A New-To-Us Piece!

Meet our new display cabinet for $595 - not your grannies hutch!  We have been looking for something to fill a space in our dining room bump-out for three and a half years. I was thinking a small buffet would work.  I prefer buying used furniture but unfortunately Vancouver Island has a quite tight resale market where it is difficult to find used pieces in good condition at a price we can live with.  Out of frustration when we moved here we ended up purchasing a table, six chairs and a bedroom suite new because there was just nothing on the used market that we liked.  Moving our old set was not an option, why pay thousands more to move old furniture way past its prime? Two of the six new chairs are now falling to pieces - this after only 3 years of light use (our furniture always looks like brand new because we take extremely good care of it).  Just last weekend we went and looked at a new dining room set including matching buffet.  Let's just say the buffet alone was twice as much as the purchase price of this cabinet.


We went to the farmers market this past Saturday and stopped by the antique store next door.  Hubby who really is not into antiques spotted this old mahogany display cabinet.  The feet and base are not original and come off.  The owner of the store was very frank with us, he thinks that the cabinet was likely a display piece for a store, somewhere around 1880.  The base feet were likely added in the 1940s,  but really match it nicely.  He found an old sale sticker on the back from the 1970s where it had sold for $750.  Antique furniture was reasonably priced in the 1970s, skyrocketed in the 1980s and 1990s and the bottom fell out after that.  I am very happy this is now affordable to us.

We are paying someone $65 to deliver it, as it weighs a ton and is old original glass (with air pockets and character) on all sides.  I would hate to wreck a beautiful new to me piece of furniture by trying to move it ourselves plus get a hernia in the process.  Hubby likes the shop so much he wants to keep our eye out for more furniture that would suit our more modern tastes.  I like anything funky, and have always loved antiques but want character more than anything.  I do not get attached to most furniture but already love this piece.

Another busy week ahead as I had Elections Canada training yesterday and begin working the advance voting polls on Friday.  Yes, advance polls are all over the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.  As my family agreed to move up our turkey day, on Sunday we had our scrumptious 85 cent a pound utility turkey with all the trimmings and pumpkin pie.  All I can think about is getting the travel fund a little fatter with the wages from working the election.  I like to have more than enough in the account at travel time.  Then, if we wish to overspend, there is no bad credit card hangover when we get home.  If we don't overspend there is a small cushion of money to go towards our next travel adventures.

That is all I've got for this week - Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to all my Canadian bloggy friends!