!  I plan on painting it an espresso color, putting hats, gloves and scarves in the top three bins and the bottom bins will be for shoes and miscellaneous items.

Assembly starts this weekend. 

I can't wait!

 

Santa's Workshop

So I've been reading this blog by this awesome chick Ana White.  She is a GIRL woodworker who lives in Alaska and makes this awesome furniture. I've fallen in love with about a thousand of her woodworking plans but one in particular stood out to me and that was the kitchen play set (click on link for plans to it on her blog).

We decided to undertake this project for our girls, and at the same time made two more for people my husband works with (figured if we were making one we could go ahead and make three and just do an assembly line).

This was a really fun project.  It got a bit crazy doing the mass production, and I'm not certain I would undertake such a project at Christmas time again, but looking back I did enjoy the time in the garage with my husband.

We went to the hardware store and picked out the materials the weekend before thanksgiving.  We came home and cut the pieces for the sink and stove in no time.  It was when we started mass producing them that things began to slow down a bit.  We spent about three weekends working on the project in December.  Thankfully we had a small space heater in the garage and an insulated garage door.  It was really fun woodworking next to my husband.  I learned a LOT (when I wasn't acting like a miss know it all and would shut up and actually listen...something I'm NOT great at).

Anyhow, the people we made it for at my husbands work wanted pink for their kitchen.  We finished those first and here is what they turned out like.

I decided that I didn't want the one for my girls all pink and since their room has daises in it, I wen with daises on the door rather than the swirly flowers.  The colors pink, purple and white match their room perfectly. 

Here it is Christmas morning waiting for them

We used wooden tires from HL for the knobs on the stove, and purchased the handles from Habitat for Humanity.  They have the larger pulls at Ikea but unfortunately OKC does NOT have an Ikea yet....we used dog bowls for the sinks from Petco and we purchased the cheapest laundry faucet we could find at Home Depot for the sink faucet.  They ran $17 each and was probably the priciest part of all the kitchen other than the wood. Others recommended Ebay for faucets, but I just couldn't find any that were not like $15 for shipping.

I sewed the sink skirt for my girls kitchen out of fabric scraps and my MIL sewed the other two (which turned out MUCH nicer than mine and unfortunately I didn't get a photo of those but they were SUPER cute).  I also made pot holders to go with them and found small wooden spoons at the thrift store to give the girls.  They also got TONS of food and kitchen misc items for Christmas to go with the kitchen.  So far they have had a BLAST playing with it, and I'm really proud of how it turned out!

The finished project in their room!

Before and Afters

I've been a busy little bee around my house. First we've still been in the process of the whole outside remodel (which thankfully is COMPLETE now...photos soon...) then we ended up flooding our den when our washing machine leaked. The carpet was bad to begin with and after water sitting on it all night long there was just no salvaging the carpet. At this time we decided to move the TV into the front room and make our den an actual den. We got new carpet, moved the computer out of our bedroom and it's wonderful!

Here are some before and after shots. (The before is when we first moved in and still had the BIG screen, but you get the gist of the layout, our flat screen was still in the same spot)

And here is the AFTER.  I LOVE it! I can't believe how BIG the room feels with that huge overstuffed chair out of the way of the entry.  (I plan to get rid of this furniture when I have some more money, but for now it stays...overstuffed furniture was SOOOO 2003...)

Next I decided it was time to take care of that UGLY file cabinet.  Nobody saw it in our bedroom, but here where it would be more prominent I decided I MUST take care of it.

 Before....

And after some ORB (Oil rubbed bronze) spray paint.

And last, we received some items from Aunt Blanche's home.  Our Aunt Blanche was almost ninety and recently passed away.  I can't tell you what an honor it is though to be able to keep some of her items in our family.  You can read all about Aunt Blanche on my Aunt Kathryn's blog here.

Here is a cute little handy stepstool we received. It will be used well in our kitchen by the little hands that like to help mommy bake cookies.  It was however, in need of some TLC.

Here it is after with some black paint and a coat of poly to make it easily cleanable.

Considering Aunt Blanche picked black as one of colors to paint her fingernails when the twins wanted to paint her nails, I think she would approve of the color choice.  MUCH better.

We got our windows installed in the house this weekend, but since they gave us all new trim on the windows we had to re-paint some of the outside.  I will have photos soon of that completed project and I have TONS of other items in the garage I'm currently working on!  Christmas is coming and we've started Santa's workshop in our garage!  It's going to be fabulous!  Can't wait to share it.

Craigslist

I don't know what it is with me and my luck on Craigslist, but I always have THE WORST experiences.

People jerk me around, never come to pick up when they say they will, they try and get me to give them things for free, and people are just downright rude to me. It's to the point where it is just not worth the hassle to make a little bit of money.

I recently tried to sell my broken TV on Craigslist. I didn't ask much but thought someone handy could fix it. That didn't work so I just offered it for free to get it out of my garage. Once you offer something for free, the offers start FLOODING in.

