New to Us

I mentioned in a recent post that Dan and I were going to be picking up a pair of couches that we found on Craigslist. To recap, when we came back from a conference in Orlando, we realized that one of our cats decided that our green loveseat was the perfect place to relieve themselves. Since cat urine is a pain to get out of fabric anything and we hated the loveseat anyways, we decided to get rid of the loveseat and start looking for a couch to replace it. And of course Craigslist is the first place I looked.

In the "Nearby Areas" results was a listing for a Tidafor sofa and loveseat. The seller was asking $300 for the pair. Considering they sell retail for just under $1000, the price couldn't be beat. They looked a little worn in, but that was okay with us. And even the fact that the sellers had cats didn't bother us considering our cats were going to be laying all over the sofas too.

But, there were some logistical things we had to figure out. Like the fact that the sellers lived an hour and half away. And the fact that we didn't have a truck to move the furniture. Plus, we weren't sure that Dan and I could get the sofas upstairs by ourselves. And, we can't forget about the fact that these suckers are huge and we weren't quite sure how they would fit in our living room.

Luckily, the sellers were willing to hold onto the furniture until the next weekend when Dan had a couple days off. We thought about renting a moving truck to get the sofas home, but the seller recommended looking into the trucks at Home Depot since their rates are much cheaper. Brilliant! And, between the husband of the seller offering to help Dan move/lift the sofas into the truck and Dan bribing a friend of his with free lunch if he'd come help him lift the sofas upstairs, we didn't have to worry about whether I was strong enough to lift the furniture upstairs.

So, Saturday night we drove over to our local Home Depot and picked up a rental truck.

The next morning we woke up early and headed south to pick up the sofas. We had bought a tarp and some tie downs to keep the sofas in place. Luckily, the bed of the truck was wide enough for both sofas to fit side by side, so we didn't have to worry about stacking them. We did have to pull over three times to re-secure the tarp, but otherwise, the trip back was pretty uneventful.

After moving the green loveseat out onto the landing, the boys got both of the sofas upstairs and in place. Since our living room is a little tiny, we had to angle the couches to get them to fit.

Let me just say, these are the most comfortable couches I have ever sat on. They are deep enough to curl up into the corners and enjoy a good book. And, they are long enough to stretch out on and take a nap (which I've done a couple times already this week).

I am so glad we found the room in our budget to pick these guys up. Here's a rundown of our final cost:

Sofa & Loveseat:   $300

Rental Truck:   $74

Tarp:   $0 (originally $20, but returned it because it had massive holes in it after an hour of use - ridiculous!)

Tie-Downs:   $25

Tank of Gas:   $50

Pizza for Lunch:   $16 (with coupon code)

TOTAL:     $465

That's still less than the cost of the loveseat brand new!

We are so happy with our new-to-us sofa and loveseat!

Life Lately

Wow... has it really been nearly three weeks since I last posted anything on this little blog of mine? Where has time gone? Wait, I know what's going on - school started back up again. Yep, we've been in school for a little over two weeks now, and it seems like things haven't slowed down since the first bell rang.

So here's a quick recap of what's been going on lately in my world....

First, I'm another year older. Officially a quarter-century old. We went out for lunch like we had been planning. Then Dan had little surprises all week to celebrate my birthday - foot massage, washed my car, a little clothes shopping. The boy even baked a cake!

We signed our lives away to our apartment complex for another year. Although I'm ready to move out and get a place of our own, it's just not the right time. We're hoping one more year will be enough time to get our things in order so that we can start looking for our first home.

Like I mentioned, school started back up. So it's been a bit of a whirlwind lately. I'm still waiting for things to settle down. I think the fact that I had to go to a week-long conference the second week of school still has me a little discombobulated. That, and the fact that it seems as though things are continuously being piled onto my already overflowing plate. #lifeofateacher

The week-long conference was about our state's end-of-course exam in US History. I attended a similar conference two years ago in Jacksonville (you can read more about that here and here). I was (again) the youngest teacher there. And for some reason, the people from the Department of Education were surprised (again....) that I was able to hold my own with the teachers who had many more years of experience than I do. Hey, I do what I can. But, in all seriousness, I did love the opportunity to meet with other Social Studies teachers and get an behind-the-scenes look at what goes into the standardized test making process.

Dan has officially moved to day shift. It's been nice having him home at night, even though we're still eating separate dinners now. But the poor guy is bored on his days off. I think he's waiting for the weather to cool down a little more and the stormy season to pass before he gets back into riding his bike. In the meantime, I told him there's a teacher that I know that would love to have some extra help with filing and grading in the classroom.... 

