I check my favorite classifieds daily and it's amazing how many people give away used but intact furniture and household goods. I'm talking about expensive high quality furniture and rare antique gems. Oh, if only i could pick up all these wonderful things...
But you know our place is small and we don't have much space to store or display non-essential items, so unfortunately i am doomed to concentrate on the useful stuff.
Last week a woman advertised three white Ikea Billy bookcases but i wasn't fast enough and the cabinets were already promised to another lady when i contacted her. After two days she sent me an email that the largest bookcase was still available because it didn't fit into the lady's car. Twelve hours and a box of Toffifee later the Billy was ours, plus a height extension unit. Total value: ~ 50€
I am not a huge fan of Ikea after several disappointments with their item's quality and bad customer service. However, we already have a white Billy and some white/birch "Magiker" cabinets ( another awesome steal) and want to stay in that style and color range. Moreover the Billys have a small depth which makes them look less massive than a regular cabinet and it is no financial loss should we ever decide to refurnish.
So we squeezed the Billy into our little dinner table corner aka my craft bench.
Before:
I "covered" the blue paintings as they might be a bit too revealing for some readers.
And after:
Much, much better.
After we got home with our new Billy we noticed a car trailer in front of our house and on that trailer were the most darling chairs you can imagine! Antique victorian chairs with precious upholstery and incredibly charming floral carvings on the legs. Swoooooon!!
The door to our neighbour's appartment ( below ours) stood open and we could look into his hallway. Oh my goodness, that man is living in a palace, haha.
Seriously, that appartment is HUGE! It has the combined size of our appartment and the one right next to us, probably at least 150qm² plus the garden and a beautiful patio, which he never uses. His hallway is a dream! It has one large wall covered with framed pictures.
Envision this with ultra high ceilings and a collection of opulent mismatched antique frames:
And that wall has a window, a beautiful multi-colored antique built-in window just for show!
Holy cow, i cannot describe the charme of that wall and window. MisterT and i were blown away!!
It was obvious that these wonderful chairs on the trailer belonged to our neighbour and my heart stood still upon the the thought that he would just give these beauties away, away to some heartless stranger or even worse: the dump! Noooooo, how could he do that?!?!?!!
I desperately wanted to catch another glimpse and find out what was going on there, so i went back to our car pretending i had forgotten something, and when i re-entered the house i met said neighbour.
I have never talked to him because he always looks so grumpy but i couldn't resist asking him if he was moving out, because of the trailer outside ( stupid question but i couldn't think of anything better that moment). And he explained that the chairs need some restoration from time to time and they would get new paint and upholstery. I was relieved, tremendously relieved that these beauties would not end up on the dump. I told him how much i loved his chairs and old furniture and he smiled! My compliment and passion for antique stuff made him happy!
And then he even offered me a box full of vintage magazines he was about to throw away. Yeah, i know what you think and that i should have rejected this. I clearly do not need these and we don't have much space anyhow. But hey, we have a new bookcase and i can sacrifice one half of a shelf, right??? Oh well, i took his offer and now i am the proud new owner of a collection of vintage upscale art magazines and Sotheby's catalogues. Aww, awesome!
