Craigslist Adventures

I've decided to start posting some of our success stories from all of our Craigslist.com adventures. As some of you know we are avid craigslisters in that we are quite frequently finding some great deals on good stuff. And most of the stuff we find we either keep or resell after we "spice" it up a little bit. So, stay tuned for some future postings on our craigslist adventures. I'd like to include some of the crazy posts that are out there, too. Some of these ads could be featured in the Sunday comics for sure. I'll pass the good ones one to you so you can enjoy a good laugh with the rest of us.

My most recent adventure has been replacing our dining room table. The one we have now is in great shape, but that's thing, it's a little too nice. The wood is a soft wood (not sure exactly what kind), but it's a beautiful table. We wanted to replace it with a hardwood table that can withstand three meals a day from our family. So, rather than go buy a new table (why would we do that?) we decided to buy one that needed a little fixing. It wasn't much to look at at first, but we're pleased with the final result.

We were going to sand it down completely and recolor it to match the piano in the dining room. It is a deep red mahogany. But when we sanded the table down, we liked the black accents that contrasted the brown colors, so we left the black outline and went with a Special Walnut stain (thanks to Uncle Andrew's charitable donation to our craigslist habit last Christmas). We love the shape, and I especially love the detail on the legs. I finished the legs in ebony, but left just a little brown showing to give it an antique look. Well, what do you think?

Here is one of the chairs, which are also being refinished. They will take a little longer to do, but should be worth it in the long run. We'll have this table for quite a while...oh yeah, and it only cost $20.