We're buying a new couch and loveseat. Well, new to us anyways. See, when I got back from my conference I realized that one of the cats decided that our green loveseat was the perfect place to relieve themselves. I don't know if you've ever tried to remove the smell of cat urine from anything before - but it is near impossible. And since we've never been fans of that couch anyways, it didn't bother us to get rid of it. So, I decided to do a little hunting around on Craigslist. Normally, Dan and I have a hard time agreeing on furniture. I go for style, he goes for comfort. There has only ever been one couch that we've agreed we could both live with, and it just so happens to be this set from Ikea. And there just so happens to be a couple about 2 hours away from us who are selling their set. We're still crossing our fingers that we'll be able to fit them in our tiny living room. But I'm determined to make them work! It'll be so nice to have an actual couch instead of two loveseats.

Other than that, things haven't changed a whole lot around here. We're still chunking away money at our debt snowball little by little. We were really hoping to have everything paid off before Christmas, but it's looking like January will be our last month of payments. Hey, we'll take it - it'll be a great way to start off the new year!

This is where I promise to be better about checking in and writing posts, but if you've been around here long enough, you know that once the school year starts, promises don't stand a chance. So until next time...

Weekend Adventures: Family & Break

I love that word, don't you? Break. Thanksgiving break. A time of much needed rest before the craziness of December falls upon us. I'm pretty lucky to work in a school district that allows us to have the entire week off. Other districts in the area are in school today. Me? I'm still in my pajamas. And when I finally get around to changing my clothes, I'll probably put on another pair of pajamas. No shame.

Anyways, I thought I'd catch you up on some of the things that have been going on since school let out on Friday. First of all, Friday was a crazy day! I had a meeting in the morning and then came into my classroom half way through the day. We finished the chapters we were working through on Thursday, so I didn't see a point in starting a brand new concept before a week-long break. So, the kids got to watch a movie. Don't judge. At least the movie had something to do with the content. I thought the kids were going to be bored with it - a National Geographic film on Pearl Harbor. But they were mesmerized! And, some were even brought to tears when the survivors were telling their stories. Definitely going to show this one again.

Friday night we took our new roomie on a car tour of our area. Let's just say, where we live, there are more cows than people. That, and a whole lot of golf carts. The hubby and I planned on going to a local park (the same one we went to see fireworks in July) to see their Christmas lights. But after getting home from the little tour, we both sat down and never got back up. Oh well. Maybe next week.

Saturday we slept in a little and then headed into Orlando to spend some time with the family. Well, I spent some time with the family. Dan had to go to a BLS class to recertify. Meanwhile, I got to spend time with the nieces and nephews at my parents' house.

{my sister and the youngest nephew}

{my niece, the artist}

After Dan got done with his class, we went out to dinner with an old friend of his from the church we use to go to. The two of them get together whenever he's in town. I, on the other hand, hadn't seen him in 5 years. I was looking forward to catching up, but soon realized that I probably should have let the boys hang out by themselves. It was nothing but cars, trucks, and racing. I literally maybe said a total of 10 sentences the entire night.

Sunday, Dan had to go into work. (Notice a pattern here? I feel bad that he's not getting much of a break. Work is really killing him lately.) Mom and I went out to my sister's house (the one pictured above) and the three of us went shopping. I'm glad my sister was able to go because she helped us pick out clothes and things the kids would appreciate for Christmas. Here are some things that I saw along the way that I loved:

{skirt / table cloth / colored glasses / owl pillow}

Ok, so I know the outfit is your classic "teacher's outfit," but I love it! The best part about the glasses - they're plastic! And I have a thing for owls, and this little guy was too darn cute! Ok, enough exclamation points...

By the time we got home Sunday, it was pretty late, but I had caught my second wind. So, I pulled out the Christmas decorations and started putting together the tree. Too bad one strand of lights was burnt out... womp womp. We decided to call it a night and pick up another string of lights when we went grocery shopping.

Monday, Dan finally had a day off! My mom met us up at our place and we headed out to one of my favorite flea markets, Webster.

There's technically two sides to the flea market. My favorite has to be the Westside. That side has more of the collectibles and antiques. Seriously my idea of a good time! Hands down, my favorite piece of the day was this guy:

It's a Lane's cedar chest. At least that's what the inside says. I tried doing a Google search to find a similar piece, but had no luck. The closest I could come to was this. It looks like it's been painted. Most cedar chests are simply stained wood. And, as you can see, it's missing a couple of pulls. The pull for the bottom drawer & one pull for that middle drawer were sitting inside the chest itself. But there were two holes in the middle drawer which led me to believe that one knob was still missing. The guy wanted $80 for it. Considering it had been painted and missing a knob, I thought it was too much. But, we didn't bother haggling because we both knew that we had no way of getting it home. Cedar chest on top of a Kia...yeah, that would have been fun!

