This is totally happening!  Gadanke was just featured in Amerika Woche, America’s German newspaper.

Yes I’m pinching myself.  Yes I’m asking Martin to pinch me.

“How about some huge high-fives instead?” he asks, his hands already in the air.

You can see a larger version of this article here.

I just can’t believe it’s true.

Thank you so much for the beautiful piece, Aly.

Happy, happy weekend everyone!

All of the guest writers that have dropped by to say hi on Making This Home these last few months have just AMAZED me.  This next guest maintains that awwwe factor with a million awesome tips.  Jane from The Borrowed Abode is here to talk about used furniture.

I’ll be honest; two months ago, I had no idea how much furniture cost in the US.  I started fearing that Martin and I would be using cardboard file boxes for tables.  Then I saw Jane’s living room…. Jane’s $750 living room.  I just had to know…

Jane, how on earth do you affordably furnish your house with old stuff and make it look so cool?

Hi everyone! I’m Jane from The Borrowed Abode, where I blog about decorating my rental home on a small budget, and starting my own business. One of my favorite ways to decorate thriftily is to work with thrifted, vintage, and sometimes straight-up-free furniture when possible while only welcoming pieces that I truly love into my home.

I’m so flattered that Katie trusted me to share some of my tips on decorating with second-hand furniture. In fact, I bet it’s perfect timing, since she’s working on her exciting airplane hangar-turned-apartment renovation project! (Hmm. I wonder if she’ll find any fun vintage furniture while cleaning out the space?)

To me, the best parts of decorating with vintage and thrifted furniture are the stories that accompany each addition.

My boyfriend and I have been furnishing our home for the last year and a half, and I’m amazed to look around and see that almost everything in our house has a story behind it – and by story I don’t mean “we drove to Macy’s and bought this couch brand new.”

Our furniture stories are more like “Oh, I remember this lamp. We found it in that cute little town in New Hampshire, right after we had that tasty breakfast at the old Mill, and before we went on the hike up that mountain.” Or Ryan would say “Oh, I remember this chair. Jane made me help her carry it home from the neighbor’s garbage pile, and it was 100 degrees out that day.”

I just love the memories that we are bringing into our home – both the serious and silly ones. And chances are, if you’re already a regular reader of Making This Home, then you’re probably interested in saving some money, respecting the environment, and embracing a good story. So let’s see how you can do all that while furnishing your home!

First, let’s start with the most important part. Why buy used?

• It saves you money!
• It’s often better for the environment!
• It’s not made with the sketchy and ethically questionable labor situations that run rampant overseas. (FYI, even some of the “fancy” furniture stores sell furniture made overseas.)
• Vintage pieces especially are often sturdier, constructed of solid wood, and just much more durable.

Example: None of the furniture in my living room (below) was bought new – that’s how we managed to create this space for less than $750. While that’s still a lot of money (to me, at least), it was totally doable over the course of a year or two.

Where do you find *good* used furniture, without paying an arm and a leg for an antique?

• Unless you live in a very remote area, Craigslist is your BFF. If I’m looking for a specific item, I usually start here. And if you use the CraigsEasy tool, it’s super easy to view large photos right there in your search results. No extra clicking necessary. :)
• Thrift stores! If the first store or two that you try doesn’t seem to have much furniture, don’t give up! Try a few more, becuase you’ll find that some locations have more furniture, while others are focused primarily on clothes. And don’t just go to the major Goodwill and Salvation Army stores – look on Yelp.com or just plain Google to find the smaller, lesser-known shops. They’re often run as fundraisers for your local humane society, rotary club, or other community organization.
• Yard Sales can provide killer bargains on used furniture, because people are decluttering and don’t want to lug leftovers back into their house after the sale. We found an amazing mid-century modern coffee table for about $10 at one, just by doing an accidental drive-by.
• Consignment furniture stores usually offer up furniture with less wear and tear, and from very high quality makers, but of course you’ll pay the price. However, you will still save a bundle compared to what a high-quality piece would cost new!
• Curbside Trash Picking! Probably the most controversial of all my tips, it’s one of my personal favorites. It can be one of the thriftiest and most fun ways to furnish a room! In our town (and many others around us) it’s common for people to put their unwanted bulk items (furniture, etc) on the curb. Technically, the city comes around with a truck once in a while and picks the trash up – but usually all the good stuff (and stuff with potential to be made good) is picked up by people looking to give the items a new home.

Example: We found this sweet mid-century modern stereo cabinet / storage unit this way, and are planning on refinishing it as a wedding gift for our good friends.

