End Times and End Tables, OR, Can this Friendship be Saved?

I think I’m in trouble.

So my friend Arnebya has been itching to do some furniture rehab. We’ve talked types of paint, good thrifting locations, and ideal shades of gray. For months, she has struggled to find the perfect nightstands for her bedroom, and when she came across some on Craigslist, she sent me the link. They looked promising. Since they were in my town, not hers, I ran over to pick them up.

I was hoping they wouldn’t be too heavy for me to carry to the car. Not a problem. The tables were not just small, they were Lilliputian. And as sturdy as a soggy piece of cardboard. In a word, they were ANNOYING.

(I'd love to show you a photo, but after 2 hours of trying to get one to post, and having it want to break my blog, I've decided to forgo putting a pic here. You may use your imagination to conjure up the sheer crappiness of the nightstands or take a peek over on my Facebook page)

Take that bottom drawer, for instance.

If Arnebya happened to be in bed and needed a little something something from that drawer-- say, um, reading glasses-- and she leaned over the side of the bed to get them, she would surely fall on her head.

Did I want to be responsible for Arnebya’s goose egg? I thought about putting wooden feet on the bottom to raise the stands up a bit, but there was nowhere to anchor them. And that top “shelf?” Puhlease. Not enough room for a lamp! Forget about a box of tissues. Annoying.

I tried to decide whether the nightstands were as terrible as I thought, or whether I was just PMS’ing. It’s not like my furniture standards are all that high. Our nightstands, TV cabinet, side tables and numerous chairs came off of people’s trash piles. Choosy, I am not.

But maybe I put too much pressure on myself because I was shopping for a friend, not myself. I mean, when it comes to shabby chic, I am the shabby, Arnebya’s the chic. She wears high heels, she smells good, and her hair deserves its own Facebook page. She has standards. So I turned down the nightstands on her behalf, and promised to find her something much better and much less annoying.

Except now she has no nightstands at all.

I wonder if she’s mad at me. I mean, perhaps a nightstand in the hand is better than two in Arnebya’s um, you know. After 6 fruitless trips to various thrift stores, with no suitable tables in sight, I think I flew too close to the sun on this one. Sure I’ve had stellar thrifting success in my day. Yes, my chair collection is the envy of the dumpster diving set, but what right did I have to turn down Arnebya’s nightstands? What made me think I could find better? What if she hates my taste? I mean, in addition to our shoe incompatibility, she doesn’t like beans. Eep. I think I’m screwed.

So if you are local, and you have a heart:

 
If you see smallish (but not ridiculously small), vintage (but not fussy), nightstands in need of some TLC, please let me know!