The Great (Furniture) Purge : Part II

The campaign to reduce our possessions continues. This past week it was old furniture that we said goodbye to. Most of our stuff is second hand to begin with, and once we inherit anything it usually gets used till it's tattered and sagging.

We are also house hunting again. We found a bank that doesn't mind that Eli's been at the ethanol plant only six months. The hope is growing that we'll finally buy a house this year. And that thought is making us take a second look at all the stuff we may have to move. It's not a pleasant prospect. 

I bought a new (solid wood) hutch last year because my old hutch (which was made of particle board) was sagging and peeling. The last time we moved it rained while the hutch was in the back of a truck, which did it no favors. The hutch was originally a display model which was being discontinued, so it came with a few scratches--and a steeply reduced price.  I thought about leaving it in the garage as a planting/potting station, but room didn't allow for such a luxury. It had to go. 

Seeing the hutch out on the curb all by its lonesome had me eyeing our love-seat, a.k.a. "the Frankenstein couch". This treasure was salvaged from the depths of my parents' woods about seven years ago. My brothers knew a guy who was not so faithful to his girlfriend, who came home one night to a full set of furniture that was slashed into ribbons. We already had a full-sized couch, but thought the love-seat would be nice for a little extra seating in the living room. I spent an afternoon scrubbing the microfiber upholstery with Murphy's Oil Soap and stitching up the gashes with upholstery thread. It was moved out to the curb next to the hutch. Eli decided to part with our last old tube TV as well, and the motley crew got a "FREE" sign attached to them. They were all gone by the next morning.

Also on the chopping block was a pile of old dresser drawers (particle board) that were burned, and this deconstructed dresser that I was going to make a bookcase out of. It was advertised as real wood, but when they dropped it off it very obviously was not wood. The old crib is going to be gone as well before we move, but it's missing all of its hardware, so we're not exactly sure what to do with it yet.

We had inherited Little Grandma's table and chairs back when we had an accepted offer on a large house. The plan was to store it in the garage until we moved, and then use it in the school room for boys to do homework on. That never came to pass, and the table became a catch-all in the garage. We decided to sell it to someone who could actually use it. I listed it on a couple of Facebook's For-Sale groups, and it was sold within a couple hours. 

I had two wrought-iron glass-topped end tables from a long long (apartment era) time ago, that I was afraid were going to get destroyed (ahem, boys). They had been tucked away in a corner of our bedroom, unused since they didn't fit beside the bed. I decided to sell them and avoid a possible mess of broken glass. The pair brought in $25.

I have an old door in the garage that I am determined to repurpose into a chalkboard/bookcase unit. To help this happen I decided to sell our current chalkboard/whiteboard easel. We got a lot of good use out of it, but it was growing small for our big boys, and honestly I was sick and tired of buying dry erase markers whenever somebody forgot to put the lids back on. The easel brought in $10. 

All the money made from our old possessions is going into our "new house fund". The thought that it may be used to redo a bathroom, or to buy fresh paint, has taken away a lot of the indecision about whether to keep or purge. And it was really so much easier moving these things 30 feet rather than across the county! The room that these large items occupied is now free, and I feel a lot less stress with more space opening up. The living room itself has been lengthened by four feet!

For the mother post to this series, read "The Great Purge: Part I" here.