When shopping for thrifted/secondhand/vintage furniture:

1. Take your time. You’ll often find “good deals” on furniture at the venues mentioned above – but if it’s not a piece that you need for your home, or it’s not really your style, don’t get it “just because it’s such a good deal.” If I could go back in time about 10 years and tell myself this, it would really have helped my budget!
2. To avoid making the above mistakes, before you shop – Prioritize! What pieces do you need most in your house? It helps to keep a short list in your purse or wallet, specifying what pieces you are looking for (along with measurements of what will fit your space), or what storage/decorating challenges you need to tackle. This way you can make sure you leave the shop with only what you need!
3. Seek out the lesser known thrift stores – Goodwill and Salvation Army are great, but most places have smaller, independent stores – often run by charities such as the Lyons Club or the local animal welfare organization. These often have lesser-known furniture stashes, and while their selection may be smaller, they often yield top-notch results!
4. Consider what imperfections you can deal with. If you’re a DIYer, then you can fix up just about any item. If you’re not a DIYer then it may take you longer to find just what you need, but it’s still totally feasible.
5. Before you dish out the dough for the furniture, always make sure to inspect its condition. I learned this the hard way, when I failed to inspect the underside of an item until we were loading it into the car. We’d have asked for a lower price if we’d seen the cracks in the base before purchase.
6. Psst: In all of the venues listed above, you can usually negotiate and save even more money.

Example: By taking my time and knowing exactly what I wanted in a living room sofa, I was able to get this $1600 Crate and Barrel sofa used on Craigslist for only $300. Why? Because there’s a hole in the upholstery on one arm. I simply covered it with a cozy throw blanket. Perfect!

I’ve got the used furniture, now what do I do with it?

Before you bring your sweet scores into your home, take these steps to ensure no “unwanted guests” sneak into your home with the furniture. Go with your gut. If the home or store you found your treasures in seemed clean and well cared-for, then a simple vacuuming or dusting once you bring the furniture home should suffice. But if you found old, grungy, upholstered furniture on the side of the road, here’s what to do before bringing it inside your home (or shortly after):

• Take photos of every angle. This way you’ll have a record of how it looked if / when you (or a professional) want to reupholster it.
• Strip every bit of upholstery off, leaving you with the wood frame (and maybe springs). This way, you ensure you’ve removed any of the materials that may have been harboring pests.
• Wipe it down with a damp rag and maybe some cleaning spray, depending on how dusty and dirty the frame is.

What’s the best type of used furniture to buy?

• Dressers, bookshelves, desks, tables, china cabinets - these are some of the best pieces to buy. And if you need more storage in room (like a living room), dressers or credenzas are the easiest way to add it. Just make it your own (with paint, hardware, or new varnish – see below) and then use it as a TV stand/ entertainment center or pop it behind your sofa as a “sofa table.” The drawers and hidden shelves in dressers and credenzas offer killer hidden storage space!

What should you [probably] avoid buying used?

• Mattresses and box springs: I know some may disagree with me, but for sanitary reasons I’d probably never buy these used. Especially with the bedbug situations these days. (If you’re on a very low budget, 5″ upholstery foam makes a great affordable mattress. I know this because I put the foam over a piece of plywood on cinder-block legs for my bed in my first apartment.)
• Baby cribs: I don’t have kids, but when I do, I’ll spend whatever it takes to get a safe, sturdy new crib and mattress for my baby. So many older cribs have been recalled for safety issues – so I wouldn’t want to take a chance.

How can you make the secondhand furniture work in your house?

• New Hardware: If the wood finish is in good shape, but the hardware makes it look dated, considering switching out the hardware. Changing from old brassy drawer pulls to sleek chrome modern knobs can make a world of difference.
• New Wood Stain: If the wood finish is the wrong color, but the piece is solid wood, you can refinish it to a darker or lighter stain.
• Paint: When all else fails, paint can transform anything! If you like to keep things simple, a white or cream color works wonders. But I am really loving all the brightly colored pieces I’m seeing around the blogosphere right now. I just need to find a good candidate to paint green or orange for my house. ;)

Need inspiration? Searching for “painted furniture” on Pinterest will yield boatloads of inspiration. I’m constantly amazed at how ugly old dressers and desks can be utterly transformed with a fun coat of paint! For tutorials on painting old furniture, Kate at Centsational Girl is my go-to blogger. She’s got a slew of great info and tutorials on her blog. One of my favorite examples is this $40 office credenza that she transformed with a few coats of paint and new hardware.

Kate at Centsational Girl transformed this $40 thrift store piece with new hardware and a few coats of paint!

In the end, furnishing your home with a mix of vintage and thrifted furnishings may take a bit longer and require a bit more elbow grease, but in the end I think it’s absolutely worth it! Not only is older furniture often more sturdy and durable, it will save you a ton of money and provide you with memories that last a lifetime.

Now it’s your turn.  Any awesome old finds at your house?  How about the dream of some?