There was another TV I was selling and some guy wrote me saying he wanted it. I told him ok, come and get it. FOUR days pass by and I receive an email that goes something like this:

Thank you for your quick response. Please consider the item sold to me. I will be paying you via check. I will send my delivery man to come and pick up the item. Please send directions.

Obviously this was some kind of scam. If it wasn't he was just the biggest prick I've ever seen in my life.

Also, if I find something I want, I email someone about it. They NEVER email me back, or they write me back saying it's sold. If it is sold DELETE YOUR POSTING ALL READY. Geesh.

So this lady comes by last night to look at this vanity I'm selling. Her and I have been talking over the weekend, but with our wedding, and some of her family issues we were never able to get together. She decided to come by yesterday, no problem right? She was supposed to be here at 7pm. She shows up at 9:00 at night! 9:00! Her and her daughter stand in my living room looking at it for 15 minutes. She tries to talk the 7 year old precocious girl into it, but the 7 year old is finding ALL kinds of problems with it (it's not big enough, she has to bend over too much to write on it She can't open the drawer right). I mean, are you friggin serious? You are letting your 7 year old make this decision? I don't even let my ten year old make these decisions on furniture.

They leave, said they will let me know today if they want it. I think she is going to try and talk her daughter into buying it. At this point I don't care if they take it or not. It's not worth it. I'm only selling the thing for $30. My time is MUCH more valuable than that.

I think I'll just call Goodwill and have them pick up my stuff from now on. It totally isn't worth the hassle.

My Furniture Shopping Nightmare

So, hubby and I got a check in the mail the other day to our surprise, and hubby looks at me and says a phrase ALL women love to hear "do you want to go buy some furniture with this money?". I  was more than ecstatic, I was overjoyed that I get to spend my day browsing for NEW furniture.  

So, I bounced out of bed on Saturday morning (nothing short of a miracle for me), singing the "Mathis Brothers" jingle while I showered and got ready.    I left the house giddy, ready for a day of picking out new furniture.

Now, first of all I've never been to Mathis Brothers before.  So walking in there was like a kid walking into Disneyland for the first time.  They have a cafe, coffee shop, and two huge levels of wall to wall furniture.  Someone walk in there on any given Saturday and try and convince me there is a recession going on in this country...it was a madhouse.

My bubble was busted pretty quick.  We spend about an hour in Mathis Brothers (with a salesguy hot on our tails), and found some stuff that would work, but wanted to look around at other stores, we came to realize quickly that there is no other store than Mathis Brothers.  We went to other smaller stores, finding out they had not only the same furniture there, but they have been BOUGHT OUT by Mathis Brothers, so you are still under their umbrella.  Store after store it was the same thing.  You see, they have become the Wal-Mart of furniture shopping.  They are huge, have the LOWEST prices for the best quality, and their customer service is TERRIBLE.  You have no choice but to shop there though.  

So, we went back to Mathis Brothers to get our furniture.  Being the nice people we are we asked for our same sales guy (since we obviously know after him following us around drooling on us like a puppy dog that they work on commission).  They sent the wrong guy up at first.  Then ten minutes later the right guy comes along.  He is finishing an order for another customer, he told us to go on up to the dining room tables and pick out some chairs and he would meet us there shortly. (Side note:  I didn't like the chairs that they had paired with my table, so I wanted different ones).  So I go upstairs and play musical chairs for 20 minutes until I find the perfect match that is NOT leather on the cushion.  Our sales guy is STILL not there.  The kids are restless, Evie is running all over the store.  We wait....and wait...and wait.  45 minutes later he shows up.  He looks at the chairs I picked out and said "you can't have those, they are part of a set and I can't break them up."  I saw red.  If my sales guy would have been there to move chairs and help me with my purchase, I would have not picked those chairs, now I had my heart set on them and nothing else would work.  I walked away.  I would not buy it from Mathis Brothers (they had the same table at another store).  I still wanted it though.  I wanted those chairs.  They were perfect.  I found a manager.  He wouldn't help.  He didn't care.  I wanted to revert to my childhood and start screaming and rolling on the floor "But I WAAAANNNT it".  

We left Mathis Brothers.  We were SO done with them.  We tried a few more stores, still nothing we liked as much.  We went home, sad, defeated.

The next morning, we woke up and decided to go back to Rooms 2 Go and get the table there, and hopefully find a sofa that would work as well. We went after church, no crowds, same furniture, same prices (since they are owned by Mathis Brothers - a.k.a. Oklahoma royalty).  It took us about 30 minutes, we loaded it in our truck and left.  Voila, no huge issues.  No hassle.  No Mathis Brothers.  

My chairs are on backorder, we will have them in three weeks, but below you can see my gorgeous table, chair, and love seat.

So, if my hubby comes and asks me in the next six months if I want to go furniture shopping, I will give him a HUGE "hell no".