Goal #64 – Goodwill Goodness

It may have taken almost a year and a half, but we have finally bought a dresser!  After moving across the country last year and leaving most of our big furniture behind so as not to have to rent a larger UHaul, we were short quite a bit of the big stuff when we finally settled into our new apartment.  We managed to get a few key pieces, like a couch, a rug, and a desk, but we were never able to find a dresser we liked.  Well, a dresser we liked that didn’t cost $350.  Seriously, when did dressers from IKEA get to be so expensive?  I can buy a two drawer desk for $50, but I can’t get a dresser under $350?  CRAZY!

The dresser search turned into one of those things that we kept putting off–we’ll look next month when we get paid or we’ll make it a priority as soon as I get another job.  Well, next month turned into next season and before we knew it, we were 15 months out from our move and still dresser-less.  Until the day we were packing up the apartment to move to the new house and we swung by Goodwill to drop off a load of donations.

And there it was–a nice looking dresser, still parked in the pre-sorting zone of the parking lot.  Despite my best efforts to get someone to sell it to us before it was processed by the store, we were told we’d have to come back and try our luck with the rest of the public.  Two hours later we had a few minutes to stop by again and, luckily, the dresser had made it to the sales floor!  While Heather checked it out and guarded it, I went to find a sales associate who could price it.  Under $80–yes please!! An additional %20 off because I’m a Blue Rewards customer?  SOLD!

And so the new dresser made its way to the new house where we debated what we could do with it to make it more ‘us’.  After googling the furniture refinishing process and deciding on the turquoise color we had left from painting the living room, I set to work refinishing my very first piece of furniture.  Though we still need to find a couple replacement tracks for some of the drawers, we are super pleased with how it turned out!

Take a look!

Before

And After!