Tuesday's customer inspiration - Dean and Lisa's beautiful home!

Howdy and welcome to this week's installment of customer inspiration where I show you how a piece (or several pieces) of Jubilee Furniture furniture looks in a customer's home whether it's gone through a transformation or not. The goal is to show you how wonderful things purchased in a dreary warehouse look once they're moved into lovely surroundings. You're pleasantly surprised, maybe even impressed, and decide to come out to the store yourself because you want to buy something equally as nice and the wonderful circle of commerce continues! Does not get any better than that! It's the American way! Have some apple pie! Shot off the fireworks! Give me a baby to kiss!

Okay, enough.

You know how I love it when there are multiple connections with people? Well today's customer's inspiration showcases a family that has been volunteers, customers, blog readers, and friends! Dean. Lisa and their two sons, Alex and Luke have been volunteering - off and on (depending on sports schedules) - with either Dean or both Dean and Lisa for the last four years. It's been so fun to watch the boys grow. Luke was only about 5 years old when they first started and extremely shy and did not like to be far from his dad - but when they were in a couple of weeks ago, he was all over the place and very comfortable and confident doing whatever we asked him to do (and he and Alex are very good workers!).

Regular volunteers and regular customers (the two sort of go hand-in-hand, it's hard not to buy something when you volunteer at the store!). Their most recent purchase - an amazing, gorgeous, so comfortable you melt into it, Room & Board sofa - prompted Lisa to take photos and email me (which you could do too at: sgalbraith@outreachcommin.org) along with some other things they've purchased over the years. Let's take a look!

Lisa writes: "This couch is SO comfortable -- everyone in the family has already taken naps on it! We paired it with a dark chocolate chair and ottoman."


I love the earthy tones with the shot of color from the drapes and chair pillow!

"The table is simple and nice, and fits our small dining space. My favorite part is that we can extend the table and fit 8 people around it when we have family gatherings," writes Lisa. I love the ladder back chairs and the warm color of the wood. Lovely.

The vases are the two things purchased from Jubilee Furniture in these two photos. Lisa writes, "The vases are just the touch of color that I wanted for the piano in the family room, and the height of the tall vase looks good in the corner." I would absolutely agree, Lisa!


Finally, there's this sweet lamp - on an amazingly gorgeous antique dresser! Sigh. Love. Dresser is not from Jubilee Furniture, unfortunately. But the lamp is! "We needed a small reading lamp for the bedroom and this little crystal lamp fits the style of our antique dressers." Dressers, Lisa? You have more than one? How cool!

A big THANK YOU to Lisa taking the time and sending me some love via photos and her email!

And THANK YOU to you too, dear reader, for stopping by and seeing this week's customer's inspiration!

Be on the lookout for Friday's post since the guys have a fantastic week of fabulous pickups!

Tuesday's customer inspiration - Mike and Sue's TV!

Do you remember the Britney Spears song "Oops I did it again"? Well, apparently - oops I did it again - and by that I mean I thought I could update the blog from home with photos Sue and Mike emailed me when I couldn't (I don' t know what's missing on my home laptop that allows me to open the photos just fine - thank you very much - but then doesn't allow me to save them). So, if you were waiting all day yesterday for my Tuesday customer inspiration post - I'm so sorry!

What I love about this week's post is it's nothing fancy, but a creative solution to how to store a large TV that weighs around 250 lbs. It also showcases a TV - which is something we sell a fair number of but not so much what Jubilee Furniture is known for. When someone asks me what we accept for donation it's quite a list I go through and included is TVs that are fully operationally and 10 years old or newer (there's a manufacturer's month/year on the back of every TV).

So, Mike and Sue stopped in on Friday looking for a desk chair which they happily purchased and as they were heading out the front door they spied our row of TVs along the front wall. You see they had a TV in their basement that had died and since it was the one their kids and their kids' friends most used - they were tripping over each other using the one remaining working TV. For a mere $70 they took this monster home - and with a little help - got it down into their basement (I told Mike when he was first looking at this set that it weighed 1.5 billion lbs. and that was only a slight exaggeration!).

Sue writes: "Our basement isn't finished but we have some furniture and rugs and an area for the kids and their friends to hang out and watch tv or movies. So, we've been fighting over the one big tv in the family room and knew this would not work over the course of an entire Chicago winter when we'll be inside a lot more! We'd love to be able to go out and buy a new fancy plasma tv but that's not a reality right now so we ended up at Jubilee and found this tv."



