Thrifty Thursday – 1950s dining table

The day that I found all the cheap Christmas stuff at the thrift stores I also hit the mother load of vintage finds. When I walked into one of my local Goodwill stores I found this beauty sitting by the check out. Holy cow!

I didn’t need a table and chairs so I just kept on walking. Plus I just assumed with it being vintage it would be overpriced. I did my lap around the store, picked up a couple things, and checked out. While I was standing at the checkout counter I looked over at the price of the table. It said $29. Um, what!? Once I was done I walked over to it and sure enough the tag said it was $29 for the table and 4 chairs.

I checked the whole thing out from top to bottom and it was in fairly good shape. A 1950s dining table and 4 chairs for $29 was kinda hard to pass up. I called my mom thinking she would either be reasonable and talk me out of it (“You don’t NEED a table and chairs. What would you do with it?”) or tell me to buy it and we’d figure it out later. Unfortunately I got her voicemail. I left a message and then called the house, she wasn’t there either. Oh well, I guess I just don’t need it right? So I headed home.

A couple hours later my mom called me and asked what I had needed. I told her about the table and she said “Go back and buy it!” We talked about it for awhile and decided at the very least I could resell it for a lot more than I was gonna pay for it. It took two trips, a Versa version of Tetris, and removing a couple of legs from the table but I got it all home.

My mom said I could store it at her house but that would have meant getting it to her. And since I couldn’t even get it to my house in one trip I REALLY didn’t want to try and get it to her house (an hour away). I decided that I would take apart the table in my craft room (the legs were removable and it would all fit in the storage closet) and use the new/old table and chairs in there. Perfect!

The table is a good bit smaller than my other one, but it looks so cute! Plus, there is now more room to move around in there. Hopefully when I move again I’ll have a place for it and if not I’ll make sure it goes to live with someone else that will love it as much as I do.

Today’s lesson? Never assume something at a thrift store is over priced just because its vintage (in a good way). If I hadn’t looked at that price tag I would have walked away from a beautiful and cheap set. The table had just been put out that morning and I was lucky that someone hadn’t snatched it up while I was gone. Hooray for thrifty karma!