And a huge thank you to Miss Jane!

I thought it might help to give you a little visual of what we want to do with the hangar remodel.

We bought the place as is. So that means the stuff, the unfinished airplane work… everything except the planes themselves.

The upstairs space along the back of the hangar is roughly 700 square feet.  Right now, it’s a guest room, a pilot training room, and open storage.

We need a place to live in this new purchase, and the upstairs is just the ticket.  So we want to enclose the whole space in one.  We also want to take the ceilings all the way up to the roof.  It’ll look like this:

Just like our old apartment in Berlin, we’ll have an open kitchen/living space.  Apparently, that’s VERY American.

But we do plan on doing something very German:  our washing machine will probably be in the bathroom.  And even though we’ll be in a hangar, there’s still a no shoes policy in the house.  (I’ve come to LOVE that.)

On the left of the hangar, there’s an open loft.  Again, it was just used for storage.

We’ll enclose it.

Gadanke will move in.  So will Martin and his school work/projects.  That space is 300 square feet.

We’re leaving the stairs.  That’s still the way you’ll get to both of these spaces.

Martin will eventually run some engineering consulting and aviation related work in the office and the open space below.  He’s soooo excited to launch it all.  He’ll be finishing his studies online for the next year as he grows his business.

I would guess that you’re wondering about money.  We had a lot of people step in to help us achieve this dream.  Martin has already been doing consulting work for some time, and you already know how much we pinch pennies as much as we can.  I mean – I haven’t bought clothes for over two years!

Then there’s Gadanke.  I’ve been busting my bum and completely falling in love with running my own indie biz.

We’ve been strategic about location.  And of course, we’re doing all of this work by ourselves.

To be perfectly honest…

We’re really worried about how we’ll make the numbers work when it’s time to start buying flooring, a dishwasher, and the very basics of a house.  (We aren’t even thinking about stuff like rugs and coffee tables.)

But we will think of that shortly.  I’ve got some decluttering projects I want to tackle upstairs.

The only question now is:

Do I go with the yellow hardhat or the white?

Oh brother.  You’re not going to believe what we did the second we tossed/recycled a whole trailer load of stuff at the dump.

We drove on over to another guy’s airplane hangar and uh…

We proceeded to fill that trailer right back up with stuff!  After living abroad, we really don’t have any furnishings.

Oh man – I drooled over how white and empty that hangar was.

Now we’ve got:

• two long work benches
• an ancient metal filing cabinet
• a shop vac for sawdust
• an old metal desk (not shown)
• a little wooden chair that needs some TLC

It seems everything around here needs a little TLC.  But look – we’re making progress!

All those boxes in the front are empty.  Other pilots have been bringing us empty boxes.  They’ve also been digging through our “donate” pile.  I think they’ve grabbed like a third of the stuff.  So awesome!

I forgot to take a before picture from this very same angle.  (I think there was a plane in the way.)

Yes.  There was.

Now for some of your questions.

1.  Is that your plane?

No.  None of the planes in this hangar belong to us… I WISH ONE DID!

2.  Wait!  Wasn’t there a different plane in that spot before?

Yes.  You’d think there’s a game of musical chairs going on around here.  So I’m sorry.  I’m not trying to trick you.  This aviation world is just so different than anything I’m used to, and I forget that the relocation of huge things is not normal.  There are two planes in here along with a little one-seat sport plane most of the time.

I try to snap pictures when they’re not in the hangar so you can feel the space/changes better.

3.  Are you moving out of the tire house for good?

Yes!  I doesn’t make sense to pay rent there and have a hangar house.  ;)

4.  Will you fly the planes?

Martin does for sure.  I am only authorized to fly one type of plane right now.  We’ll just have to see how things unfold in the future.  We really don’t know.

5.  Can we be your cheerleaders too?  I for one am very excited about your new project!

You want the truth?  I really want to be asking you:  will you be our cheerleaders?

There are many days when we feel overwhelmed by this whole thing.  Someone seems to be tossing at night on a regular basis.

To keep productive, I have to forget the big picture.  I will often wake up, eat breakfast, and decide what I want to work on that day.  I focus on that piece of the project.  Then at the end of the day, I can look at a spot and really, truly feel like I did something.

If I look at the entire space at the end of each day, I feel like I am not good enough, I am not doing enough.

6.  Are you list makers?

When we start projects, we never make lists.  It’s too impossible to truly know what needs to be done.

Martin has always said that when you think a project will take X amount of work, multiply it by three.  That’s really how long it’s going to take.

Think about your favorite home blogs, projects at your house, and things your family and friends are up to.  The reality of how long projects take is nothing like on TV.

We still laugh about my list making.  I’ve made remodel lists in the past, but after two days, they’re already totally useless thanks to the magic of the unknown.

