Our third bathtub and other Craigslist furniture

At work this week, Andy taught Dennis how to put a search on Craigslist. In next to no time, great old cast iron bathtubs were showing up online, ones that had just been posted. In Spokane, one family had removed their tub from their attic bathroom in their home built in 1913 near Manito Park. So Monday afternoon we drove up and bought it from them. They gave us the pedestal sink as well; Dennis would have liked to take the old toilet also but stopped himself! Four of us lifted the heavy tub onto the pick-up bed, then added the sink and pedestal, all padded and tied with ropes for the drive home.

Wednesday eve, Dennis and I moved the second tub (fiberglass, clawfoot, too short, not yet installed) out of the bathroom into the garage and got everything prepared for the move in of the new-old tub today. Arthur and I drove over to Artmil at 9 am to hold down the fort at work. Soon, Dennis, Andy, Chris and Derek drove over to our house with the furniture dolly to move the tub out of the truck into the bathroom. In less than an hour, they were back to work with teasing reports of how many dents they'd made in the walls, how three of the claw feet had gotten broken off, etc. but actually it had all gone very well. The new tub, made in 1912, resembles the one we had upstairs in our house on Stanford Street in Springfield. I am looking forward to stretching out in this one! (Our first tub acquired for the bathroom remodel was a huge fiberglass jetted tub that Lowe's gave us since it was scratched. We decided not to use it but it hasn't made it to the dump yet! The second tub will go into our smaller bathroom when it gets remodeled.)

Andy and Dennis had found a couple bookcases and a dresser via Craigslist at different times earlier. The first bookcase was solid wood, four shelves, maybe '50's, bought for a song at an estate sale reeking of cigarette odor. We used it for toys and books while Kaley and children were here. Last weekend I had time to clean it thoroughly with 3 dousings of vinegar water, finished with Howard's Dark Oak Restore-a-Finish-- came out very nice. The second was a three shelf lawyer bookcase from the Franklin County Courthouse, dark oak, about 100 years old in very good condition. Now all the books and music in the family room have homes and the last of our four plain, tall oak bookcases is removed to Artmil. The dresser is for me, since the one I had been using is now in the guest room. The antique oak dresser has a mirror, a curved front and lots more drawer space. We found it at Foelber's home in Richland, a family who remembered Zach from Bethel from years ago.