- This website should be banned at my house.
So my mom came over the other day to visit. Sounds great I know but here is what always happens when she comes around. Yes, we eat great food and laugh a lot, but what you don't know is my mom is like a walking episode of HGTV. All she ever does is find out what has to be fixed or improved at my house. But what's worse is every-time she comes over she finds something wrong in my house. She finds something that should be painted, replaced or upgraded. No matter what it never fails with her.
So you're probably wondering, "what was it this time?" Well aside from the 20 trees in the yard she thinks should be cut down, she said I have to buy a "grownup dresser". Here's the problem. The one I have is from Ikea and has been moved probably 20 times and refinished at least four times. Now, in the other room, my sweetie is using a repurposed TV armoire for his clothes (it's not even an actual dresser). So, the prospect of buying just a dresser wasn't enough. So this turned into a whole bedroom set.
Now what a lot of you know about me is that I am Greek. Well what you might not also know is that being Greek means I don't like to spend more money than I have to on the things that I want. (unless of course we are talking about sneakers) ;D - So I turned to... Craigslist. Big mistake. This is where it all began going wrong. Not only are you setting yourself up to be possibly murdered and turned into someone's dinner or inviting a thief to mug you but you could get bedbugs from the crap you buy from these people.
Well... here is how this went down. After about 3 hours of searching on two computers and a couple trips to about 20 garage sales, the Goodwill store, Ikea and every furniture store within a 20 mile radius I found - nothing. Nothing that would at least match my Pottery Barn/Restoration Hardware standards on a Target Budget.
So now my mom gets going on this kick of finding me the perfect set and when she sets out on a mission, it never ends. So, she starts calling me and emailing me all day while she's supposed to be at work until she finds one. It's great looking. But here's the thing, I am in NYC at an audition and my mom calls and leaves me 2 voicemails and about 5 texts saying "Did you get my emails"? I text back, "what email"? She replies "I found you two beautiful bedroom sets on craigslist" then tells me I have to go to Danbury Connecticut to see the first one. Danbury? (This is a 60+ mile drive). Yep, I did it. I drove me and my sweetie all the way to Danbury to see some furniture that I would never come to buy. Then raced all the way up to Poughkeepsie NY another 40 miles away. There I found what would be my wonderful new set of "grown up" furniture.
The problem with all of this, it's over 50 miles from my house and I forgot to stop at the ATM before we got to the middle of nowhere on a windy road - let alone I had to be the chiropractor in 60 minutes back down where I live just outside the city and Jillian Jetta won't carry it all. So, I had to go home and turn around to go back and buy it the next day. The problem with that is I didn't have a vehicle big enough. So we rented a van from Enterprise for $59. Did I mention that we paid $15 for insurance + tax. So now we have spent about $25 in gas and had to spend another $50 in gas for the van. So we drove up through 2 tolls 2 times and had to pay about $10 in tolls.
Well we finally got there. We loaded up the truck and paid the man his $500. Yep, the Greek Girl bought a used set of furniture for $500. Great deal! But wait! It gets better. I figured since we were on our way home we should stop at the local GoodWill Super Store. Yes they have one in Poughkeepsie. There I would hope to find my new "vanity". By now, my Sweetie is about to have his head come loose. He said, "Vanity? What are you talking about? Since when do you want a new vanity?" Well... we ended up stopping. No they didn't have any, but I did find a brand new purse for only $16.
Okay, now we get back home and unload all the furniture into the garage. We race back to the rental place to return the van. Then we get back home to look at our very own Craigslist special furniture set. (BTW we didn't get a mattress that would be just disgusting, and already have a new amazing mattress). We then realized the furniture matched the bedroom floor. Ut oh.... Now we have a problem. Ava, someone's got some splaining to do.
So we go to Home Depot and Lowe's and figure out we need some stripper, paint brushes, rubber gloves and new knobs. All together our purchase was over $98. So now since my mom decided I needed a new dresser that would not have cost more than $150 has now turned into a 5 piece bedroom set that needs to be refinished for a grand total of $794 and I still don't have my vanity.
Tune in next time to learn about my vanity and how that came out. It's still a work in progress. Oh and did I forget to mention all this is taking place while I'm recording a new project, working on a music video, and new "Ava The Diva Cartoon" episode... Good gravy I really need to get Mr. Bricks back in the salt mines so he can get me my record deal so I won't be buying furniture off of craigslist. just sayin.
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