Thrifting Joy!

As an aside from the Great Bathroom Reno of '08, I had a moment when the thrifting and antiquing gods smiled upon me yesterday.

I ran across something a lot like this:

I was cruising through one of my regular weekend stops, just checking it out. It's one of those stores that is (maybe) a step or two above a real thrift store, but not in any way a real antique store either. Picture a large store with tightly spaced rows upon rows of not-so-great quality mid-fifties furniture, usually stacked on top of each other. And then on every flat surface is every single piece of glassware, ceramic, and old bottle that you turned your nose up at at the garage sale down the street. It's dusty, it's cluttered, for the most part nothing is actually displayed, and the back room smells kinda...funky.

So why do I go? Because every so often there really is something cool there, and it's usually very affordable. There's enough of a reward from time to time to make the hunting fun. So yesterday, I stumbled across a match to a petite burled walnut side table that I have. The finish needs a little work, but it's really in decent shape, especially for the price. I snatched it up with the thought that someday I may resell them as a pair.

The only downside is that I made one, ahem, rookie mistake: it's not the mirror image of my current side table, so it's not really a matched pair; the doors both swing open from the same side. Stupid. I love the tables though, so who knows if and when I'll decide to part with them. Maybe the doors won't bother the future owner either....

Smithy has been holding my camera hostage for days. Photo above courtesy of this site.