A craigslist success!

The most exciting thing (to me) that we did this weekend was find and purchase a dresser for the baby's room.  Ta da:

I found the listing on craigslist on Saturday morning and called to get some additional information. It was solid wood, had been used for several children in the family that was selling it, and was in our price range.  But, it was about a 30 minute drive from us and would require a car with a bigger carrying capacity than our little Civic.  We spent some time considering our options and located a friend of mine from work who said we could use her truck.  With this tentative plan, we drove up to see the dresser and confirmed that we wanted it and would return with a better vehicle.  Things got a little complicated when push came to shove, but my wonderful friend Eileen from work was able to loan us her volkswagen van and her husband to drive it and help maneuver the furniture, so we are now the proud owners of this fabulous maple dresser!

This may seem like a lot of work for a dresser but I was surprised at how hard it has been to find a reasonably priced, reasonably sturdy dresser.  I have been looking online and in a few local stores and have mostly found that dressers in general, and baby dressers in particular, seem to be cheaply made (fiberboard etc), less than sturdy, but still very expensive. 

For example, we bought a dresser for our room from target when it was on sale and spent two evenings taking it from pieces (this is after night one):

to finished:

It looks pretty good in the picture but has gaps between the drawers and the middle post on one side because it simply did not square up when we were assembling it in spite of our best efforts. We also removed the 'base' of t-shaped fake wood that went on the bottom and made the whole thing seem tipsy.  We decided it will be fine without the base as long as we don't move it from this spot, but is definitely not sturdy enough to survive a move.  We paid $5 more than this dresser for the baby dresser and it is 100 times more sturdy and long lasting.

I know there are plenty of things we need to prepare for our little peanut's arrival but the dresser was one I was having a hard time figuring out until this weekend. The other things seem more straightforward thus far.  So I am very happy to have our dresser and very thankful for the help of our awesome friends!

The rest of the house is looking pretty good (stuff on the walls!) so I will try to take some pictures and share them later in the week.