Um...yeah.
While motor home camping last weekend, our friends were bidding online on some items at an auction going on in Portland, and before I knew it, I was looking through the online catalogue of items. It ranged from large pieces of furniture, to piles of Tupperware, and everything in between. Within fifteen minutes I had bid on four items.
I bid on a box of tarnished silver trays, a small dresser, an antique white iron twin bed, and an old rusted cash register, and a half hour after bidding, I rationalized in my mind that if I won them all, I could sell the items in my booth space.
Several hours later, we checked online to see the auction results. I had won the twin bed, and the cash register. My friends wondered what I might do with the cash register. I explained, with much enthusiasm, that I would use it as a cash drawer at the upcoming Camas Vintage and Art Fair at the end of August, and any and all other fairs I entered from this day forward. 'Oh, how fabulous it will be!" I boasted. Unique, and vintage, and practical at the same time.
My friends saw my vision. (Or at least humored me into believing they did.)
Sunday came, and we all stopped on our way home to pick up our auction winnings. (There were three of us bidding, and we all won something.) The twin bed was even more adorable than pictured. I was very nearly walking on air schlepping it out to the motor home, and carefully laid the headboard and footboard on top of the bed in the motor home.
My Rock n' Roll Buddy and his brother in law wheeled the cash register out on some sort of wheeled dolly, and by the time I got to get a decent look at it, they were both red faced from lifting it off the dolly and into a trunk compartment down low on the motor home.
It easily weighs well over a hundred pounds.
Uh-oh.
It never once crossed my mind it might be...heavy.
This would never do. How could I schlepp it around to shows, and lift it up on to the top of a tall dresser as a cash wrap station? If I wanted to sell it in my booth, how would I ever lift it out of my car? I decided once we arrived back at my home that we would get it into my wheelbarrow and I would post it on craigslist. It wasn't at all what I wanted to do, because once we got it into the wheelbarrow, I could see just how awesome it was. The drawer pops open and there's a sweet little marble slab area to set change or whatever.
I learned a big lesson here, and that is to really and truly take into account the measurements, and the weight of items when you are considering purchasing them, and shopping online is not without it's own risks and challenges.
Dang it.
That being said, I desperately want an old upright piano for my covered patio (oh! The vision I have in my mind for it!) and I am now reconsidering the weight (...and researching how to remove the innards of such a monstrous piece of furniture. It can be done.) to see if it is actually a realistic plan.
*sigh*
(I still think I'll go for it.)
