©2009 Wedding ThriftLiving in New York City, sometimes you just come across these incredible opportunities that are hard to pass up. Jake and I stumbled upon some great furniture deals at a closing import store, and decided to seize the moment. For better or for worse (no pun intended), the "moment" turned into a week of rearranging the apartment. A week turned into two...and well...I think you get the point. What did I discover (besides lots of dust)? That sometimes taking time out from your big project (err, wedding) and spending quality time together doing things that don't involve the words "caterer," "venue," or "guest list" can be good. Call it a mental health break.
Our mental health break took the form of physical exertion, late night design sessions and a slightly unhealthy obsession with color schemes.
We bought three items of furniture: one of which was an antique; two of which were made of top quality teak wood and (truly) hand-made in India; and all of which were artsy, unique, and quite cheap. That was the exciting part. The less than exciting part came a few days after purchasing our great finds, when the delivery people hauled our stuff into the apartment. Have I mentioned that our apartment is about 500 square feet small? The furniture just looked so much smaller in the store! Yikes. And so we began the process of moving, shifting, rearranging, donating, and the inevitable experiencing of backaches. Our whole apartment essentially looked like Picture 4 (above) for a good two weeks. Cds in the bathroom, shoes in the kitchen, martini glasses in the bedroom...in short: a mess.
We sold our old dining table and chairs to make room for the gorgeous new table, which came chair-less. So the search for "the" perfect and inexpensive chair began. Who knew how expensive chairs could be! Even resorting to Target and Ikea still uncovered chair sets which were out of our price range, especially after having made a pact not to settle on plastic seating, no matter how hip it looked in the catalogs. Through sheer luck, I discovered a closing restaurant on craigslist.org, with a corresponding owner desperate to dispose of his restaurant furniture. Bingo! We landed a full set of fancy schmancy designer chairs (which retail at $200+ each) on the cheap, and finally had a place to sit down and rest our tired feet.
Next we had to transform an old rusty (but incredibly beautiful) 1930s cabinet into a usable and practical piece of furniture, that didn't look like it came from a dumpster. Neither Jake nor I had much experience on exactly how to go about it, but we learned the process together, which was actually quite fun! In a nutshell, it required several layers of rustoleum (followed by a few nights in sleeping bags on our neighbor's floor due to the unbearable odor); a few coats of paint; a whole lot of newspaper; a great deal of patience; many ruined pieces of clothing; and one panicky and intensive bath session for our nearly permanently stained dog (who I mistakenly petted with paint in hand, dumb idea); and voila! We now have a pretty cool piece of furniture, fully and colorfully revived after some tender loving care. It was well worth it (the dog disagrees).
The Before & After:
Not bad for beginners, eh? It's harder than it looks! Needless to say, there was much silliness and laughing mixed in with bewilderment and exhaustion. Project completed!
It was actually kind of fun to put the wedding planning on the back burner; not to mention strangely satisfying to flippantly shrug off our family's concerns: "How do you have time for this?" We made time. "Your wedding is only six months away!" We know. "Did you find a Rabbi? A band? Did you even pick a date yet?" Nope. And my personal favorite: "Any updates on the wedding planning (insert anxious tone)?" Nothin' new. Quite the slacking prenuptial couple are we.
Stepping away from it all was therapeutic, I highly recommend it. And the bonus? Family members--especially of the naggy, anxious, controlling variety--were so taken aback by our nonchalant dismissal of the whole affair, they stopped asking us about it and left us alone! How's that for an engagement gift!
Speaking of engagement gifts, despite insisting that people refrain from buying us pre-wedding presents, there were some die hard family members and friends who failed to comply. And since we refused to register anywhere, they had little choice but to give us cash (!). We promptly cashed in on their generosity by using it to pay for our little home renovations. You know--our home. The one we will live in, and sleep in, and exist in, after the wedding has long passed? When you think about it, isn't that exactly the right place to invest? Better to nurture our long-term home than to spend dough on an expensive cake that will last only hours, or over-the-top invitations that will get tossed soon after we are wed. We may be lacking in the short-term-event-planning-department, but we certainly know how to invest in our future.
You might even consider us slightly more prepared to deal with the wedding and all its challenges. After all, we just embarked on a tedious, time-consuming, money-costing project which was ultimately satisfying because we did it our way at our own pace. Though we were patient overall, there were moments of frustration and anxiety. Despite being overwhelmed at times, we broke the job down into small, manageable parts, which were carefully delegated between us, and we kept our eye on the prize. We maintained perspective and humor, and took it in stride when things went wrong. Sound familiar?
And now, back to wedding planning and blogging after a satisfying, fun and productive hiatus; all to take place from our newly stylish, clean, organized and downright funky wedding headquarters.
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