Frugal Finds

Later this month Rodney and I will celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary.  I can't believe that it has been that long.  And while I consider my husband to be quite frugal, this post is not about him.  When we got married (15 years ago)  we bought a cheap kitchen table set with 4 chairs.  After we moved into our current home, I wanted a bigger kitchen table.  I fell in love with a farmhouse style table.  We found it in the back room of a furniture store on clearance.  I couldn't leave it there.  So we lugged that bad boy home where it landed smack-dab in the middle of our kitchen.  Perfect!  Almost.  The table didn't come with chairs and there were no matching chairs in the back room.  But I didn't care...we would find the perfect chairs eventually.  Meanwhile, we kept the chairs from our old table.  Our new table was meant for 6 chairs, so to fill in the space we added beautiful, brown metal folding chairs (do you hear my sarcasm?).  Afterall, it would only be a little while until we bought new chairs, so we could handle the mismatched chairs until then.  Right?  Well, that was 9 years ago. We grew attached to our metal chairs - OK, not really.  It was never really a priority and we just never found a great deal on kitchen chairs.  Until yesterday, that is.  I was at an auction looking at four beautiful oak chairs.  One of the ladies that works there asked me if I was going to buy those chairs.  I told her I would love to, but I needed 6.  She told me that her granddaughter works at restaurant nearby.  That restaurant just bought brand new chairs and they were selling the old ones for $5 each.  What??? $5 for solid wood chairs?  I called Rodney (because he works right across from the restaurant) and had him go check.  Guess what?  They still had some.  YAY ME!!! Can you see me doing the happy dance? Six chairs for $30 is amazing.  Sidenote:  the oak chairs at the auction sold for $40 each.

Here is my great find.  They are darker than I would like, but they are in great shape.  You can see that they do not quite match my table.

I have some ideas for them, I just haven't made up my mind yet.  I'm still smiling about the fact that I finally have matching chairs.  But here are some of my thoughts:

Maybe I'll paint them white like this,

or this,

or maybe I'll make chair covers,

or perhaps I'll paint them black.

What do you think?  What would you do?  Time will tell. Let's just pray that it's not another 9 years.  As for our 15 year old kitchen chairs, I have plans for them too...I think a car wash is in store!  More on that later!

Wanna see more frugal finds?  Check out the Shabby Nest  every Friday to see some super-sized frugal finds!