(10-09-2017, 12:56 PM)Apoc Wrote: My last garage was Ashburn and I only ever had to tidy it up, else it was always pretty spotless. This garage is... well... look at it. I took down some old boards and had to clean up rat shit... but I also found wood paneling from the 60s in its original packaging up there. Now, I feel like I sweep my garage every time the 911 is out of it. As far as stuff, I run a pretty tight ship. Everything has a place and anything new has to replace something else. It helps that the garage barely fits the tiny 911.

Somehow we managed to get to a place where furniture is marketed as luxury, even if it's crap. We bought into it because so few people make furniture any more. We have a lot of old stuff, but everything new was bought off Etsy or direct from the builder. We got a kickass custom coffee table in solid wood with colors we picked for $300. It even came right to our door free. There's A LOT of bullshit on Etsy, but I like to hunt unique/antique furniture like you guys hunt watches. It took me a full two years to find our bar cabinet. It was my E91... lots of buyers after me begged for it after I got in right when it went live. Actually, it was Craigslist... but you get the point.

(10-09-2017, 12:56 PM)Apoc Wrote: It was my E91...

(10-09-2017, 12:05 PM)WRXtranceformed Wrote: Boof fail, at least you have some options.  Side note on garages:  How often are you all cleaning out your garages?  Ours is turning into a once-every-6 months-ish project to keep spider webs / dead bugs / mouse poop / mice killin' under control.  We also live next to a forested area and (former) wetland so we probably get more wildlife than most.  But man I had to clean out my garage in the old townhouse like maybe once every 2 years.  The plus side is it has helped prevent us from accumulating crap we don't need.

Another side note on homeownership:  I feel like we've had this conversation before but it staggers me how much some people spend on furniture and think that it's perfectly normal.  I really don't wonder anymore why so many people are house poor / complain about their finances.  We went out this weekend to look for ONE tiny little side table to put a lamp on for our guest room and the best / cheapest thing we could find was about $100.  Excluding the Walmart fiber board junk, probably the average price for a little side table was $200-$250.  Really?  For a few pieces of wood you had a laborer in Thailand slap together for $10?  That's just a side table though, it's apparently a completely normal thing for people to go to a furniture store and spend $600 on a coffee table.  My father is an antique furniture dealer by trade, I get more than most people that some folks will invest in high quality, period antique furniture but this junk is not that.

We aren't rich by any stretch of the imagination but boy am I glad I married someone who is as cost + quality conscious as my wife.  There are a few local furniture builders / wholesalers that make really nice stuff for super reasonable prices, we'll probably go that route but I think this really hit me when we walked into a furniture "auction" recently (these are getting really popular down here) and saw the prices that some of that junk was going for that were considered "good deals".

(10-09-2017, 03:04 PM)WRXtranceformed Wrote: Yeah man it's nuts.  Our neighborhood has a Facebook page where people buy and sell stuff and I bought our kitchen nook table and chairs basically brand new for $400 off of a For Sale post.  The table is a really nicely built solid wood piece with built in folding leaves that I think wifey told me was $1k+ by itself and the 4 upholstered chairs were something like $200-$250 a piece brand new from Bed Bath & Beyond.  This lady got all of it as a gift from her children but she wanted something more antique-vibed so dumped it "cheap".  Even I thought $400 was a lot but you just can't find really nice furniture for not outrageous prices.