FEVER

Well kids, here it is. The story that brought the blog back from the dead. Or the vast void of cyperspace. I have been reading this blog lately, and dying of home improvement lust. I REALLY want a farm. But since I can't have a farm at the moment (more on that in the coming weeks), I am nesting like crazy in my non-farm. Hence the home improvement lust. Anyway...

The folks over at Young House Love are young, hip, totally balls out home improvers. They also like a good deal. And they scored some totally rad dining chairs on Craigslist for an amazing price. And then shrunk and dyed cheap slipcovers to look amazing, but I am letting my lust get ahead of me. Again.

So. We need chairs. And a table. Desperately. We have a pub table that seats four that my fantastic hubby Aaron built (he is pretty balls out too). It is a great pub bachelor table, but it is small. We can have exactly 1 person over before we have to start nervously shifting from one foot to the other while trying not to spill wine and drop food standing and eating. It has been like this for ages and now, thanks to the damn talented Young House Lust people, I get the FEVER for chairs.

You know the FEVER don't you? The "have to have it now or I will just DIE" fever? Yeah, I had that. So I have been haunting Craigslist for cool chairs just like my new internet idols. The only problem is that our local Craigslist is small town pond and the chairs are pretty... uhm... well... bad (no offense Wenatchee). So I was trolling the big town Craigslist (Seattle) looking for better chairs when I saw a random ad and clicked on it.

Words like "mid-century" and "modern" and "available TODAY" danced in front of my eyes. Oh! And the price! Perfect! I called at 4:00 PM on a Sunday. A very nice lady answered and explained that she was going back to Portland the next day and we had to pick up the items that night if we wanted them. I asked her "are they solid wood?" and she said "yes" so we were sold. This was the kind of Craigslist deal I had been dreaming about. Nevermind the fact that we had to drive 3 HOURS each way to pick them up... and it was already 4:15 PM... and the fact that we had a roast on the grill at that very instant... and the fact that Aaron had to work the next day... nope, we both had the FEVER now and the only cure is PURCHASE.

So off we went. Roast into the crock-pot, kid into the car, and we began our adventure. Since this is already embarassingly long, I will skip past the part where we got lost in Cle Elum (no, I don't know how that happens either) and straight to the part where we arrived and laid eyes on our treasures.

"WTF?!?" you say? "Those aren't chairs!? That ad lady LIED to you." Well... yes and no. See, we knew they weren't chairs. We just liked the look and it seemed like a fun, spontaneous adventure. And a good deal. Which it was, until we layed eyes on our charming, veneer-over-particle board sideboard and cabinet. In hindsight, the ad said something about "walnut" and the picture was clearly teak... which makes sense now that I know the top of both pieces is veneered with walnut laminate and the rest is covered in teak veneer. Shudder.

"Hey Annie, that photo looks like it was taken in your living room. How weird that someone else would have ugly blue carpet too." Uhmm... yeah. We bought them. Hey! Don't judge. It was 8:00PM, we were 3 hours from home and we already had the $80 in our pocket. Driving an empty trailer home really didn't seem like fun...

... but neither was a 3 hour return trip without the "cool purchase" high that accompanies a good bargain. We had 3 hours to marvel at our particle board disaster. Then we got home (at 11:30), where the delicious smell of roast mocked us as we came in the door. Since they were already here, in our garage no less, we figured we might as well haul them into our living room. No, I really don't know what we were thinking. I don't have any good excuses. All I can say is that we were sick. Really ill, running a FEVER and not thinking clearly. And for the sake of your home decor, do not ingest Craigslist immediately after devouring Young House Love.