"We needed something to put it on so we found this old trunk and a piece of plywood around the house but it was really distracting to leave it like that. So, I ran out to JoAnn Fabrics and bought an inexpensive piece of black material to cover all the ugly stuff and voila!"

"You'd never know what was underneath the tv. The tv is great and the kids watched it the first night we brought it in. Thanks again and we love your ministry!"

Aw shucks, Sue and Mike - thanks!

And that, dear reader, is this week's customer inspiration - I love the inexpensive, creative way Mike and Sue made their Jubilee Furniture TV looks like it was sitting in a black entertainment center! Well done!

Tuesday's customer inspiration - Theresa's beautifully set table and Amanda's lovely marble cutting board!

Hello! And thanks for stopping by my Tuesday's customer inspiration post where I showcase something someone's purchased from Jubilee Furniture and how amazing and wonderful it looks in their home! If you've ever bought anything from the store and would be willing to take a photo or two of the item and email me at sgalbraith@outreachcommin.org - I'd be grateful AND you'd find yourself on my internationally read blog (seriously - in the last month - dear readers from India, Latvia, Canada, Slovenia, Turkey, Brazil, Australia, Russia, Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom and South Korea have all stopped by - multiple times - to see what's new on the Jubilee Furniture blog!).

What I love about this week's customer inspiration post is a number of things: 1) not ONE but TWO customers actually sent me photos (wonders of wonders, miracles of miracles!); 2) the two customers are sisters-in-law (sister-in-laws?) and came in together when they purchased these pretty pieces; 3) neither knew the other sent me photos; and 4) they didn't buy any furniture!

So, what did they buy, you ask? Excellent question. Let's take a look!


Theresa wrote, "A few months ago you featured some glasses on your blog. I immediately fell in love with them and stopped by the store that night to purchase them. They were such a good deal and I knew I could use them for the Christmas Eve breakfast I was holding at my house."


"I ended up using them for water glasses and they fit perfectly next to my other glasses."


"Feel free to use any of the pictures attached. My sister-in-law took them with her fancy schmancy camera and did a good job capturing how lovely the glasses looked on my table!" Yes, Theresa, Amanda DID do an excellent job of showing how beautiful your table looked!

Amanda - again with her fancy schmancy camera :-) - also took a couple of pictures of the $1 marble cutting board she purchased on the same shopping trip as Theresa's water glass purchase.


Doesn't it look especially attractive with these adorable new potatoes on it?!

About the cutting board, Amanda wrote, "It's always displayed on our counter top, and is even perfect to serve cheese and crackers on while company is over. It just goes to show that you never know what you'll find at Jubilee!" Hmmmm, where have I heard that before? *smile*

I'm extremely thankful to both Theresa and Amanda for allowing us to get a peek into their lovely homes!

So, that leaves one final thought: apparently good design and a funky used furniture store in Nowheresville, Illinois connects with a broad audience and speaks a universal language! Ja? Da? Evet? Ne? Air? Yes?

Tuesday's customer inspiration - my kitchen!

Hello and welcome to my Tuesday post where I show you something someone has purchased from Jubilee Furniture in their home and how fantastic it looks! This week we'll be visiting my very own kitchen which contains several things from the store!

Let's begin!

The Jubilee Furniture items are the oak pedestal table, two of the four chairs and the gorgeous artwork on the wall. Let's take a closer look:


The pedestal table is a fairly recent purchase and replaces a similar table, but it was smaller and we really wanted a little more room. Granted, it couldn't be too big because the space is pretty small.

I love, love, love this original oil painting and I bought it from the store about a year ago. It's bright and breezy and always makes me smile! Also, I love it (or did I already mention that?).

Here's one of the two oak chairs from Jubilee Furniture. We had four of the curved back ones but they're slowly falling apart and I'm slowly replacing them. I like the mismatched look.

Here are a couple of photos from different angles. I took these picture early this morning before the sun was even up! It's nice to have the extra storage over the siding glass doors (which lead out onto a small, but nice, deck - remember I have a split level house).

The rest of the kitchen is pretty nondescript - no granite counter tops, no stainless steel appliances, no beautiful cabinets - but, boy, can my husband make amazing meals in this space (and my daughter makes means pies and my son delicious omelets!). I'm the official cleaner-upper!