7.  Are you just taking an approach like “let’s see what today will have us do”?

Yes!  There are certain things we know we need to be thinking about and working on right now – like the heating system.  (I’ll talk about that later.)

We’re also finding it really hard to get work done with all the visitors that stop by.  We love chatting with them (and giving them stuff!).  It all just adds up, so we have to be really careful.

Oh but there is a point when we will make lists:

When we get to the end, we’ll make lists of all the little projects.  Otherwise you wander in circles, trying to think of what still needs to be done.  You’re so used to things being undone that you don’t even notice them anymore.

I bet you know just what I mean.  What pile on the desk or by the door?  What half-painted trim around the door?

Okay!  That’s it for today.  I’m off to the hangar to see what I can achieve.  I already found some chairs for our future living room.  Aren’t they cool?

Martin wasn’t too excited about them until I spotted brand new chairs that look a lot like these… for $749 each.  Really?!

Thank goodness for that load of old treasure we just got from another hangar, then.

I hope your week is awesome!

My bones ache.

At the end of the day, I come home from the hangar remodel covered in dust and sweat.  There’s a little soapy water that dripped down my arms while I was scrubbing doors.  It has dried in long, wiggly streaks.

I shower.  I make dinner.

Martin comes home.  He’s covered in sweat and airplane smells.  I tell him he has the aroma of an oil can, and he smiles.

We love spending the days in the hangar together.

We each have our own tasks, and we slid right into them like it’s a perfect fit.  Between the two of us, I know we’ll get this project done.  We’ll have a place to live that is all our own.

Day to day, it doesn’t feel like it.  But I know we will.

After dinner is picked up, I sit down to write to all of you about our progress.

But I can’t.  I’m just too tired.  The screen and I have a staring contest for a few minutes.  Then I also remember that I left the camera at the hangar.

I miss being here with you.  I miss the hours I’d spend working on Gadanke’s growth or swapping emails.  I miss you.

And now today, Martin and I are taking all of the stuff above to the recycling center or the dump.  Please don’t be jealous.  I know you wish you were going to the dump this morning as the sun just begins to peek into the hangar.  But we can’t all be so glamorous.

I will sport my pink leather work gloves and think of you and how beautiful life really is… even if I’m at the dump.

I’m feeling this enormous surge of creativity these days.  That seems to always happen whenever we get super busy.

On Thursday, the reporter at our house asked me about when I came up with the idea for Gadanke.  I laughed and told her how it was the craziest timing ever.

• A week before my flight exam to become a pilot
• Two weeks before we were moving to Germany
• A week before we had to move out of the tire house for some guests the owner had invited over (he loves to donate time at the house for charity auctions)

Then she turned to Martin.  ”Did you think she was crazy?”

“Honestly,” Martin said, “I didn’t.  I mean, I was frustrated that she wasn’t preparing for her flight exam like I really knew she needed to.  But she’s always coming up with big plans.”

Then he paused.

“And I guess so am I.  That’s why we get along so well.”

Martin is my official maintenance guy.  Online.  With my journal-making tools.  He’s always the guy behind the scenes that makes the stuff I do possible… no matter how busy things get.

Here he is sharpening one of the blades for a paper cutter I use on a constant basis for all these journaling goodies.

(The tire house has a little indoor entryway that I guess I’ve never thought to show you… because I don’t ever use it, and it isn’t heated or anything in the winter.  It’s the perfect spot for a grinder, huh?)

I also added some fun writing prompt pencils to the shop:

{For Starting the Story} ~ Wood Pencils

Wood pencils are always so much fun.  I use them for sooooo much.  No mechanical pencils at my desk, please.  The wood texture under my hands is where it’s at.  They come in packs of two.

The writing inspiration engraved on them reads:

• WRITING A STORY THAT MATTERS – goldenrod with white eraser
• SO MUCH TO CELEBRATE – iceberg blue with blue eraser

I’m still trying to get a grasp on everything that we have balanced on our laps for the next couple of months.

It could be so easy to just work and work and work. But then we’d have complete physical breakdowns.  Do you know the kind?  You get the horrible headaches, almost like you have a cold.  All you can do is sleep.  It’s so hard to pull yourself from the bed.  Your mom starts thinking that maybe you’re pregnant…

Anyway, this afternoon, I am driving to “the big city” for errands.  Topping the list are trips to the hardware store and grocery store.  We need chicken wire, face masks, and lemonade.

• Chicken wire for snuggling around the new trees ready to be planted in deer territory – a sweet gift from my parents.
• Face masks for dusty hangar corners.
• And lemonade for sipping in the sunshine.  We all definitely need that!

What’s on your list for Tuesday and Wednesday?

Oh, pssst – answers to your Q&A coming soon…