Adding to the Collection

Well…you all know I just told you how I love cabinets in a post I did last week…See it HERE if you missed it.  When reading the comments you had me laughing saying maybe we needed to form a support group.

Well…

I bought another.  YES, another cabinet.

In my defense, I’ve wanted one for years and years and years.  What kind of cabinet?  A spool cabinet.

When my husband was living, we went to a lot of auctions and antique places.  LOTS.  I can’t tell you how many auctions we were at and a spool cabinet was there and he’d bid it up over $300 and I would tell him, “QUIT BIDDING!!  It’s too much money.”

Bids would continue where he left off and they often went for $500 or more.  It was crazy.

When we’d go to antique shops, he’d find spool cabinets and show them to me.  Again and again, I’d say no.  They were just too expensive.

Sometimes it got to the point that he seemed to what me to have one more than I wanted one.  Yes.  I wanted one but he HUNTED for them.  He always held out hope that he would find one in some obscure place for some crazy cheap price like the Featherweight he bought me for $5.

He ended up passing away and we never did find one…well we found them…just not in my price range.

Fast-forward to the last weekend in January.  I saw there was an online auction from one of the auction houses we previously frequented.  I don’t look at auctions nearly as much as I did when he was alive.  I still love them but there’s something a little bittersweet about them because auctions and antiques were something Kramer and I always did together.

I happened to see a spool cabinet on the auction.  It was not a pristine cabinet.  I could see a mouse had nibbled on one of the drawers.  Not all of the knobs were on it.  It was early in the auction but it was only going for $50.  I knew the price would go up and likely skyrocket.  I didn’t think I wanted to bother with getting a bidding number or even bidding for that matter.  I noted that the auction ended on Monday evening and went on with life.

Sunday came around and I remembered that spool cabinet.  What was the chance that the price was still low?  I decided to look it up on the online auction again…

Hmm.  It was only $90.  Well, that’s definitely in my price range and far from the $500 I had seen them go for.  This one wasn’t pristine.  Was I okay with that??  Ya.  I was.  I have other pieces of furniture in my house that have mice chewings on them.  Yep.  I was okay with that.  Was I okay that all the knobs weren’t there?  Yep.  I was.

I went through the work of registering for a bidding number.  I had never done an online auction before…Hmm.

I ended up bidding $100.  Ugh.  The person before me had put in a higher bid so their bid was $110.  Do I bid again?  Yes.  I bid $120.  Darn.  The bid went to $130.  Darn.

I looked at the pictures again.  Do you want this??  YES.

I decided to put in a bid for $170.  The way the system works is that I can put a higher bid in…but then I will only pay one increment higher than the previous person’s bid.

So…with that, I had the winning bid at $160.  I had the high bid.  I was tickled.

If someone bids higher than me, I’d get an email notification…so I went about my life feeling pretty happy.  I had the high bid.  But…in the back of my mind I was sure…very sure that as the auction started closing, someone would run in wildly bidding and I’d lose the bid.

So Monday came.  I had decided that I was just going to not watch the closing of the bids on the computer.  If I got it for $170, I’d have it and if I didn’t I wouldn’t.  Ah…

Then 6 o’clock rolled around and I happen to notice the time.  Hmm.  I wondered what that auction was doing.  I decided to break what I said I was going to do and actually watch the auction.

It does what they call a “soft close”.  That means they go through the items and allow 2 minutes to count down.  If no bids come in during those two minutes, the highest bid gets the item.  If someone bids, the item goes back to a 2 minutes count down.

It was getting closer to the spool cabinet’s turn.  Ugh.  I don’t know if I want to watch this.  I was so sure I wouldn’t get it…but I was currently the high bidder at $160.

Ahh.  Here it is.  Can you see?  19 bids had been placed.  I was the winning bid with $160 and there were 48 seconds left.

….and then Messenger went off on my phone.  It was Kayla’s birthday.  We were all getting together on Messenger to sing her happy birthday.  Oh my.  There were only 48 seconds left in the auction.  I wanted to see if I was going to win the spool cabinet for an unheard of $160.

But…my mom’s instinct won out.  I answered the Messenger call.  As much as I wanted to see if I won, I was the mom and Kayla was more important.

I answered the call and watched the computer at the same time.  By now it was only 30 seconds left.

Thankfully everyone was half waiting for Karl to answer and he didn’t…25 seconds.  20 seconds.  Everyone was talking to everyone.  I waved into my phone but didn’t talk.  I was watching the computer screen.  10 seconds.  Oh my word, was I going to win this?  Was no going to quickly bid?  5 seconds.

AHHH!!  I won the spool cabinet.  Really loud into the phone, I whooped.  The kids all wondered what was up with me.  Then I had to explain that I had just won a spool cabinet on an online auction.

I was so happy.

Then I started fretting as I was sure the spool cabinet was a piece of junk.  That’s why it was so cheap.  Remember I never saw this in person.  I only saw pictures.  AHH!!  I was sure everyone else saw it in person and knew it was bad.  Why does my brain do this?

But how was it so cheap????

Yes, I knew it wasn’t in mint condition…but it was still a spool cabinet.  Kramer and I had looked for one for years and never saw anything under $400.

So Tuesday I went and picked it up.

Here it is.

It was in much better shape than I anticipated.  Yes, there is the mice damage on the right on one of the drawers.  I already knew that.  Yes the knobs aren’t all there.  I knew that.  Everything else was in good shape.  Use yes, but in good shape.

This was stuck on one of the drawers.

It needed a good cleaning and sprucing up.

…but just look.  See the bottom drawer??  I put some Re-Store-a-Finish on it.  Doesn’t it look so much better??  You can find the product HERE.

It’s super easy to use.  Just put some on a cloth and wipe on the wood.

I have to admit, as happy as I was about getting it, part of me was super sad.  I so wish Kramer could have been here with me.  He would have been so happy we finally found a spool cabinet for me.

I cleaned it up and then found a place for it.

I’m so happy with it.  Now that it’s cleaned up, the mouse issue isn’t nearly as noticeable.

I really don’t care about some knobs that are missing.

It has some great storage.

I ended up reorganizing a lot of what was on my cabinet.

In the prime of its life, my spool cabinet would have looked like a cross between this one…

…and this one.  Mine has three large drawers like the one below but the knobs are more like the one above.  Mine is much darker though.  I’m sure sometime in its life it was in a shed or garage probably serving as a toolbox.  I’m sure the dirt and wear ground their way into it.

I know very little about spool cabinets.  I did look up to see what it would cost to replace the hardware.  I decided not to.  From what I see it all would be shiny and new while the rest of the cabinet is old and worn.  I’d prefer it all to look old and worn so no shiny new knobs for me.

I’m so happy to add this to my collection of cabinets.  It’s not what I typically think of when I say cabinet.  I think of doors more than drawers.  All I know is:   I’m a happy girl…and I know Kramer would be really happy for me too!