Have you purchased something from Jubilee Furniture which you'd be willing to take a photo (or two or three) of and email me at sgalbraith@outreachcommin.org so I can include in a future Tuesday customer inspiration post? I'd be much obilged if you did!

So, how was your Christmas? Here are a few highlights from mine:

• watching The Grinch starring Jim Carrey with my kids (Jim Carrey is amazing in that movie!)
• having a nice - but quiet - Christmas Eve celebration with my mother-in-law; sister-in-law, Debbie; and Debbie's boyfriend, Dave
• driving home from Debbie's and hitting ice at an intersection and sliding through the intersection and seeing the traffic light camera take a photo of us going through the red light (and now waiting for the $100 ticket in the mail - it's happened before!). Thankfully, we didn't hit anyone!
• having 21 from my side of the family to our house Christmas day and having a blast!
  
  Recognize my family room? Obviously, these two photos only show a few members of my large and amazing family (that's my mom tucked under the blanket!)
• returning my house to semi-normal after the wonderful time on Christmas day (and now I can hardly wait to take my tree down and return the whole place to normal! I swear I love Christmas but I'm ready to move on - do you hate me?)
  
  

So, that's it for now! Remember we have weird store hours this week: we'll be open Thursday, December 30th from 1 to 8; Friday, the 31st from 11 to 3; and closed Saturday, January 1st! I'll have my regular weekly post for you Thursday morning so you can see some of the new-to-us stuff that Dan and Chris picked up last week and this week (there will be LOTS to show you). So, if you happen to be off Thursday or Friday it would be a good time to head out to the store!

God's blessings for a wonderful 2011 to you, dear reader!

Tuesday's customer inspiration - Theresa's $2 Jubilee Furniture mirror

Hello! And thanks for checking out this week's Tuesday customer inspiration post! Each Tuesday I showcase something someone's purchased from Jubilee Furniture and how wonderful it looks in their home (either exactly as they purchased it or after whatever transformation the piece went through). There have been many times in the past where I have had to resort to taking photos of stuff in my own home (since I've purchased many an item from Jubilee over the years) because no one loves me enough to take a few measly photos and email me (at sgalbraith@outreachcommin.org), but that's not the case today! Yay!

Theresa purchased a $2 sunburst mirror this summer from the store and turned it from so-so to sunsensation (SUNsensation - get it? It's a pun, not a spelling error! *smile*).


here's the way it looked when Theresa first bought it (you can see it's not that big)


Theresa is ready to start painting!

mid painting

the finished, fabulous mirror - Theresa wrote, "sorry there aren't any zoomed out photos - the mirror hangs in my bathroom and I thought I'd spare the readers a picture of my toilet"! I love how the new color punches up both the fun and wow factor of the mirror! I also love the color of your bathroom walls, Theresa! Well done! Hats off!

Thus ends this week's customer inspiration!

Remember, the store will be CLOSED this Friday (12/24) and Saturday (12/25) and then OPEN THURSDAY, 12/30 FROM 1 TO 8 AND FRIDAY, 12/31 FROM 11 TO 3 and then CLOSED SATURDAY, 01/01/11 (whew and I don't mean to shout at you - just really trying to get the information out there about being closed and then open on a Thursday...).

Just because the store is closed doesn't mean Dan and Chris aren't making donation pickups - because they are! So, when we open on Thursday, December 30th there will be EVEN MORE STUFF THAN USUAL for you to browse through. I'll also snap photos and post an entry about the new-to-us furniture on Wednesday, December 29th (so be watchin'!).

I also hope to have a new customer inspiration post next Tuesday too! So, for all of you who've purchased stuff from the store, in between sipping eggnog and opening gifts take a photo or two and email me (at sgalbraith@outreachcommin.org).

"He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,

'Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!'"

Happy Christmas, dear reader!

Tuesday's customer inspiration - Alice's chair transformation from fine to fabulous!

Welcome and thanks for stopping by my Tuesday customer inspiration installment where each week I showcase something someone has purchased from Jubilee Furniture in their home.

I'm especially excited because Alice will take us from start to finish showing the transformation of a $25 chair she purchased a couple of weeks ago from the store. This chair with cane back and sides was in great shape overall except for the sagging seat webbing which you can see in this photo:

Alice wrote, "The previous owner must have had pets because my cats went nuts for the chair when I dragged it into the house (ergo the cats on the chair pics)."