I came home empty handed this time. But mom left with a few more Christmas gifts for the grandkids, so I think the trip was a success. After mom went home, Dan and I both fell asleep on the couch. Two hour nap on a dreary Monday afternoon? Yes please! Eventually we got our lazy butts off the couch and went shopping. A couple hours later, the Christmas tree was officially lit!

This year we decided to put the tree in the dining room. We moved over the buffet and removed one dining chair to make room. We still have to put ornaments on the tree, but we'll get to that some night this week. At least it's up! Oh, and you'll notice I finally hung up the broken mirror that I mentioned here. I spray painted the inside black, but am second guessing my ability to write something without it looking sloppy. I'm still trying to convince the Hubby to let me chalkboard it so that I can always erase my mistakes. I'll keep you posted!

So, that's the first half of my Thanksgiving break. Today I've got the apartment to myself, so I'm doing a little bit of cleaning, a little bit of tv watching, and a whole lot of being lazy. This afternoon the plan is to do a little bit of school work - but we'll see if that happens. I've got laundry calling my name, and right now that's screaming a louder than papers that need to be graded.


What about you? Do you have the week off too? Or maybe you decided to take it off anyways? What sort of plans do you guys have for the holidays? 

Weekend Adventures: Renniger's Antiques

So this post is actually about a week late. We spent this past weekend with family and making sure we were prepared for whatever Isaac might have in store for us. But two weekends ago I talked Dan into going to the Mt. Dora Flea Market with me. It's one of those things that we do every so often.

 

Of all the flea markets in our area, I think Mt. Dora is my favorite. Runner up would have to be the Webster Flea Market. But they are only open on Mondays, so it's really hard to find time to make it out there. And when I do happen to have a Monday off, it's usually the same Monday everyone else has off too, so the place is really crowded. Anyways, let's get off this tangent and back to the whole point of this post.

 

Which is what? Well, we thought we'd be smart and get to the flea market super early so that we'd be done before the intense Florida heat got too bad. We were at the flea market by 8. What we didn't plan for? The fact that it would still be raining when we woke up and that the majority of the vendors would be taking their sweet time setting up. We literally made it through the entire flea market in maybe an hour. That's a record people. None of the outdoor vendors were even set up, and those are my favorite spots to find neat things.

 

Since we made it through the flea market portion so quickly, I decided to push my luck with the hubby and ask him if we could go over to the Antique Center. I had never been there, so I had no clue what we'd be in store for.

 

 

Dan agreed, mainly because he knew I was feeling bad about making him wake up early, drive an hour out there, and only spend an hour walking around. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen these pictures showing just how enthusiastic Dan was about looking at antiques.

 

 

He was a good sport about it though. Like I said, I had no clue what to expect from the Antique Center. But I started to get excited before we even walked through the doors. They had these benches flanking the entrance. I love the shape and simplicity of the benches. If these were for sale, and we actually had a backyard, I would have taken one of these benches home.

 

 

The majority of the antique center is indoors. Makes sense. Expensive antiques don't need to be outside. Plus, most of it was furniture, and who would want to unload that stuff every week? Here are some of our favorite indoor finds.

 

Dan really liked the lantern. Thought it would be cool if it still worked. I loved this cabinet with the metal inserts. This would make the perfect buffet in a dining room. Or even an armoire in an office or bedroom. I'd probably change out the pulls though. Maybe with something like these?

There was tons of pottery and china at the Antique Center as well. I was definitely drawn to the blue & white pieces. And of course the milk glass.

We headed outdoors to check out some of the other vendors. We stopped and admired this huge weather vane. The owner of this booth made a lot of his own things. Plus he had a bunch of cool looking knobs and pulls to update any piece of furniture.

I think my favorite part was the Street of Shops. It was a bunch of small cottage-like structures with lining a small street. All of the cottages had been turned into small antique shops. And you could tell these shop owners took pride in their cottage by the amount of detail they put into their porches and gardens. The whole street was covered by beautiful, large oak trees, so it was nice and shady.

 

We didn't find anything that we couldn't live without, so we went home empty handed. But that's okay. Just means more money to put towards our debt snowball. Its still fun to walk around flea markets and antique shops and imagine where things might fit into your home. I think I had the most fun looking at a piece and figuring out how to update it so that it had a more modern appeal, but still keeping its antique look.

 

So that was our trip to Rennigers. Not sure if we'll go to the Antique Center again. Lots of great pieces, but everything was out of our price range. But we'll definitely be going back to the Flea Market.

