A Grateful A Day #13: Craigslist

I'm a longtime fan of craigslist classifieds. I look around the apartment, and I realize that all of the following pieces of furniture in our home were obtained from craigslist ads:

• the computer armoire where I'm sitting to type this
• the Ikea storage cabinet alongside the armoire (I was so thrilled to score an additional Aneboda wardrobe in a discontinued color so it would match the other two we already had! Cheaper than the originals, and in great condition, too!)
• the dining room table and chairs
• the sewing machine table in my "studio"
• the train/art table in the kids' play room

Just this weekend, S scored a big stash of D&D items -- for free!

Over the years, I've bought and sold lots of stuff as well. Baby gear came and went as we needed it and then outgrew it. (Arm's reach co-sleeper, crib, pack and play, baby bjorn, Joovy stroller....) Moving out of the old house, craigslist and I were like this. (Imagine me crossing my fingers.) I'd taken a break from cl until recently, when I got the itch to improve our space a bit. New computer armoire for hundreds of dollars (even thousands of dollars!) or used one for $55? Easy to answer that question!

Just last month, it only took a matter of hours to sell the chest of drawers that was replaced by the new Aneboda cabinet. Listed it in the afternoon, gone by the evening! I recently sold off the kids' bike trailer that we only used a half dozen times (so good in theory....) and last week I was especially relieved to sell off my only example of craigslist buyer's remorse -- I'd bought a new bedframe that just didn't quite work out when I got it home and we set it up, sold it off the next day. I felt pretty bad about it at first, given all the hassle of getting it here and taking down the old one and setting up the new-to-us one; I just had wanted it to work so badly, I didn't measure carefully enough when I went to check it out. But then I decided to give myself a break. Considering I've been cl'ing for years, only one bad purchase is a pretty good track record.

Craigslist, whatever did we do without you?