A Dumpster Couch and Two TVs

Moving into our first apartment was quite an adventure. When looking for an apartment, my only criteria was that it was cheap. We found an apartment that was close to the school with a great view of the freeway.

This was the first apartment I had ever moved into that came unfurnished. I knew that we wouldn't be living her for a very long time so I didn't want to have to buy any furniture that was nice and expensive because I didn't want to have to move it around with me for the next couple years. The first week that we moved here we went to DI at least once a day and would check craigslist at least five times a day. The first thing we needed was a couch. We kept seeing cheap ones come up on craigslist but they were pretty terrible even for a cheap price. I just knew we could find a better deal. After about a week of searching, we were driving past our apartment complex and I saw a full couch in the dumpster! I wish I would have taken a picture of this couch but it looked something like this.

Needless to say, I made Curtis pull over to check out the couch. Not only was it in the dumpster but someone had also recently dumped their grass trimmings all over it. Did that deter me? Not a chance. It was a FREE couch! I couldn't believe our luck! We quickly pulled it out and started carrying it to our apartment. I'm not exactly a weakling but my upper body strength gave out pretty quickly carrying that huge couch up and down stairs. I kept wanting to take breaks but Curtis realized that if the couch was in our dumpster then that probably meant that someone from our complex threw it away. He was really nervous that they would see how ghetto we were taking their couch from the dumpster so he made me keep going even though my arms felt like they were going to fall off. Eventually we got the couch into our second floor apartment and I vacuumed off all of the grass. After the excitement of the free couch wore off, Curtis was a little skeptical about why it was in the dumpster in the first place. I was totally fine relaxing on the couch but he borrowed a couch cover from a friend before he would really sit on it. We really only had the couch for about a week before a friend of ours lent us some free couches. So the dumpster couch went back to it's home and we ended up with these beauties.

The rest of the apartment ended up coming together pretty nicely. We borrowed a table for dining from some friends and borrowed some folding chairs to make up our dining area.

We found a king size mattress and a bed frame at DI for super cheap! It didn't have any box springs so we spent a couple days looking around for some. One day curtis was driving and saw a ton of box springs in the dumpster of the apartment complex next to us. Manna from heaven!! They got all new beds for their apartments so we scored free box springs. Curtis had to load them one at a time in the open trunk of his car and drive slowly and haul them up to our apartment.

We were all lined up with a TV that we were going to borrow from a friend. We went over to his place one day to check it out and I knew after looking at it for one second that we would be buying a new TV. Yes, I am willing to dumpster dive for a couch but am unwilling to watch TV on a terrible screen. You now know exactly where my priorities are. It was the morning of Curtis' birthday and he had been watching different TVs on Ebay. He told me he was about to win one and he was super excited. He pressed that button and was so excited that we won our first TV. His buyer's remorse then immediately kicked in while he was looking at the price he paid vs the regular buying price. He was convinced that another TV he was watching was a way better deal and that he needed to have that one. He quickly sent an email to the seller explaining that he bought the first TV but that he really wanted the other TV that he was bidding on. He wanted to bid on the second TV and return the first TV only if he won. Amazingly enough, the seller was willing to do that so Curtis went and bid on the second TV of the day and won that one too. So we bought two TVs that day but luckily only ended up getting one very nice TV that is the pride and joy of our home.

We will be moving out of this apartment at the end of the month and we are so sad to let it go. It has been the perfect apartment for us. Here is a quick list of the pros and cons so I don't forget what it was like living here.

Pros:                                                                    
- Even when it looks like a huge mess it really only takes 20 minutes to clean the whole house        

-We had two closets which was a great blessing      
                                                                              
- We didn't have to use the air conditioning ever because you could cool the whole apartment down  
by opening the windows

Cons:
- If our trash can ever smells bad then the smell fills upour whole apartment very quickly

- You couldn't get ready in the morning without turning on the lights and waking the other person up

- If the windows were open then you couldn't hear theTV or sleep very well because of the freeway noise

Some of you may be appalled by how cheap and ghetto I am. I like to think of myself as being frugal and easy to please. We will miss you Terrace Apartments.