Easy Come, Easy Go.

My basement cleaning is moving along nicely.  At the end of last week I switched my focus to getting rid of the large items that were cluttering up the floor area. I'm happy to say that the office chair, coffee table, and child-size kitchen table have been washed, loaded into the car, and taken to the thrift shop for someone else to enjoy.

There have been some surprises along the way.  In a far corner of the room next to the freezer, sandwiched between two large pieces of cardboard and leaning against the wall, I found a mirror that Hubby Tony received from his great aunt several years ago.  The oval mirror has a wood and gesso frame.  It was beautiful, but there was nowhere to hang it.  We kept it thinking that 'someday' that would change, but now I decided it was going to go.  I brought it upstairs and put it in the thrift store pile.  Later in the day I wondered if it was nice enough to take to a nearby consignment store.  After I cleaned it up I emailed a photo of the mirror to the store.  They replied that yes, they wanted it.

I had an appointment this morning to take the mirror in.  Last night I moved it out of the spare bedroom that's become the staging area for things leaving the house and leaned it against the stair railing outside my bedroom (mirrored side facing in).  This morning I brought it downstairs, cleaned off a little more dirt, and carried it out to the car.

When I arrived at the store I set the mirror on a table where the owner could appraise it.  She was all smiles, but her smile faded as she pointed out where a large chip had broken off the bottom.   Of course, I had no idea it was there.  Of course, she couldn't take it in that condition.

Because I had to know, I asked the owner how much she could have sold the mirror for.  She said she would have priced it somewhere between $150-$175.  And my cut of that would have been 40%.  Oh, well.  Easy come, easy go.

I left and drove to the nearest thrift store, where I dropped the mirror off for donation.  As I pulled away I thought that if someone had the skills to fix the chip they'd be able to have a very nice mirror without paying a lot of money.

Before the chip

Five years ago today: Scratcher