Craigslist Treasures

Craigslist is part of my daily online routine, not because I'm actively looking for furniture for my home, but because once in a while there are some really nice pieces that I wish I could own - if only I had more space or if only my husband would let me or if only it would fit with our apartment's interior design theme.

Like these newly-upholstered cream chairs which look both comfortable and chic. Except I live in a household with two kids, one of which is currently undergoing potty training. And oh look, they have wheels so you can move them around easily which is either convenient or a death trap for toddlers who love jumping on bouncy stuff, depends on how you look at it.

Cream chairs selling for SGD2,000

Or this amazingly beautiful red Chinese coffee table which looks both old and modern at the same time. It would be too big for my living room and would only fit in the playroom. But it's a bit too precious to be a kids' table. Our current IKEA play table gets its share of paints, crayon, clay and markers and it cleans up just fine. This, I'm not so sure. 

Red console table and coffee table selling for SGD950

And then there's this beautiful Chinese painting. Looks like a reproduction, but still decorative and given the size, it looks expensive. It will look great in our dining room. But then again, our theme is more modern leaning towards Scandinavian and this art piece looks distinctly Asian.

Chinese Painting selling for SGD1,500

But from time to time, I do end up buying from craigslist and one of my recent purchases is quite an interesting piece. It's a painting from an Indian artist and it depicts one's journey through life. I thought the use of color was quite appealing and I found the symbols quite appropriate for a playroom because of the owls and the rocking horse. It's actually quite ironic that the painting was being sold to clear up space for a nursery and it actually ended up in a playroom.

Original painting from Indian artist SGD150

And this is why I keep trawling through craigslist. To find that one special piece that makes your home a little better, a little brighter. And so much more lived in.

How To Sell Stuff on Craigslist

Well it was time to move again and unlike our other moves, we were offloading a lot of items to make way for new ones. And this time we were trading up and buying furniture that would fit our new home, picking pieces for their beauty/quality not just for their affordable price.

In any case, we were hoping we could still make some money off of our secondhand stuff so we turned to our beloved craigslist.

Here's the stuff we posted:

We did worry that we wouldn't sell everything and would need to pay people to dispose of our bulky items. But eventually, we lowered prices on some and gave away others and everything turned out fine.

Next time though, this is what I would do:

1. Get the pricing right - I started off with low pricing on most items since I thought it would take a week to close deals. But for hot ticket items like the sofa and the dining set we got several inquiries within 24 hours. The low pricing helped but I think an extra SGD50 on some items would still have attracted some buyers.

2. Get a deposit to lock in the item - I mistakenly set aside the sofa for a buyer and didn't ask for downpayment. As it turned out, the person couldn't secure a mover to get the sofa and backed out of the deal. I had to lower the price further and repost on craigslist at the last minute just to get the item sold.

3.Wait - I was a bit impatient and when I didn't get any offers the first day for some of the baby items,I decided to give some to my newborn niece instead. Eventually offers trickled in but by then the items were already given away.

Well that's done and now we're focusing on getting the new home in order. More stories about the move in my next posts.

Our new home in Singapore

After a short hiatus in the Philippines where we realized we weren't quite ready to settle down yet, we were once again packing up our life to move back to Singapore. When we came back to Manila we originally intended to stay indefinitely and so we had sold all our furniture and shipped home about 6 Jumbo balikbayan boxes worth of stuff accumulated through our 7 year stay in Singapore. Coming back, we had to start building a home all over again. It didn't help that we rented an unfurnished apartment so all we had when we arrived in Singapore was a refrigerator and a washer and dryer. Everything else, we had to source on our own. Good thing though that with so many people coming and going in this country, there are so many places to find cheap and/or secondhand furniture.

Here are a couple of places we hit up for cheap and good home finds:

1. www.singaporeexpats.com

We actually sold all our furniture earlier through this site and so we thought we would be able to find some good bargains in here. However, we realized there were very few people posting classified ads on this site (since they started charging people for posting ads) and so we had to look for alternative sites and that's when we discovered...

2. www.craigslist.com.sg

Now this site is a goldmine. There are usually several posts in the furniture, garage sale and baby/kids section everyday from both owners or dealers of new and secondhand furniture. The selection offered a variety of items as well, from designer furniture (think John Erdos) to the more mass market IKEA furniture. This is actually where we got our bedframe/side tables (SGD68) and our sofa (SGD99) for a steal. It helped that when we were looking for furniture, most households were spring cleaning in preparation for Chinese New Year and were looking to offload household items. On the downside, you need to view the items first to check the condition of the item and arrange for transport, which is usually additional cost. However, even with the additional transport costs, items still come out cheaper than buying new.

Photo of our major craigslist find, our queen-sized bedframe with matching side tables (the other side table was put in storage). Japanese-style (close to the floor) so our 2 year old can easily climb up and down from the bed.

Photo of another craigslist find, our lovely purple sectional sofa with chrome legs which can seat 4 people comfortably. In photo as well is our daughter's pink chair and table (Mammut series) and coffee table (Lack series) both bought from IKEA.

3. IKEA Singapore

The landlord in our very first apartment furnished the unit with mostly IKEA items and when we left the unit, we bought those items from her at a discount. It seemed natural then to buy IKEA when we needed additional household items and furniture to complement whatever IKEA furniture we already had. We bought bulk of our furniture again from IKEA this time around (i.e. TV console, coffee table, dining set, kitchen items, bookcases, study tables and chairs). We saved on assembly costs as well since we set up our furniture on our own although we did have some slightly sore hands afterwards.

4. Neighborhood provision shop

We live right beside a busy market and an HDB complex with several neighborhood provision shops. From there, we were able to get plastic containers for storage, plastic cabinets, and odds and ends (kitchen items, batteries, wall hooks etc) at very low prices.

We also got a Free 32 inch flat screen TV when we signed up for the requisite cable, internet and mobile packages. Of course, we had to research a bit and figure out when the company usually had its promotions based on historical data and wait until they rolled it out which was actually within days of us arriving in Singapore.

So, quite a good haul there. Our apartment is now truly a home to be proud of and we didn't even have to spend that much to get it fitted out. Now if only I could get rid of this new craigslist addiction...