My First Date with Craig

A few weeks before our wedding earlier this year, I was completely tired of planning it and excited to move on to furnishing and decorating our prospective (now actual) house.  Of course, now that I'm totally exhausted by the house, I really miss planning the wedding...grass is always greener, huh? Anyway, I was trolling craigslist for furniture, and was intrigued by a listing for a solid wood china cabinet for $100.  I had never contacted anyone regarding a craigslist post before, and was really nervous to send a stranger my phone number, didn't know what the procedure was, or what questions to ask, and needed some encouragement to follow through, but I am SO glad that I did.

The seller was a really sweet girl, who was making room for a new dining set she had already purchased, and so just happened to have the matching dining table and 6 chairs available as well.  Super convenient and also, I loved them!  She held all the furniture for us until the weekend when we could come back with a truck (and sweetly deducted the cost of the truck from her asking price - $100 for the table and chairs as well).  The ride home was slightly iffy, and we had to make quite an urgent pit stop after coming dangerously close to losing the table.  

Here's Husband re-securing our cargo:

That photo still cracks me up because we were 3 weeks away from our wedding, buying a roomful of furniture for a house that we didn't even own yet.

Our haul lived at Mum's house for weeks and weeks until we actually moved into the house.  Then, finally, we got to see it in our freshly painted dining room!

The chairs are painted brown because the seller was planning on rehabbing the whole set before she found her new one.  She gave me the paint just in case I needed touchups, or wanted to finish the job she started.  I don't, though.  I have another in the works. You'll also notice the lack of cushions on the chairs.  We have them - they're just awaiting their transformation in the garage at the moment.

The wine tower in the corner was a wedding gift (thank you!), the rug was on clearance at Bed, Bath & Beyond, and the bowl on the table is from IKEA.

And that is the story of how we furnished the dining room for under $200.