We found a set of four side chairs by Conant-Ball and this very lovely drop-leaf table today at two different antique malls. The whole set came to less than $200. (Tracy found a single side chair selling online for that much.) The table has a mechanism by the Watertown Table Slide Corporation that makes it easy to open the table and put in the two leaves–very versatile!
Oh, and we found this other chair at the Brass Armadillo for $25. I can’t remember the manufacturer.
I was browsing a Restoration Hardware catalog (that I had saved since 2005!) and noticed a really lovely luggage stand with paisley straps for $149. Of course, it was no longer available, and a similar one was sold out too.
I had already come close to buying one at the Brass Armadillo. Oprah had a story about how you could do a “fakeover” and convert it into designer stool at this link http://www.oprah.com/home/Luxury-bedroom-budget-price. Other stories advised turning it into a tray stand. I already had plenty of trays–I got them free with a three bottle set of Ravenswood wines. I found that www.spacesavers.com had this luggage stand for $54.99 plus shipping.
However, my husband and I went to an estate sale at a beautiful home in the hills yesterday and scored the one at the top of this post for only $10. We are well on our way to our own bedroom “fakeover”, and it won’t cost anywhere near Oprah’s $2,500 budget. But hey, thanks for the idea!
Next on our wishlist was a storage bench for just inside the door. The one sold at Stacks and Stacks (the new Linens n Things) was going for $270.
We found a good deal at Overstock.com for $209 (or less depending on the style). But this morning we saw an ad on Craigslist for a parking lot sale–a stager was going out of business. There were truckloads of furniture and accessories and we bought a few items and returned later when the second truck arrived. Score–$40 for this one! We even have the bricks to match–cosmic!
A bench of a deal!
Before we left for Phoenix, I was reading some magazine like Traditional Home or Country Living or the like, where I saw a nice living room grouping using a trunk as a coffee table. Wouldn’t you know it, Walmart, Sam’s Club, even Overstock.com, had a knock-off of the one in the magazine, selling in the $165-185.00 range.
So we were at a yard sale and spotted a “shabby chic” version of the trunk for only $25! Thanks to Scott’s Liquid Gold, it looks pretty good.
Shabby chic trunk
As my husband and I were driving to Phoenix, I was reading a magazine that featured a nice black swan watering can like this one offered at Karma Kiss.
At $14.00 plus shipping, that wasn’t too terribly expensive. However, we happened to be shopping at the Ikea in Tempe, Arizona just a few days later and found its counterpart for only $1.99. Since we were on an Arizona “buycott”, I purchased one–along with a lot of other stuff. Your home could have decor very similar to that shown in national magazines for a fraction of the cost. Stay tuned to see what I find next!
Favorite discoveries = Web 2.0 Awards, Just the Winners – I could spend weeks sampling the winners in the various categories.
Lifelong Learning Goals = This was really helpful because I thought that I would have to seek out my own training–which I often do, but it is nice to see our library system embracing the vision of 2.0 wholeheartedly and at all levels. (I once worked for a supervisor who would not authorize a training session in the use of internet and email–back when it was all text-based–saying that “only librarians would ever need to use the Internet”). Having a deadline for completion was crucial!
Unexpected outcomes = I guess I wasn’t as far behind the learning curve as I had supposed. I just need to make a commitment to use what I have learned and remember to keep exploring. Oh, and I got a great deal on a flight for my vacation!
Improve? = It covered an awful lot of information for some people. Perhaps you could have levels of achievement so that we wouldn’t feel like failures if we couldn’t complete the entire thing in the allotted time. Also, we found that many of the computers at work did not have plug-ins or Flash players that were needed to view things, or that they simply crashed. So, of necessity, I did a lot of exploring from home.
I would appreciate more learning opportunities like this–thank you!
I have used NetLibrary a lot! Many times over the years, the only way I could access a book I needed for a library school class was through NetLibrary. I found a title new to me: 100 Most Popular Picture Book Authors and Illustrators: Biographical Sketches and Bibliographies. It isn’t as comprehensive as Something About the Author, but it does have the people that kids ask for most.
I have tried to download various books to my MP3 player, but I haven’t had much luck. I think I will have to buy a different one from the list of compatible devices. 
The search on www.podcastalley.com resulted in the most useful results. I subscribed to the feed for Kankakee Public Library. They have a series of podcasts like ”Biblio Tech” (Public School-Public Library Cooperation) and library guests (including Arlo Guthrie). The only problem is that trying to play them crashes my work computer repeatedly, so I will have to view them at home.
I have used a little “Flip Video” to take videos and post them to YouTube. It was reaaaallly easyto do, especially with a laptop, but I must say that the quality suffers horribly in the translation. I like the fact that other people can rate the video and write comments. Here is one I took at the All Star Fan Fest when Cal Ripkin took a cell phone call in the middle of giving an autograph! A comment from someone else who was there confirmed our reaction!
I used www.faretracker.com and signed up for email alerts for flights from Oakland to Tampa. I also checked “compare airfares” under Flexible Travel and found out that I could save $$$ by taking the redeye right after leaving work on a Thursday instead of waiting until the next morning–and I get a whole extra day of sunshine and baseball that way! Rumor has it that the Tampa Bay Rays might be interested in Barry Bonds. And maybe I will get to see Roger Clemens with the Houston Astros in Kississimee! Can you tell that I am ready for a vacation?
