Lamps and Couches and Rugs, Oh My!

Well, hello Lovely Readers!

As I’ve mentioned a few times in the past, there’s an interesting, and rather unbelievable, story behind the furniture in our house.  It’s one of the luckiest things I’ve experienced, so to tell it in the lucky month o’ March (when project motivation is low anyway) seems fitting.

So today, the tale is told.  Hold onto your seats…! 

The summer after my sophomore year of college, the best deal (probably of my whole life) smacked me square in the forehead.  While working at an apartment complex, a resident came in one day to make a copy of a flier.  He was advertising his entire (studio) apartment for sale.  He wanted to get rid of everything except his clothes and personal items.  For $500.  And somehow, I was in the right place at the right time to be the first person to see the flier.

I expected the furniture, etc, to be rather shabby and well-used (and how much can really fit in a studio anyway?).  I couldn’t have been more surprised, though.  The furniture was only a few months old, and the guy rarely stayed at the apartment so it was basically brand new.  It was also a style that I really liked. 

I worked a lot of different jobs in college and in the summers, so I had the money to take advantage of the deal….but there was the issue of finding a place to put all of the stuff while I lived in the dorms.  

Plus, there was a slight catch … I had to get it all out of the seller’s apartment within a couple of days. 

I decided to go for it.

My roommate and I packed my tiny car to the brim with all the dishes and small items that week, and that weekend, my dad and I wrestled the rest of it out of the apartment building, into the free truck from the storage place, and finally into a storage unit, where it sat for the year and a half or so until I got an apartment.

In the course of a few days, I had become the proud owner of a leather couch and loveseat, a coffee table with matching end tables, three lamps, a bunch of rugs, an entertainment hutch with matching side table, an upholstered occasional chair, a twin bed with two sets of bedding, a rolltop desk, a DVD player, stereo, TV, complete set of dishes/silverware and glassware and… a never used eight-person oak dining room table.  Unfortunately, the table didn’t fit very well into the storage unit with everything else.

So I sold it right away.

For $500.

I’ve sold several other things since then, and we’ve gotten great use out of the rest.  The couches and coffee table, in particular, are showing their well-earned age.  We use the dishes/flatware/glassware every day.

Together, Nick and I have purchased almost no furniture at all.  “We haven’t even bought a couch together.”  (Anyone see that Mike & Molly episode?)

The guy who sold it to me was such a doll, too.  He had all the original receipts and warranties from almost every single piece that we moved out of his apartment. 

And do you want to know the best part? 

It wasn’t the first time he completely furnished an apartment and then sold the whole shebang for $500 a few months later.  And I bet it wasn’t the last time either.

I’m convinced it’s his own little philanthropy. 

Signed,

A One-Time Lucky Duck