For many years, our dining room furniture consisted of a simple round table and four chairs that my future-wife bought me as an apartment-warming gift back in 2002. It’s stood the test of time against three cats, two children, one move, and multiple house parties. However, the time had come that we’ve outgrown this little table. Probably the umpteenth time we had more than two guests over, and I had to sit on the stairs to eat. 🙂
Cognizant of the costs to purchase a new dining room set, and since she has been looking to find one she liked for years, my wife was happy to find something she liked on Craigslist. This married couple rarely used theirs, and were looking to get rid of it. I went by after work one evening to check it out, and it looked great. Pretty good condition, six chairs, a built-in leaf for expansion, and a china cabinet. Have I mentioned that our wedding china has been sitting in our basement (or storage) for 8 years?
After making arrangements, my brother-in-law Robbie was a good sport and came with me to rent the truck, and help me move the furniture to our house. A note on the rental truck process — 6 years later and the reservation process still sucks. I’m still scarred for life after spending 12 hours back in 2005 worried that we wouldn’t be able to find a truck back then. In 2011, the information on the Budget Rent-a-Truck website is still meaningless and inaccurate. To be safe, I called a few locations, and no one had the size of trucks that the website said were available. I eventually located a storage facility in Trenton that could rent me a 16′ foot truck for $29.95 a day plus mileage, but that’s after calling place after place.
The move went off without too much of a hitch, except for when we went on a wild hunt in the truck trying to find a nearby branch of my bank in that part of NJ to get cash to pay for the dining set. We efficiently loaded up the truck, sat for a quick bite at a nearby McDonald’s, and drove home. Got gas for the behemoth, unloaded the furniture in our house, I gassed up the behemoth again, and returned the truck before 4pm.
We got the table and china cabinet together, and it looks good, so we’re pretty happy.
