Garage Sale Score!!

I am not a big garage sale frequenter. I like resale shops and consignment stores just fine. I have no qualms about buying used items. I think it's the expectant faces of the people hosting the garage sale that make me nervous. At least when they are strangers. I like going to the ones hosted by my friends or people I know. So when I heard that our sweet friends James and Sharon were having a sale at their house this weekend I made sure to stop by. I'm so glad I did!!
We have a nice table in our dining area. It's big enough for all of us to sit and eat together and it even has a leaf for when we have company. The problem comes when we have to sit down. We used to have 6 chairs for the table. Did you catch that "used to"? One of them, we had to pull the back off and it's now more like a stool than a chair. Just ask Raley. He was sitting in it and tried to lean back. He almost went through the window screen! Another one lost its legs and has been tossed out completely. So that left us with four chairs, one of which was filled with Pattie's booster seat. Let's check our math here...
  4 chairs
- 1 with Pattie's seat
3 leftover chairs < 4 people left in our family
Which means that when we all sit down, someone either has to use the backless chair/stool or the chair from the computer desk. and that's fine when it's just us. Thanksgiving we had my wonderful parents here for dinner as well. Not only did we have to use the computer chair and the backless chair but also the exercise ball from the garage. Very classy!!
For a long time now I have been looking for a bench to put with our dining table. My parents have one for their table that has been there as long as I can remember so that feels like a natural thing for me. I have been disappointed with how hard they are to find, and how expensive they are! I had pretty much given up on it for the time being. Then I went to Sharon's garage sale.
As I walked up I noticed two dining sets in the sale. With one of them was a very nice bench. It was the light pine wood that we prefer in furniture and it even had a storage compartment in the seat. I asked if it was for sale by itself or as part of the table (which was too small for our purposes and we didn't need). Sharon's son-in-law Kevin said he had just decided they could sell it separately and that he would take $60 for it (instead of the original $100). I was so excited! Jayme was back at home so I called to talk to him about it. He decided to come down and see it himself.
Jayme was a little doubtful at first. He wasn't sure it was high enough seat-wise to fit at the table well, so Kevin told us to take it home and see. If we didn't want it we could bring it back. So we carried it home and when he saw it next to the table with all three kiddos sitting in it, Jayme was sold too. It's perfect!

I put Pattie's booster seat on the end and Clay's spot is the other side. We can fit another person in there when we need to and then we have four more chair plus the backless chair and computer chair too if needed!
I used the storage compartment to house our cloth napkins, placemats and table cloths which freed up one of my lower cabinets in the kitchen so I did this:

No more standing on a stool to reach my cookbooks that used to live above the range hood. I can reach them all with ease! And it looks like I could fit a few more in there too.....