My Dining Room Used to be Beautiful

For probably five years now, I’ve been hoping/dreaming/wanting/ saving for a lake house/Airbnb within a few hours drive of our home.  Since I’ve been planning for it, whenever I’ve changed a piece of furniture in my house, finished a great book or been offered someone’s extra garage sale leftover whatever for a house I’ve accepted, and I’ve kept things.  My shed is a mess.  My garage is packed.  My attic’s got more than a few boxes.  And I am SO excited to finally be clearing them out!

Using some of my (and other people’s) leftovers is going to help me out with my budget, which is the whole reason I’ve hung on to the things I have.

My husband and I used to own a condo in the city which we used as rental property.  (Sadly, we sold it when we adopted our son to fund the adoption.  It’s gone up significantly in value since we let it go but it’s like the pool table – one of the ones that got away.)  Anyway, we almost never had renters vacate without leaving stuff behind, and in some cases, LOTS of stuff behind. 

Always, I would sift and sort before cleaning and boxing up potentially usable stuff for the future, and donate anything I knew I definitely couldn’t use.  Over time, I’ve accumulated quite a bit of renter leftovers.  I went out to my shed a few weeks ago and uncovered four or five boxes worth of random dishes left by the last renter.  I ran everything through the dishwasher and lay it on my table to decide what to take to The House of Goodwill.  Unfortunately, there’s not a matching set of anything, and I have at least one box to donate to the Goodwill store.  (I can give as well as receive!)  There are however, lots of random extra dishes to round out whatever I buy.

I think my former renter loved Goodwill as much as I do

The dining room has become the collection area over the last month for everything I’ve been buying that’s waiting to be moved.  Right now both of our cars are full of furniture and rugs, so tomorrow we need to move the dining room table to make more space and carry more stuff in.  (My husband just wants to make sure we don’t block the path to the bourbon.)  And there’s more stuff in the garage.

We couldn’t eat Easter dinner in the dining room and it killed me.  Lamb is not meant to be eaten buffet-style in front of the tv.  In a couple of weeks I should have my dining room back again.  Not to mention a cleaned out shed, garage and attic!

my dining room shortly after beginning the house project

my dining room 3 days ago

Yikes!