One of my biggest time burners recently has been doing research on living room decorations/furniture. Despite being two relatively artistic people, C and I always have a hard time figuring out how to decorate our house. Whenever we go to someone else's house that is decorated nicely, we always come home wishing ours was decorated better. I came across a listing on craigslist for a factory cart coffee table that I thought looked neat. One thing led to another, and I started getting ideas for a complete living room makeover. After spending too many hours getting ideas and searching for furniture, we decided it was OK to plan, but probably best to hold off on buying new furniture until closer to garage sale season so we can get rid of our existing stuff and not have to store it.
The other major thing consuming my free time has been my Christmas selling season. I don't have a ton of stuff to sell on Ebay this year. I had a few custom monster trucks left over from last year to sell, but so far have only been able to sell one of them. I had planned on making some more, but just discovered that Hot Wheels is "stealing" my idea and will introduce some classic style trucks of their own next year. The big success has been my old standby, the Smokey and the Bandit semis. One of the first things I ever bought on ebay was an old toy Smokey and the Bandit semi. I scanned the mural off of that trailer, and have been making my own ever since. I've used a variety of trucks as the basis for my models. This year's crop is predominantly $7 trucks from Farm and Fleet. They aren't as nice as some of the others I have used, and I make that clear in my Ebay listings, but that doesn't seem to be hurting their appeal to Ebayers.
I also did a little selling through Craigslist. At the height of my Power Wheels phase, I bought a nearly mint condition Power Wheels Bigfoot circa 1988. Although I still paid less than what a new Power Wheels cost, after the excitement wore off I started thinking I paid too much for it. Long story short, N was less impressed with the Bigfoot than I was. Rather than have it sit around the garage I put it away in the basement. Now, two years later, since it was just taking up space, I thought I would float it out there and see if there was any interest. I thought I was dreaming even asking for it what I paid for it. I was in complete shock when only a about a day after listing it, I got an email from a guy in Virginia who wanted to drive the 13 hours each way to buy it. I had to wait until the weekend for him to have enough time to make the trip, and in the meantime got 5 other people interested in it, but fortunately he followed through. While I was at it, I talked him into another one that wasn't quite as nice. N was sad to see them go, but we still have his Jeep, and Grave Digger, and Toy Story R/C, and a Black Bigfoot, and...
Of course I can't go this long without doing something with the tractors. I thought I had the Ten put away for the winter, but winter has held off so I got it out one last time and took L for a nice long ride. We had alot of fun riding, laughing and exploring. Johnny remains ready and waiting for the first snow. I found a cheap set of wheel weights for Junior with just one catch; they were still attached to a tractor. It was a 1990's Murray rider that hadn't run in a while. I got the whole tractor for less than what wheel weights usually cost. I could have tried to get it running, but in the end I just took the parts off of it I wanted and scrapped the rest. Last time I went to the scrap yard, I figured there was a good chance of a tire repair costing more than I got for the scrap, so this time I left it out on the curb and posted a notice for the scrappers to come and get it. As soon as it stopped raining, they did.
With colder weather, the workshop tends to also become the playshop. The boys enjoy it when we pull the cars out and they can run or ride around, and they love having picnics in the garage. One of my "Black Friday" purchases was a little over-the-door basketball hoop to set up out there, so we can play some hoops too. It should be another good way for them to burn off some energy this winter.
No comments:
Post a Comment