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?