New things for the Tyler Household

Maybe it was growing up poor that made me thrifty, or cheap; which ever you like to call me. I like thrifty. I have always enjoyed a good second hand product, be it furniture, clothes or a car.

I love searching craigslist for a good deal. Most of it is crap, but you never know when the rich folks want to up grade! And when they do, I am there for them!

Any who: I digress from the main point of the blog. Emily and I have been looking for a new kitchen table. Mom gave us her old one, and it is nice, but it only has 3 chairs and it is not really our style, but it has served us very well the past few years. We have been saving and were looking to spend around $700-$800 for a decent table. I could not find a table we liked on craigslist for months.

Last week, Renee, a friend of ours, called Emily and told her that she has a dinning room set that she thinks we would like. If you don't know, we have a dinning room that just sits empty. The pets have taken over the dinning room since that is where the sun shines the most and it is the only room on the main level with carpet. Emily and I decided a few months ago that we will forgo the dinning room set and just get a nice kitchen table that has a leaf so we can fit 6 people. But, we figured what the hell, let's go look at the dinning room set, for the right price we could be persuaded.

We show up and it is perfect, it is the color that we like, the right size everything. It came with a buffet table and hutch, plus 6 chairs and 2 leafs. We asked her the price and it was the same price we wanted to pay for a new kitchen table. Call me thrifty, but we loaded the whole set up and proudly whooooed and ahhhheed over it for 20 minutes.

So, now we can have more than 1 person over and all sit at a table. We had Mom, Justin, Meg & Norah over Tuesday for our first "official" dinner at the new table. We were quite happy. And we now have some where to put my Great Grandmother's china besides the basement.

The other thing that I have been really been wanting were bar stools, but have not been able to convince myself to spend $70-$100 a piece for decent stools. Current we have been using the bar stools that Justin gave us that go with the pub table. There are only 3. So, I have a huge bar and only 3 stools. I have been looking on craigslist for months and if I do find nice stools, there are only 2 of them and I need 5 or 6. I was starting to get discouraged and almost bought stools on sale for $60 and Emily talked me out of it. Then Friday I hit the jack pot. 6 stools for sale in St. Charles all very nice and only $25 a piece. So, as fast as I could I emailed and got her address and headed over.

So, now I have room for 6 at the 2x4 and 3 at the pub table. All I need is a touch screen game and a TV and we are in business!

And, we finally got a new pool cover. If you never saw the old one, it was horrible. It was just a large blue tarp. Picture a motel where the pool has not been opened since the 80's. I spent more time messing with the pool cover than I did cleaning the pool in the summer. Every time it rained, or the snow or ice melted, I had to go out and try to get the water off the cover, which was a huge pain. The cover was held on by water bags, well some of them froze and busted, so in the interim I put a statue of the Virgin Mary that the previous owners so graciously left us, to hold the cover. Well, the water froze and the wind blew ol Mary into the pool and it shattered. It was nice and tacky. I felt like cousin Eddie from Christmas Vacation.

The cover is a safety cover, which means you can not fall through, which is good for Winston and Norah and when we have kids. So, March has been quite the expensive month for the Tyler house hold. It makes me sick to spend a lot of money, but if I am going to do it, might as well just get it over with.

Keep on keeping on...mrrrrrrrrrr