 

What's your favorite "go to" flea market? Find any great treasures lately?

 

 

Seashells & Coins

My Grandma is responsible for this quick and simple update. A few weekends ago she found this glass vase filled with seashells and coins at a yard sale. She bought the vase simply because she wanted to know how much money (in coins mind you) was inside the vase. I think I was told that she bought the vase for $2. Yep, that's my Grandma. Once she had all the coinage from the vase (which oddly enough totaled out to more than $2 - Grandma knows a deal when she sees one!), she no longer wanted the vase. And she no longer wanted the seashells. So, she passed them onto my mom.

While visiting my mom, I noticed the odd shaped vase on her kitchen counter. Then I got the full story on how she inherited it. She said all she really wanted was the seashells. She didn't even care about the vase, and offered it to me. I loved the way the seashells looked inside the vase, and thought that the look would be perfect for our guest bathroom. So, the vase came home with me.

Once the vase was home, I cleaned it up a little bit (it had some wax on it - I guess at one point someone put a candle inside of it) and then filled it with our seashells that we've collected over the past couple of years. The vase found a new home in the corner of the counter top.

Obviously this bathroom doesn't get used as often and needs a little dusting... don't judge.

It's a simple update that has made a huge impact to the space. And it's nice to see our beachy finds on display rather than sitting in a drawer, which is where they use to reside. Funny how a $2 yard sale find found its way into 3 different homes.

How do you display your vacation finds? 

Passion

#8. What are 5 passions that you have?

1. MY MARRIAGE

I think this one goes without much explanation. I love my husband. He's my best friend. I love the relationship we have. And I plan on doing everything within my power to keep our marriage strong. I don't want to be a divorce statistic.

2. MY FAMILY

This applies to the family I grew up with, the family I married into, and the family the husband and I have started and will continue to build in the future. As much as my family can drive me crazy, I still love them and want the best for them. Whenever possible I try to help where I'm needed. Mostly that puts me in the role of "sounding board" and I'm okay with that.

3. EDUCATION

Considering I'm a teacher, this one should come as no surprise. I believe having an education is key. Sure, you may not get a job in the degree you study. But just having a desire to learn something new - to seek out new ideas - will take you far.

4. FINANCIAL FREEDOM

To be debt free is a passion that's slowly growing inside of me. The hubby and I have officially started working on our debt snowball, and seeing the payoff amount numbers drop each month is exciting. I cannot wait until we're finally controling our money rather than our money controlling us.

5. FINDING A GOOD DEAL

Although this one could technically tie into "Financial Freedom," this has been a passion of mine long before the desire to be debt free. Being able to find a deal and save money wherever possible seriously brings a smile to my face. Thrift stores and clearance bins are my idea of a good time.

What are you passionate about?

Craigslist Score

The hubby and I made our first official Craigslist purchase this weekend. And the price was a steal! But before I get ahead of myself, let me start from the beginning.

Ever since our wedding, I've been on the hunt for a buffet/sideboard for our tiny dining room. We got so many new dishes and small appliances as wedding gifts that we have completely run out of cabinet space in our kitchen. We even had a yard sale to scale down the amount of stuff we had. But even with the yard sale, our kitchen cabinets are filled to the brim with stuff. So I thought a buffet would be the perfect solution - we could store our small appliances in it, or we could move all of the dishes that we don't frequently use in it.

So I started my search online. I wanted dark wood, tons of hidden storage, cabinet doors and drawer space, and preferably somewhere to store wine/liquor bottles. These were the top contenders:

Top left: Hutch-Style Buffet from Target; Top Right: Thomasville Beau Monde Buffet from Target; Bottom left: Hokku Designs Cedric Buffet from WalMart; Bottom right: Canopy Anywhere Console Table from WalMart

The problem? Buffets are expensive! Furniture in general is expensive. Maybe I'm a little naive about what a decent price is for furniture considering every item in our home was a hand-me-down or free (with the exception of our mattress). But I refused to spend $200-$300 for a buffet. So, I turned to Craigslist.

I've been searching on Craigslist religiously for the last two months or so. Although we technically live in Central Florida, we are on the very northern edge of it. So, I spend most of my time searching the Ocala Craigslist. Every once in a while, when I would get bored with seeing the same listings posted multiple times, I would scan the Orlando Craigslist. I figured both of our parents live in Orlando, so if we found anything there, we could just make a weekend trip out of it. We more than likely would have to go to Orlando to borrow my stepdad's truck anyways. And what do you know...

