When Nancy and I first married, we lived in a furnished basement apartment. The only furniture I owned was a stereo, a 19-inch GE TV and a guitar. Nancy had a single bed and dresser to match. But we were expecting our first child and we bought a house for $19,500 – the best investment we ever made. It was a modest home with 3 bedrooms, a bath, and a full unfinished basement, but it would be a really, empty house unless we found some furniture.
We talked the owners into leaving the refrigerator with the house. It was avocado green, and the stove and oven were built in. My Daddy George went to an auction and bought an iron bed frame which we still have and use to this day. We bought a used mattress and box springs and found a used baby bed, so we would at least have somewhere to sleep. Then the search began. In those days, there was such a thing as classified ads and the paper had several pages of used stuff. It was our version of Craig’s List. We scoured the pages every day and found an old china cabinet in veneer and a dining room table with 4 chairs. We talked another seller out of a bed frame and mattress for the guest room and picked up a second dresser for our bedroom, a used sofa and chair for the living room and the house was mostly furnished. We picked up a $5 dresser for the baby’s room and a playpen for three bucks and we were home free. Nancy’s water broke when we were picking up the last piece of used stuff, and by the next day, we had a baby girl and a furnished house for her to come home to.
I think we paid about $300 for all those furnishings, and it was fun – like a treasure hunt – scouring Charlottesville and Albemarle County for super deals on used stuff.
I really miss those days of Want Ads and I look back fondly on the times when we really had to stretch our dollars to makes ends meet. Somehow, those days make you truly appreciate all the modern things we now have in our lives.