The original webbing was crumbling and a challenge to pry off and "was the worst part of the job." Alice also had to pry "up a gazillion tacks; sanded the frame lightly; sprayed it with primer and two coats of white paint; put new jute webbing on the seat; washed the pillow cover and pillow insert; and plunked the pillow back on the newly redone chair. It looks terrific!"

this photo is the "spray zone set up in a corner of my tiny apartment - what a mess!"

here's the painted chair with new seat webbing

the finished chair - Alice plans to reupholster the cushion "but for now, the original red velvet pillow looks great against the white chair."

"The chair sits happily in the corner of my bedroom, contrasting beautifully with my deep eggplant walls and curtains," Alice writes and I completely agree!

Alice ends her email with a "Thank you Susan and thank you Jubilee!!"

Thank YOU, Alice for inviting us along on your chair's beautiful makeover!

If you've purchased something from Jubilee Furniture and would be willing to take a photo or two (or three) and email me at sgalbraith@outreachcommin.org with details of how the piece has been transformed or simply how wonderful it looks in your home - I would appreciate it!

Next week we'll see how Theresa turned a $2 so-so mirror into a showstopper!

Remember, Jubilee Furniture will be OPEN this Friday (from 1 to 8) and Saturday (from 9 to 4) but then CLOSED Friday the 24th and Saturday the 25th (ho, ho, ho!).

I heard a quote yesterday and it's stuck with me - and though I don't know who originally said it, thought I would share: "All will be well and all shall be well, all manner of things will be well."

May all be well with you, dear reader!

Tuesday's customer inspiration - my living room!

I received a wonderful email from Alice with - I'm sure - equally wonderful photos of some of the wonderful things she's purchased from Jubilee Furniture! Alas, the photos did not come through and Alice won't be able to resend them until later this week. So, my back-up plan was to show you my living room which contains many, many wonderful purchased from the store!

Let the wonder continue!


We purchased a pre-lite tree several years ago and loved it - for a while. Last year when more and more of the pre-lite lights went out (and they were a royal pain to replace and one bad bulb made the whole string go out) we happily pitched it after Christmas and decided to buy a real tree this year (insert very excited 22 year old daughter who loves real trees). However, when I saw this wonderful fake tree at the store a couple of weeks ago, I liked it so much I took a picture of it and asked my husband what he thought. Factor in the $20 price tag and it made sense to buy used instead of real (though Abby pointed out that by not buying a real Christmas tree I've denied a tree - which was planted for the sole purpose of becoming someone's Christmas tree - of fulfilling its potential! You gotta love a kid who thinks like that!).

I love, love this wonderful rocker which I bought from Jubilee Furniture a couple of years ago. I call it my "happy chair" since you truly can't rock in it without smiling!

There are many things in this photo which are from the store. Let's zoom in a little:

The four botanical prints are from Jubilee as is the wonderful table lamp (which I love!). The round table I purchased from the Discoveries Resale Shop which is also under the Outreach Community Ministries umbrella and located in Warrenville (at Rte. 59 and Batavia Rd. in the Family Food Store strip mall). Discoveries has a furniture annex a couple of doors down from their resale store and it really is wonderful!

The living room/dining room are a "L" and here's a shot of the dining area. the only thing from the store in these photos is the stool in the corner. It's only semi-wonderful (just being honest!).

The photo on the left was taken from near the dining room table. I had a blue and white candle holder that we bought when we were on a wonderful family vacation in Maine a good ten or twelve years ago. Jubilee Furniture received a wonderful donation of a ton of blue/white pieces and I fought the urge to buy anything for weeks. Finally, I gave in (especially since most of the pieces were priced around $2) and the wonderful collection of blue/white candlesticks on our coffee table is the end result of that purchase.

This smiley snowman stands guard by the candlesticks and my mom made it for me (and I think she made one for each of my sisters and my brother) many Christmases ago and is one of my favorite Christmas ornaments. Isn't it wonderful?

I must confess that I've - again - reverted to the old way of inserting photos and am trying not to feel like a failure. I received a wonderful offer from Amanda who is willing to help me convert to Windows Live Writer and I'll happily take her up on her offer - if it'll make it easier to use lots of photos with my blog posting (Amanda - did you receive my response to your email?).

And that ends this week's wonderful customer inspiration! If you've purchased something (translate - ANYTHING) from the store and would be willing to take a photo (or two or three) and email me at sgalbraith@outreachcommin.org with details, I would greatly appreciate it and it would be really, really wonderful!

I hope you have a truly wonderful day, dear reader!