How Do I Love Thee, Craigslist?

Let me count the ways!

You already will have read in a previous post about the extension ladder we found using Craigslist--we paid $150 for a 28' fiberglass ladder which would have cost over $300 new. Awesome. Now we will finally be able to tackle some roof repairs and some exterior trim repair and painting that have been niggling at us for some time now.

Also bothersome was having a four-seater dining table. It was fine for just the two of us, but we want to be able to entertain more often, and it seems that when it rains it pours--no guests for two months or more, and then ten at once. After issuing an invitation to three couples for dinner, it hit us that we didn't have anywhere to put them, unless we brought out the card table. Sooo, we thought we could make a table pretty easily, but chairs would still be really expensive--at least $50 each to buy, and out of the question to build.

We checked out Craigslist on a Sunday morning to just look for chairs, and instead found a table and six chairs for sale in our own city for a mere $200. We picked it up that afternoon. Amazing. We still had to bring out the folding chairs, but we actually fit eight around it. We may build a custom removable table top to be able to seat ten comfortably, but this works for now. Here are the before and after shots:

The old dining set is far more hideous than this picture captured. Imagine the incessant creaking noises when you sit down in a chair that should be firewood. The camera was too kind:


Aaaand, the dining set we found on Craigslist.com for $200. The seats still had the plastic on most of them and the construction is very solid:


Not too shabby! Have I already mentioned that I love Craigslist? If I ever got a tattoo...