Thrifty Thursday: Discount Dining Chairs

       Adding a seventh child to the clan made things pretty crowded at our dinner table. Even though the youngest eater sat in a high chair separate from the table, we still didn't have enough room or chairs. The older kids had to take turns sitting on a bar stool up at the counter during dinner. Not to mention what chairs we did have were mismatched and broken.
       We toughed it out for a while. I had really loved our dining set. It was an answer to prayer when we first bought it.
       I was pregnant with our first baby and we knew the time was fast approaching when we would need to move out of our teeny basement apartment. But our current place was furnished. Moving out would mean buying our own bed, couch, table - everything! I worried how we would ever afford it.m Then one day when I was out for walk, I saw a sign for an estate sale. I wasn't even sure what that meant, but there were tables set up on the lawn with cheap items for sale, so I stopped to look! A woman came out from the garage, carrying more items and wearing a smile. "Come on in and have a look around," she invited. "Everything inside is for sale." She explained to me that the home belonged to her mother who had recently passed away. My eye was caught by a queen-sized bed with a headboard. Richard and I had been sleeping on a double bed for over a year and things were now getting cramped as I was 7 months pregnant and required an exorbitant amount of pillows piled up around me in order to sleep comfortably! In what I hoped was a nonchalant tone, I asked the price, then braced myself for disappointment. She responded casually, "Oh, I'd say $25 ?"
       "I'll take it." I retorted, no longer concerned with sounding too eager. That price included the headboard, mattress and frame. The woman taped a handwritten SOLD sign to the bed. "Let's throw these in as well," she added cheerily, placing two sets of sheets and pillow cases atop the bed.
       It was the same story for the dinning table and chairs. A beautiful, round wood table with option to add up to 2 leaves, surrounded by 4 matching chairs cost $50. (She had to charge a higher price, she explained, because the set was new!)
       I don't recall the name of this saintly woman, but I do remember calling my newlywed sister and telling her she had to get over to my neighborhood ASAP! My sister bought some furniture as well, and the lady expressed her delight in being able to help out two young couples. "Some people come haggle with me about the prices for items they'll turn around and sell for a profit." she lamented. "It just feels good to know that Mom's things are going to people who will appreciate them and be able to use them!"
     
       15 years later, that heaven-sent table was showing its age, and its few remaining chairs had been glued back together more than once. But again, I was concerned. How could we afford something big enough for our brood? Once again, Providence smiled on us and were gifted a new table from my in-laws. They were leaving to serve a mission for our church and wanted to downsize, so we swapped dining sets!

       Our new set came with six chairs. Richard reasoned that since the table had cost us nothing, we could easily budget enough money to purchase four more chairs. That sounded grand to me - until we started shopping around.
       The lowest price we could find was a whopping $40 per chair. I suppose I could have gritted my teeth and gone ahead with it, except for the fact that even after looking at four different stores, we couldn't find a style that matched our existing six chairs. The closest we could come up with were of a lighter stain and had differently shaped spindles for the backs.
       Richard saved a coupon we'd received in the mail for one of the nearby stores and we were days away from biting the bullet and forking out 160 bucks. I decided to try the thrift store, one more time.
       In all honesty, I think I went there looking for something else, but the need for chairs was always in the back of my mind, so I perused the furniture section, just in case.
       When I found three chairs that looked nearly identical to our six at home, I snapped a picture of them and texted it to Richard. He responded "Get them!" In the time it took to reserve the three, I also found a fourth. This one was a Captain's seat with arm rests. Unique from the others, but still, it coordinated beautifully.

       I brought them home, cleaned them up and arranged them around our dinning table with pride.

       Altogether, the quartet cost us $31 -- nearly 10 bucks less than what we could have spent for one new chair.

       Thank you - Thank you! Hold your applause, please!

       This is your bargain-loving guru, signing off. If you need me, I'll be over here, basking in the glory of hand-me-down furniture.