"The Conversation Piece" this Week - Found it on Craigslist (5/28/17 - 6/3/17)

Every week, I scour the internet to find interesting articles or websites to share with you. Sometimes related to home decor, often times related to vintage, and always fun and interesting! Topics that start conversations, teach you something new, or make you think.

Pour yourself a cup of coffee and tune in each Saturday for “The Conversation Piece” – you never know what we’ll discover to talk about!

The Conversation Piece this Week

This week I stumbled on an article called This NYC Interior Designer’s Apartment Is a Craigslist-Hunter’s Dream by Maggie Winterfeldt on Popsugar. So many great finds in this article – I had to share it with you!

A few of my favorite Craigslist finds from the above linked article:

Craiglist is definitely a great source to shop for vintage items. I’ve often found items for a very reasonable price, and lots of things that were being given away for free. For example, I found a large real slate chalkboard that came from an old school house for $35! That chalkboard now hangs in my shop/studio space, and I think it looks perfect there. I also found a huge load of granite and marble that had been salvaged from a demolished bank in a small town near us – it was in the FREE section! I’ve sold some of the pieces, and am hoping to make patio tables out of the granite, and marble window ledges for our bonus room. Another find in the free section was a unique vintage typewriter table with a folding side table attached. The tabletop was made of wood and was in very poor condition, so my husband made a new tabletop for it. Now it’s one of my favorite tables, and looks great in our home library. I bought a set of four antique cast iron lantern housings that had a while porcelain finish for $10. The man who was selling them thought they were junk because they were chippy and rusty and just wanted to get rid of them. I listed them in my shop and they sold the same day. Sort of wish I would have kept them, they really were great. These are just examples of some of the wonderful vintage things I have found on Craiglist.

One tip I have for you when looking for vintage items on Craigslist, is to be creative in the keywords you search for. For example, sellers who know the value of the items they are selling are the ones that usually use the keywords “vintage” or “antique” in the titles. If you search for those keywords, I am sure you will find plenty of items. But they may be priced higher than if you searched for keywords such as “old”, “rusty”, or even “junk”. So instead of searching for “vintage coffee table”, search for “old coffee table” and see what you find. Knowledgeable sellers will also use keywords such as “mid century modern”, “art deco”, or “retro” in their titles. To find items from these eras, you might want to use the keywords “1960s”, “1920s”, or “1950s” instead.

Another tip is to always scan the FREE section. You never know what you will find there! I also frequently (daily) scan the other sections where I think something interesting might be listed – sometimes I don’t know what I’m looking for until I see it!