Nate featured a woman who he had seen in a New York Times interview. Left with a budget of $2500 she decorated her entire house from Craigslist. (Or so we were told on the show. In fact it was a mixture of Craiglist, garage sales, and family leftovers.) I really liked her couch, but they didn't give any details about it.
She then helped a woman decorate her dining room on $650 - all from Craigslist. This woman said she had never even considered buying "second hand furniture." It would have never occurred to her to shop for "used furniture online."
It was killing me. I mean - really? Is this such a novel idea? Enough to warrant both a NY Times interview and an appearance on a national TV show? Because I've been doing it for years. There is barely a stick of furniture in my house that I bought new from a store. In fact, I had to do a walkthrough of my house to come up with a list:
1. Side table in girls' room ($12 on clearance at Target)
2. Bookshelf that was relocated today from son's playroom to bathroom ($10 on clearance at Big Lots)
3. Bed in master bedroom ($100 at Garden Ridge - but really free as it was a gift from Mom)
4. Queen mattress on master bed (if mattresses are furniture? $375 including delivery)
5. Bookshelf in master bedroom ($15 - Ikea)
That's it. And we have a TON of furniture. Everything else is either a hand-me-down, garage sale purchase, found item (the majority really - my boyfriend gets a lot of free furniture from his job), or a Craigslist find.
Now, we can't afford to go to Pottery Barn and buy a house full of furniture (and wouldn't anyway because I have Knock-Off Wood.) So maybe that has something to do with the utter lack of storebought in my house. But I think pretty much everyone starting off has this same approach. Otherwise you're eating dinner on the floor and sitting on cardboard boxes to watch TV.
Anyway, his guest did offer some good Craigslist shopping advice here. I agree with her about Saturday being the best day to shop Craigslist because of new postings and the fact that people are home so you can go pick it up right away. I need to take her advice on not getting guilted into buying a piece you don't like (I've never felt pressure from someone I'm buying from, but I do have the feeling that if I said no it would be just a big waste of time, so I usually just buy it anyway), and going with a friend. Unfortunately, I almost always go places on my own and thankfully haven't had any even remotely scary encounters. But it's always better to be safe than sorry.
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