Craig's List becomes a verb

There are times when you know what you want, but actually getting your hands on it is not as easy as it may seem.  We had come to the conclusion that to find a hide-a-bed for our little home would be ideal.  It would turn one room into a multi-functional location to suite many of our needs.  The plan was to turn what was in the original design of the house, the master bedroom into our guestroom/family room/ dining room/ library.

All we needed was the right dining table, the right book shelves and of course the right hide-a-bed.  The hide-a-bed was an easy find (or so I thought).  I had seen several Ikea Ektorp hide-a-beds for sale and sometimes for free on Craig's List.  As I looked I discovered I was not alone!  It seemed like everyone in Vancouver was trolling Craig's List for the exact thing that I needed and was looking for.

I must admit there were times when my Craig's Listing became an obsessions.  It was more than a hobby.  It was an action I was taking part in.  It was a verb.  Some people like to go for a walk.  Some go for a run.  I Craig's List.  I needed to be focused. I knew I had to be aggressive.  There was no way I could find success in my search unless I did.

At any spare moment I would go and check the listings to see if my need was there.  There were many hide-a-beds that were listed.  Many in which my response was too slow to find success.  I knew I needed to be  decisive.  Then when I thought I had found the answer I discovered the dreaded presence of cats.  Don't misunderstand me, I love cats.  The problem is that my wonderful wife is allergic to them.  I had to turn down the great deal I had found.

I am not sure how long it took, but after likely more than a couple of weeks, I finally scored exactly what I was looking for.  A white Ikea Ektorp hide-a-bed.  It came complete with 1 1/2 extra covers.  When I arrived at the house I discovered they too had cats.  My heart sank.  As I talked with them, they disclosed that they had family and friends with cat allergies that were okay in their house.  They had hard wood floors and kept everything very clean.  Considering the journey I had been on I decided that this was worth the risk.  When we got it home, we did need to wash the covers to get rid of the last of the cat dander, but everything was okay.

I decided that I liked to Craig's List.

Fish Pond

When you move into a house you are always left with what someone else thought was a good idea.  Many times you feel a need to change what others have done.  This may or may not be straight forward.  When we moved in we found that our backyard had a fish pond.  This was not just any fish pond, but a fish pond that was hand dug (the clay was spread over the flower garden).  The pump was precariously perched on the edge of the brick surround and powered by a series of daisy chained interior extension chords.   It was also right outside our basement door.  A small child could have easily tripped and fallen into the 3 foot deep pool of slimy green water. Okay we didn't feel safe about the whole set-up!

We were encouraged when we found that putting food in the water brought fish up.  That meant things could have been worse, the fish were at least alive!

We knew we needed to get the fish to a safer location and to remove the pond.

Seeing as my wife and I both work full time, we found it hard to imagine how we could do all the work ourselves.  Here is where I wondered if we could sell the fish, and hopefully the pond on Craig's List.  I really didn't know if this would fly, but I also knew I couldn't hire someone to come and do the work for me either.

I wish I had taken picture of the pond.  It may not have helped me sell it, but it would have been great for this post.  I advertised it on Craig's List for $75.  After a couple of inquiries I ended up selling the pond and the fish for $50.  The humbling thing was that it took the people who bought it a good 10 hours to do all the work to remove the fish and the pond.  This was 10 hours I didn't need to spend working on the yard/pond and actually saved me the time and money of getting rid of it. It was encouraging to receive an email the next day from the purchaser letting me know that the fish were happy and well in their new surroundings.

 Not only this but it gained us $50 for our Craig's List jar.  We have tried to only spend money on Craig's List that we make on Craig's List.  Exceptions to this are when we have been gifted money and we decide to purchase the "gift" from Craig's List rather than a retail store.  So far so good.  We have had some great success and a few failures as well.

In the beginning...

It was almost a year ago that we moved into our new home.  Well, it is definitely not a new house, but it was new for us. Making a house into a home is so much more than finding the right magazine and copying the layouts within.  A home is a display of the heart.  It is where family happens.  It is where collective personalities gather and create something unique.   All those who enter find something of the character of each of its' inhabitants.

When you set out to make a home there are always limitations.  For many of us the greatest one seems to be that of finance.  The theory is that you can always find the right piece if you are willing to spend the right amount of money.  For us this was not really a possibility.  Most ideas had limitations.  Most often these revolved around money, some were limited by time, and others by space.

As we have continued to transform a house into our home we have discovered the joy of Craig's List. Early on as we were moving in the thought struck me that I could likely find anything I would need on Craig;s  List and likely at a much more affordable price.  I haven't set out over the past year to make this thought come true, but as the year has progressed I have found most times that Craig's List has exceeded my expectations.

I will let you in on some of what I/we have experienced and hopefully share with you some of the new discoveries I/we make as they happen.

Welcome, and enjoy the ride of discovery!