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a home + living guide for the post-college, pre-parenthood, quasi-adult generation

08.14.2006

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how to craigslist using Craigslist to score stuff for your digs
by Yee-Fan Sun
|
1 2 3 4
continued from page 1

Regardless of the day of the week, once you see an ad that piques the ol’ interest, don’t dilly-dally. Most genuinely good deals disappear fast, so make your move when you can. The high turnover also means that there’s not generally much point in looking at ads older than a day or two old.

between the lines
Sure, every ad you read boasts how great a deal you’re getting on some amazing object. Don’t believe the hype. A little reading-between-the-lines will go a long ways to helping you understand what you’re really getting, even when no picture is included…

"Comfortable" | Kind of the furniture equivalent of describing someone as having a great personality, i.e. a major eyesore. Still, “comfortable” furnishings are almost always cheap, and can offer a good opportunity for refurbishment.

"Shabby chic" | Chipped white paint furniture, often featuring wrought-iron. Some shabby chic furniture has real character; by and large, though, this is just code for banged-up old furnishings of a vaguely country-inspired style.

"Designer/European" | Code for overpriced. Sellers typically use this term in an attempt to convey that their ludicrously high asking price is a better deal than it might first appear.

"[Insert designer here]-inspired" | Code for knock-off. This alone may not be a problem, for those of us who don’t give two hoots about name brands anyway, but do be sure to inspect the object carefully (or ask plenty of questions) to make sure that it functions as good as it looks -- knock-offs have a pesky tendency to look dandy from a distance despite the fact that they’re shoddily constructed at heart.

"Modern" | Often means IKEA, which seems to represent ninety percent of Craigslist furnishings. This might be fine, but do your research. If the seller’s either specified that they’re hocking an IKEA whatever or you have a vague memory that you saw that same “modern” table lamp in the IKEA catalog, take the five seconds to check out the IKEA website and confirm that you’re paying a lot, lot less than the original price.

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