Way back, probably before Christmas, on a Saturday morning I woke up, made some tea and hopped on Craigslist real quick to check the free section. I like giving it a quick glance over on the weekends because you never know what you might find and there are LOTS of great projects to be made from the free section of Craigslist! However, free things are gone incredibly fast so I try not to get my hopes up.
I stumbled upon this crazy looking bookshelf, storage thing that was in decent shape. I immediately emailed the owner with my fingers crossed. Within minutes he had gotten back to me and I was psyched. It was the perfect sized piece for this one bare wall we had. So, naturally, I woke Al up, told him there was no time for breakfast, but a coffee for the road was cool, and we headed to retrieve our new, free, piece of furniture.
Turns out, I was so excited that I didn’t take into account that this behemoth piece was not about to fit in our car. But we were already there and I wasn’t leaving without it so we had to figure something out. We obviously didn’t have any rope on us either. Lots of bungee cords in the car always (that’s right Dad, be proud!) but no rope.
The owner was super nice and offered to give us some rope and help Al tie it to the roof. AFTER the thing was tied to the roof the owner casually slipped in that the rope he had just used to tie this beast up with was from the first hot air balloon he had ever flown and that he had owned a hot air balloon company for 15 years and had just recently sold it.
So, now, feeling completely guilty, but still thrilled with my furniture, we offered to drive the rope back to him. He insisted it was okay. But I mean come on, the FIRST hot air balloon he’s EVER flown? That’s something that deserves to be in a shadow box. Gosh, if only he read Everyday Originals he would have known that.
Anyway, after we got home I just couldn’t handle not returning it to him. So the next day I mailed it back to him with a nice note. Even if he really didn’t want it back it made me feel a lot better.
So, now we have this great piece that is perfect for the blank wall. We did have to tighten some of the brackets and clean this thing down about 7 times. It was really filthy, he had been using it in his garage for paint cans, etc. We also removed the boards from the back that the owner had there for extra support.
I bought some stain that matches the color of it so that I can touch it up. Now we just have to figure out the best use of those odd sized compartments. Any ideas?!
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