Craigslist Amazing Find!

So, on Wednesday night I was casually perusing Craigslist fully expecting not to find anything really of value. There's always the standard fare like 80's dining tables priced for $500, lovely mid-Century Danish furniture for $275 a dining chair, horribly pastel hand-painted side tables, waiting room furniture, and stuff that husbands list just to make their wives happy about getting something out of their garage. 

Then I saw this:

It was listed as $100 for the entire set. For. The. Entire. Set. 

I quickly jumped at the chance to hit the "reply" button to try and snag this amazing deal. I was also a little nervous because 1) last time I tried to purchase something on Craigslist the guy basically said, "yeah, I'll meet you on Saturday at the mall" and never showed and 2) I've never bought anything on Craigslist. 

The couple were very polite and responded to my excitedly-written email by giving me more detailed pictures. They just wanted to make sure that I was aware that the set wasn't in brand new condition and included these:

I still wasn't deterred and wanted to see the set so we decided that I'd drive down to South Seattle and take a look. I wanted this table bad or I might have second guessed driving down there in rush hour traffic. The normal twenty-five minute trip took over an hour but I occupied my time by dreaming of an awesome dining set with newly recovered seat cushions. 

A quick glance at the table (which they had nicely already removed the table legs and hardware) and a chair test (they were all solid and not wiggly!) and we knew we had to have it. Sure, it had some imperfections but it was solid wood and if it had a really horrendous problem after adding some Old English scratch cover, we could refinish it. 

The couple actually told me that they had many, many inquiries on the table but my enthusiastic emails set me apart and they knew I had to be the one to have it. Isn't that funny?

It fits in so beautifully into our little 60's rental! It also came with a table leaf which would be cool down the road if we wanted to use the four chairs for the sides and maybe find two similar chairs for the ends to make it a six-seater. (I couldn't wait to get home today from my internship just to gaze lovingly at it.) 

I am totally psyched with this purchase! Isn't it always the case that you find something when you're not even looking? I'm also not used to having such a wonderful Craigslist selection. The best thing I could find on Craigslist in Virginia was some old toilets someone had sitting in their lawn, toddler clothes, a particle board dresser, and if I was lucky, a used waterbed. 

I can't wait to refinish the seats (because baby blue is so not my style) and I'm just now starting to shop around. I've got a few that I like:

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I wasn't necessarily going for neutrals but that seems to be what I'm leaning toward right now. I want something that's going to wear well and not discolor from blue jeans because I've seen that with my recovered desk chair that I did a while back. 

We'll see how it goes, I'm just ecstatic from such an awesome find!