This vacation home project is really humming along. I was completely deflated last week when I found out that purchasing everything on my shopping list new would equal the price of a vacation. That's just unacceptable. So with great resignation I looked to alternative sources and have actually reached the tipping point. This thing might actually work!
The first thing we did was come up with a budget. Since we are on the envelope system, there was already money in the household envelope from prior months. So that's a no-brainer to include. Then, we did a soft reboot on the August finances in the other envelopes down to bare minimum, and donated everything else to the cause.
The dining room table was spread out with handyman fix-it projects. The table had either specialized tools for the job, or existing parts, and each little pile had a sticky note explaining what was to be done and at what point to change plans. The dining room table got $100. The tasks were everything from bark dust to fixing lamps. Lots of miscellany. I'm reading by one of those new, fixed lamps right now. It was my grandmother's. I remember twirling its hexagonal shape between my fingers as I waited for something new to happen over there, as it always did. Now the lamp is working again after a few years. I'm glad we kept it.
The next category was the "definitely costs money" category. We decided on two things, a plumber for our schizophrenic dishwasher, and a handyman for our back door which persists in requiring a certain drafty clearance from the floor in order to open. We could have fixed lots of other things. For example, the house has a unique key for every lock in every door, which will make you mad if you try to label your keys and similarly mad if you don't. But deteriorations and wastefulness outbid mere irritants. The costs-money category got only $120. So the plumber and handyman in those cases is my dh, which as he will freely admit definitely puts those projects at-risk.
The last category is the "definitely costs money - home furnishings" category of which I am in charge. Today, like last weekend, I got up early and began "garage sale-ing." It's like going sailing only spelled different. As of today, the budget is completely spent in my category, which was $200 to start with. Truth be told I do need a few more things in the sheets category - although I have the duvets and the mattress pads taken care of, which were most expensive. I also need more towels. I think the budget was under by maybe $100, but I'm willing to sacrifice my ebay account towards the cause, so that will help. Overall I'm feeling very successful about thinking on the fly on what will match and what will look good. I have only made a few mistaken purchases: the pillowcases that had "property of south hill academy" written in sharpie - how did I miss that? And then the sheet set that was supposed to be double but turns out to be twin. For some reason I am having huge luck in the cutesy-pie shabby-chic type style, which is fine, it is certainly clearly distinguishable from our own and thereby our regular more masculine and definitely more crappy sheets will never get intermixed with these lofty groomed poodle type products.
While that is going fairly successfully, I am also finding some great stuff in other categories that I can't resist. Right now I have treated 2 1950s bowling bags to one of what will be many treatments to restore the original lustre and hopefully pass as something usable for the fall season. I know they are from the 50's because the name tag has the phone number starting with letters. Those were an easy buy. The big houses are invariably run by people I will have a lot in common with 30 years from now. They are thrifty, know the value of an item, and detail oriented enough to insist on it. I have vowed not to buy any clothes this Fall - only things like shoes, coats, bags, things you don't normally think of - but this one sale was my weakness today. Good thing I am not 1 size smaller (yeah, good thing. Hmmm.) because I would have bought the whole rack of specialty handmade and forward-looking items. As it was I bought only two, out of entertainment, so that's it for lattes for the month for me.
The garage sale scene in Seattle on Saturday mornings is huge. Lots of families, lots of people in transition and neighborhoods feeling normal. People talking to each other like they have known each other forever. One woman running the cash register at the big house sale used to watch my oldest boy. She stood guard as I changed in the living room. Now that's a neighborhood.
Speaking of lattes, I was practically assaulted today by a couch. I drove up to the thrift store and there it was, it had just been donated, and hadn't even gone through the pricing or warehouse stage. I sat on it and was chastised by my dh. "It's not on the list!" he said fairly. I asked how much it was and it was 40 bucks. This is for a clean, attractive couch with all the cushions and no evil smell. We are short about 6 couches in casa Titanic so I put my foot down. "We're buying it." After a semi-fight in the parking lot that was a little too white trash for my taste, I bought it out of entertainment. This means definitely no lattes unless I sell something on ebay, which is a thought. Dh rebelled by picking up random things in the store saying they were great deals even though we didn't need them. I rebelled by spending the next 3 hours securing transporation for the couch and making it happen, then dropping dead of exhaustion.
I'm sitting on the new couch now, and honestly, I think someone was just in a hurry to move and couldn't fit it in the truck. This is a great find. I'm writing from a new corner of my living room lit up by my grandmother's newly-fixed lamp. I'm washing loads of shabby chic sheets and drinking 15.00 wine that I got for 5.00. If I get too used to this, I will never be able to buy prada again.