Amazing deals as people downsize
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I keep seeing amazing deals on acoustic pianos. There was a guy selling a decent Baldwin concert grand for $7,500. Here's a Baldwin Hamilton in good shape - for $50.
In the 1960s, people were tossing away roll top desks. In the 1970s, they became a big thing for people to restore and put in their homes. Lately, I've seen roll top desks being given away or sold for next to nothing. Things that would sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars 20 years ago are now pretty inexpensive. Don't even try to sell a dining room set.
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Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
@jolly said in Amazing deals as people downsize:
In the case of pianos, few people play nowadays. Roll-top desks, I dunno. Out of style, I guess.
The dining room set being unwanted kinda makes me sad. I think families are better off when they turn off the noise boxes and sit down and eat together.
More people play today than ever before. There’s been this idea that’s been tossed around for years that fewer people play piano based on the number of new acoustic pianos sold last year vs 1965… That’s crap. Most of the acoustic instruments sold in the 60’s were cheap and poorly made spinets by Lester, Kimball, Gulbransen, and more… Tens of thousands every year… Today, hundreds of thousands Yamaha Clavinovas and other high quality digital pianos are being sold every year. These instruments are a far cry better than a Lester Betsy Ross Spinet…You also have a much larger used piano market than 50 years ago, and an acoustic piano market that is still vibrant.
If you really want to see how many people are playing piano, you need to go to the publishers. How many books are they selling? Go to the teaching organizations… How many teachers are members? Do they track the numbers of students?
If fewer people are playing piano, that’s going to be an awful surprise for the music studios I am working with that are preparing to open 20 new locations around Washington, DC…
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@jolly said in Amazing deals as people downsize:
The dining room set being unwanted kinda makes me sad. I think families are better off when they turn off the noise boxes and sit down and eat together.
Agreed. Are there stats of fewer dining room sets selling, or it being a less frequent thing for families to sit down and eat together? I know what I'll do with my family...but can imagine the trends are very positive across the country.
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@89th said in Amazing deals as people downsize:
@jolly said in Amazing deals as people downsize:
The dining room set being unwanted kinda makes me sad. I think families are better off when they turn off the noise boxes and sit down and eat together.
Agreed. Are there stats of fewer dining room sets selling, or it being a less frequent thing for families to sit down and eat together? I know what I'll do with my family...but can imagine the trends are very positive across the country.
Dining room sets are not necessarily an indication of whether families are having meals together. A lot of families use eat-in kitchens and are finding the formal dining room redundant and unnecessary.
Me/rry/Christmas
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@lufins-dad True, we use a casual table between our kitchen and our porch (I guess it's kind of like a breakfast nook) for our dinners. We have a formal dining room which we'll use for more formal dinners (like during the holidays).........once we get furniture for it. Currently it is occupied by a bunch of those carboard toy bricks.
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I said we'd start eating all our meals together once we got organized.
I think that was in 2004. We're nearly there.
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@89th said in Amazing deals as people downsize:
Agreed. Are there stats of fewer dining room sets selling, or it being a less frequent thing for families to sit down and eat together? I know what I'll do with my family...but can imagine the trends are very positive across the country.
My wife's family never had that. Gotta drop the kids off here, gotta go to my appointment there, etc. They were always too busy with their activities, going here and there, very busy household.
These people cannot manage moving furniture together. I shit you not, they cannot do it. It devolves into shouting and insults and it never gets done. Moving chairs from the kitchen to the dining room is beyond them. As are walking through Target, making a drive-through order and watering flowers. I have no idea why my wife's so well-adjusted, it's a miracle.
I'm not saying that some hokey, Norman Rockwell-type family dinner routine would magically fix all this, but it's obvious that they could seriously benefit from daily practice at being a family.
My thing is, I don't care what meal it is, breakfast or dinner, but we're going to give each other our undivided attention at least once a day, and we're going to plan for it so that it's never skipped.
Please love yourself.
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@aqua-letifer woot! And I'm biased because it's how I grew up (including many dinners where my brothers and I had to stand in the corner for misbehaving
) but I hope to continue the tradition as my kids get older. Right now dinners are more of time where the 8 month old is dropping everything on the ground and we have a limited few minutes of quiet. -
Growing up, 8 of us had dinner at the kitchen table every night. Except on Sunday when we all had dinner at my grandmother's dining room table.
Now it's the table in the breakfast nook at my house or my daughter's on weekends. The dining rooms gathers dust.
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Look, I don't live in as large a house as many of you do. There's a couple of barstools by the kitchen bartop, but we never eat there. Other than that, the dining table is right there.
Most of the time, I don't have the leaves in, so it only seats six. When the kids are home or friends drop by, I sometimes need all the table I can get. We can feed 8 with space, or 12 if we get real friendly.
I just like taking my meals at the table. Occasionally, for shits and grins, I enjoy pulling out the china and the matching glasses and actually having a nice dinner with friends.
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
@jolly said in Amazing deals as people downsize:
Look, I don't live in as large a house as many of you do. There's a couple of barstools by the kitchen bartop, but we never eat there. Other than that, the dining table is right there.
Most of the time, I don't have the leaves in, so it only seats six. When the kids are home or friends drop by, I sometimes need all the table I can get. We can feed 8 with space, or 12 if we get real friendly.
I just like taking my meals at the table. Occasionally, for shits and grins, I enjoy pulling out the china and the matching glasses and actually having a nice dinner with friends.
Don't sweat it, man. We still use a dining room table, too.
But in the post-COVID times, it also doubles as our work desk.
(Yes, we clear that crap off when we eat.) -
We had our dining room set built by the local Amish. Solid Oak, 54"x 12' with the leaves in. It seats 12 easily and more if you get cozy.
The hutch is 7' tall by 96" wide
I cannot imagine anyone wanting such a table or china cupboard/hutch. It will stay with this house when we leave, because we designed it for this house.
We used to fill it with family every holiday.
Now it's just 2 or 3 of us. Holidays might see 6 to 8 people.
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@mark said in Amazing deals as people downsize:
We had our dining room set built by the local Amish. Solid Oak, 54"x 12' with the leaves in. It seats 12 easily and more if you get cozy.
The hutch is 7' tall by 96" wide
I cannot imagine anyone wanting such a table or china cupboard/hutch. It will stay with this house when we leave, because we designed it for this house.
We used to fill it with family every holiday.
Now it's just 2 or 3 of us. Holidays might see 6 to 8 people.
You need to feed more people!
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@loki said in Amazing deals as people downsize:
If it’s mid century modern it will capture a premium. Otherwise I heard from someone, if it’s brown flush it down.
Which is a crying shame. In a few years, fashion will change and people will decry all the painted and distressed furniture...
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@loki said in Amazing deals as people downsize:
If it’s mid century modern it will capture a premium. Otherwise I heard from someone, if it’s brown flush it down.
Mid century modern - the furniture none of us wanted to take when we left the house. Too old fashioned.
We eat at either the dining room table, as we did Saturday night, or at a glass topped 4'round table in the sunroom. Or on the deck. If it's just MFR and I we might eat in front of the squackbox if we've been together all day.
