Archive for the ‘Not Thrifty’ Category

Not Thrifty!

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

This is an ode, an ode to the things we left behind…because our rental car was a Chevy Impala and was not good for transporting sofas.

Not everyone’s cup of tea, but that upholstery was in PERFECT condition and the base was amazing, but weirdly, it was also on wheels. Take the wheels off and you have this incredibly perfect vintage sofa with so much style and flair that your boring room is suddenly made resplendent. I loved this thing, even if it is all brown town.

This is like my chesterfield sofa, you know, if it had been a long time drug user and was down on its luck and eating way to much sodium. It needed a little love to get cleaned up, get it off the streets and reintegrated it into society. Ok, maybe a lot of love.

This is the one that got away. I know you’re thinking, “Morgan, girl, you are crazy. Look at that crazy floral fugly mess happening all over that sofa.”

Yeah? Huh? What?

BOOM. This thing was $55. Fifty Five Dollars. FIFTY FIVE DOLLARS.

I was dying. Dying to take it home, but every which way we tried to swing it, we just couldn’t get it back to California. All I could think was that reupholstery doesn’t cost a whole lot for something this simple and the frame is in perfect shape. And it’s fifty. five. dollars.

Have you guys been watching Secrets From a Stylist with Emily on the HGTV? Guess what – this same sofa was in the most recent episode with that couples loft. I know! Crazy right? What a weirdo coincidence. As soon as I saw it on her show I got all pissed again that we had to leave it in Arizona. Next time I bring a van. Next time I will not fail.

Then I saw a coffee table that was cute and some man sized geode things…

…and rows and rows of turquoise…and got yelled at for taking pictures and had to get all sneaky with my iPhone…

…and more rock things…

…and all kinds of petrified wood.

Have you been to Quartzsite, AZ? That place is insane. A little scary…and totally insane.

Ugh, still beating myself up for not renting a van or something, but those things are annoyingly expensive. Next time, oh you silly willy next time, I need to bite the bullet and just come up with a better plan. I miss you sofas…

FILED UNDER: Not Thrifty, thrifting, thrifty, travel, vintage

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Not Thrifty!

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

I was glad for the vacation but Palm Springs was effing hot. HOT HOT. Walking on the sun hot.

So, what do you do when you need to scour the desert for vintage goodies? Well, you go to Koffi and you get a large honey & vanilla iced latte and hope that somehow the sugar and caffeine will get you crazy high enough to trudge through that very particular kind of musky thrift store heat without keeling over in sweaty puddle of despair. Yum, Koffi…I’m dreaming of you now…

We hit up the classic thrift store circuit around PS and came up with almost nothing for our troubles. It was very disappointing thrifting out there, maybe because of the holiday (lots of folks were out shopping) or maybe the heat was slowing down donations. Whatever it was, it made me sad and sweaty and wonder why I wasn’t floating in the pool instead of sorting through hot and heavy musty crap.

Enough already about the heat. I saw this dining set and LOVED the chair bases. The table? Not so much, but those six chairs…oh man.

Seventies brassy heaven.

Imagine this set of chairs reupholstered in a lovely textured cream bouclé and seated around a chunky modern farmhouse table with warm gray walls and a glam Stilnovo chandelier. Yeah. Tastiness.

At $248 the table set is pretty pricey, but if you break it down, that’s only about $42 a chair. On top of that you would have to add reupholstering – so all in all it would be a bit of an investment.

I kept running into things like this ottoman. It’s pretty much everything I dislike: the fussy legs, the maroon color, the faux antiqueness of it – but – I kind of liked how textured and soft the leather was and could imagine it as a coffee table or extra seating in an eclectic/modern living room. Maybe with the legs stained much darker.

Screw it, $125! Lameness.

That was the other thing we kept running into. Super high pricing for not so great crap.

This lamp is the thing I really regret not getting. If only it was cheaper…

It was French, it was a hardwired ceiling light and it pivoted in any direction that your little heart desired. I dreamed of using it in the pink bathroom or maybe in the office. At $125 it was just a tad too pricey for my budget and definitely not something we needed. Oh well, next time – hopefully the thrifting will be better.

I did pick up one goody. More on that later.

FILED UNDER: Not Thrifty

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Estate!

Monday, March 15th, 2010

After the last estate sale debacle I wanted to try it again with what looked like the mother-load of Danish and mid century treasures.

Well. Debacle.

Woke up at 5am which is like AN INCREDIBLE FEAT for my lazy ass. Drove over an hour to get to the estate sale 45 minutes early. Had to sign in order to be let in (what? this is new to me)…and I was number 37…after lots of dealers and other pickers who let me know that they got there at like 5am to sign in. I guess I’m still pretty amateur.

It was a bad sign when a lot of dealers and other folks started leaving empty handed in disgust after they opened the doors. I waited to be let in for twenty minutes after other folks had been rummaging around for a good long while to find that the pricing was RIDICULOUS.

What I really came for were the coffee tables. How much was this one? Oh just $850.

This coffee table was just as affordable at $650. BULLSHIT.

The one big thrifty score was this spiraling globe lamp. I know a certain someone nabbed it for $65 for his stylish daughters room. Score.

$1250 for the credenza, $1500 for the dining set, $450 for the chandelier, $650 for those rad glass lamps. Bullshit I say. But really, how cool are those lamps on the left!?!?

This was an estate sale! Not a store in Palm Springs or Los Angeles. Oh, and speaking of LA – this guy saw me taking pictures and was like “Oh, are you here because of the LA Times?” I was like – what??? “Well we posted about this sale, I write for the Times.”

YEAH, they sure did.

Debacle.

FILED UNDER: estate, Not Thrifty, thrifting, vintage

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