Last Thursday night I was doing another search on the Ocala list and got really frustrated. Before shutting the laptop down to start making dinner I decided on a whim to check Orlando's list again. It was the fifth posting listed, and it was perfect! I seriously squealed. Like school girl squealed. Which is really not typical for me. I anxiously showed the hubby and waited for his approval (our tastes are similar, but we're both very particular and stubborn). He loved it! Sold! Here are the pictures from the website that I snapped with my cellphone so we could show our parents what we were getting.

But now what? I've never actually bought anything from Craigslist before. Sure, the hubby had sold a couple of tools about a year ago, but he handled all the communication on that. There wasn't a phone number listed, so I emailed the seller immediately. Told her we thought the price was totally reasonable, but our only concern was the width of the piece (too wide), so I asked again for the exact measurements just to be sure. The seller emailed back within 10 minutes and confirmed the measurements. We thought about it for a little while, and decided that we loved the piece so much, and since this living arrangement is only temporary, we'd go ahead and get it.

The only potential problem was that we wouldn't be able to go and get it until Saturday morning. And the seller wasn't sure if she'd have any left (turns out she had like 13 identical cabinets). She wanted me to contact her before we left for Orlando to double check that she still had one - if she did, she would hold it for us at that point. Luckily, everything worked out, and we were able to pick up the piece from their warehouse Saturday morning.

My stepdad was nice enough to loan us his truck. We were hoping we might be able to fit the piece into the hubby's car once we had it back at my parents house, but that simply wasn't going to happen. So, the hubby and I drove the truck back to our house (which is two hours, round trip, from my parents) to unload the piece. We stopped by my sisters house and borrowed their dolly. Without that thing, there was no way the hubby and I would have been able to get it up a flight of stairs by ourselves. In the words of the hubby, "That piece is SOLID."

When we finally got to our place, we realized we were going to be racing against the incoming storm...

I didn't take any pictures of us trying to get this thing upstairs. I was a little preoccupied.

We set it in our dining room against the only cleared wall we had at the time. We both knew it would eventually move somewhere else, but for now it was going to work. Even the cats seemed to be excited about the new addition.

So, how much was this buffet? I'm sure you're dying to know! Well, it actually fit right at the top of our budget for this piece of furniture. It came out to an even FIFTY BUCKS! Yep, 5-0. One whole Ulysses S. Grant. Now do you understand the school girl squeal? You should have seen my mother-in-law's face when I told her how much we paid for it - her jaw seriously dropped. If you want to get technically, it cost us a little more than that with all the driving back and forth we had to do, but I still say it was a steal!

The piece is 3 feet high, 4 feet long, and 2 feet wide. It seems to be made of solid wood. The front panels seem to be clear plexiglass. The seller taped some white cardboard behind it to make it look more white/frosted. The hubby and I are considering frosting those pieces anyways.

On the inside are pull-out shelves. It looks like they had some type of plexiglass dividers in them, but the seller had run out of pieces for that. As it is, I don't think I want them anyways, so we'll probably take those out some where down the road. So far the pull-out shelves are working for us. But, we haven't crossed out the possibility of taking them out (or maybe just one set) and replacing them with standard shelves. Why? Well, I originally wanted to store our wine glasses in there, and I don't feel comfortable with them sitting in a movable shelf. But we'll see and I promise to keep you posted.

Sorry for the blurry shots... I was trying to snap pictures while also shooing away the cats.

The top is Formica, and it's pretty scratched up along the edges. The seller was nice enough to rotate the top so that the worse side was facing the wall. We're thinking about getting some white craft paint and just touching up the nicks for now. Eventually we'd like to replace the top, but we're going to wait until we have our own home and see what we want to do with it then.

Yesterday I moved the piece along the wall with all of the picture frames, which I think is where its going to stay for now. I might move the pictures frames over to the adjacent wall and find something else to put above the buffet. The whole room just looks a little unbalanced to me right now. We decided to move the fish tank into our living room, so that should help some. But this room still needs a lot of work to make it work.

Last night after the hubby got home, he helped me move the fish tank into the living room. I moved one of the chairs into the empty void there to balance out the chair on the other side. If we put all four chairs around the table, the area just looks crowded. It looks a little funny with just two chairs around such a large table, but for now I think we're going to live with it this way. We're entertaining the idea of finding a small, square, wooden dining table to replace our current table. Neither one of us has ever been a fan of this table - but it was free, so we've learned to live with it.

Anyways, this is what the set up currently looks like...

 (the sign is from our wedding reception)

But there you have it. Our first Craigslist purchase. And the first piece of furniture that we've actually shelled out some dough for. I couldn't be happier with the piece! Have you snagged any good deals lately? Maybe at a thrift store or yard sale? I love hearing stories about good deals!