Not To Be Trusted With Knives

Remember a while ago when I posted my furniture to the Decor Hell contest because it’s so damn ugly?  Guess what went like hotcakes when I posted as “free for the taking” on Craig’s List yesterday morning?

As I prepare for The Great Move of 2010, I’ve made the decision to have a grown up apartment.  As in, not one that’s furnished with a mish mash of furniture that is older than I am.  And having an actual bed, not just a mattress on the floor.  As I mentioned the other day, my former landlady said I could have any of the furniture in my place that I wanted and while I am bringing the kitchen furniture with me to the new place, I decided against the horrible, horrible 1970s living room stuff. The land lady said she doesn’t want the furniture and she doesn’t have the energy to deal with it (she’s dealing with her own move at the end of this month as well as her husband being in hospital, so I don’t blame her for not having the energy to deal with it!).  So I decided to see if I could get rid of the furniture for her.  One less thing for her to deal with.  Plus, it keeps stuff out of the landfill and I’m all for that.  One person’s trash is another person’s treasure, right?

My friend Rachel moved recently and said that she was easily able to get rid of stuff she didn’t want by posting it as “free for the taking” on Craig’s List.  “People Will Take ANYTHING That’s Free on Craig’s List!” she said.   Her suggestion was to say a date and time and tell people that it’s first-come, first-served, rather than having to deal with emails and arranging to meet people.  Unfortunately, I’m not really at my place this week, so I decided to post and have people email and see what happened.

And really, who could resist an ad like this:

One orange couch.
Two orange chairs.
Two lamps (one lamp shade is a bit beat up, but you could probably glue it)
Two wooden end tables.

Free for the taking! You can take any or all of it. Email to set up time to pick up.

I posted my ad at 6:41 a.m., just before I left for work, and by 7:04 a.m. the emails started rolling in.  I received:

• 5 requests for my ugly lamps (one of which has a slightly busted lamp shade)
• 11 requests for my end tables
• 18 requests for my ugly chairs

The couch has proven more of a challenge.  One person said he wanted everything, but when I told him that the only thing left was the couch, he said, “Nah, I mostly wanted the end tables.”  And another person has just now emailed to say she wants the couch and chairs, so I’ve emailed to tell her that I only have the couch left.  So we’ll just have to see what happens there.  If that falls through, anyone interested in a hideous 30+ year old couch?

I spent most of today and a good chunk of yesterday packing.  I now have the kitchen¹, the bathroom and the bedroom completely packed².  And I did all my laundry, including all the blankets and sheets³, and I took books back to both the Vancouver Public Library and UBC Library. The things I have left to do before moving day⁴:

• pack up my printer, scanner and the various things in my geek drawer
• pack all the food from my cupboards⁵
• make sure everything is saved off old desktop and laptop
• take old desktop to Kalev’s storage
• take various computer thingys to Free Geek
• take books to used bookstore and other crap to thrift store:

In other packing-related news, I was talking to Betty, my former landlady (who used to own the house until they sold it a few months ago, but is renting the upstairs until the end of this month) who said that I can have any of the furniture in my place (as I’ve been renting a furnished place⁶).  Which means I don’t have to buy a kitchen table and chairs! Yay!  I’m also taking this furniture, which I’ve been using in my kitchen these past three years:

And Betty let me in on a little secret: that’s baby furniture!  The thing I’ve been using as a microwave stand, is in actuality a baby change table!  As soon as she told me that, I could totally see it, but until that point it had never occurred to me that it was anything but kitchen furniture!

But even as the Flying Spaghetti Monster giveth, the Flying Spaghetti Monster taketh away. As I mentioned the other day, I’m making a concerted effort to get rid of things that I really don’t need.  For the most part, it’s been easy to toss things⁷ – like stuff that doesn’t fit/I don’t like anymore/is expired.  But there were two things that I needed to toss that gave me pause.  One was my old McMaster jacket.  It’s about 15 years old, and pretty wrecked up.  I know that I’ll never wear it again, but it was still tough to throw it away.  I took these photos to remember it by:

And the other thing I had to toss was my beloved eBay shoes!  You remember them, right?  Oh, the times we had!  I didn’t take a photo of them because they were pretty wrecked up and I want to remember them in better times.  I have photos like these to remember them by:

You will be missed, Mac jacket and beloved eBay shoes.

1. except the food [↩]
2. I’m staying at Tod’s this week so that I could just pack up everything at my place and not worry about needing to leave some stuff unpacked to use for the next week [↩]
3. have to take advantage of the in-home laundry while I still have it [↩]
4. Feb 15 [↩]
5. stuff from the fridge and freezer will get packed the day of, for obvious reasons [↩]
6. I have some of my own stuff, but a fair bit of it is theirs. But they are downsizing to a retirement condo so they can’t even keep all of the furniture upstairs, let alone the stuff in the basement [↩]
7. or put them into the “to donate” pile [↩]

When I first heard about the Decor Hell contest over on Monica’s blog, I knew that I *had* to enter.  The contest involves sending in a photo of your fugly furniture, something that I have in no short supply!

When I moved into my current place (which was meant to be a summer sublet but somehow it’s going on 3 years later (!)), it came fully furnished.  Which was nice in that I was in the process of getting divorced and really didn’t want to have any of what had been “our” furniture.  What was maybe not so nice is how the furniture actually looked – I mean, it’s all fully functional, it’s a just a wee bit… old. As in older than me.  When people see my place for the first time, I get a lot of comments about the “funky retro” style.  The thing is – it’s not retro. It’s actually been here since the 70s!  So, yeah, I decided to enter some of my finer pieces in the Decor Hell contest.  And now I can’t resist sharing them with you!

The World’s Ugliest Chair:

And how much do you love my love seat?

Seriously, that thing’s been here since the 70s. I’m sitting on it as I type this.  And trying not to think about what else has been on it over the past 30+ years. *shudder*

I’ve known for quite some time that this “lovely” and “decorative” fan covers up a gaping hole in my bathroom wall:

What I didn’t realize is that this “lovely” and “decorative” fish is also covering up a gaping hole in the wall opposite the gaping hole being covered by the fan:

Honestly, I had no idea there was a hole there until I took that picture.  In my defence, the angle at which I see this fish in the course of my everyday life, the hole is completely hidden, so it wasn’t until I viewed it from the angle shown in this photo that I could see the hole!  And, yes, I did say I’ve lived hear for nearly 3 years!

These fish hang directly below the big fish and perhaps they are what distracted me from noticing the hole.  They always look so sad and one of them has a broken fin. Poor fishies!

The door to the befished bathroom is bright orange.  Which goes sooo well with the bright green door next to it:

And to round out the bright colours theme: check out my kitchen.  I titled this particular photo ” We All Live In A Yellow Basement Kitchen”: