The Butcher Block and Eclectic Houses

 After my successful dollhouse sale I wanted to see if I could do another Facebook Market Place listing with the same results. I’ve had a butcher block sitting in my garage since shortly after we moved in nearly two decades ago and it needed to find a new home. Finally. With a husband running around in a wheelchair, the butcher block just didn’t work sitting in the middle of our kitchen and neither one of was willing to give it up. It was built by a neighbor of my dad and mom's back in the 1970s and it’s never, ever been used the way butcher blocks are supposed to be used.

Back in those days---before we were married---my husband had a Cracker Jack box for house. It was 700 square feet if you counted the unheated porch and half that porch was taken up by an antique safe that came out of old bank from the turn of the century and I don’t mean at the last couple of turnings. It was armpit tall and wide enough so that the door frame had to be removed to get the safe in and back out of the house again when it was sold. On the other end of the porch was massive, glass front china cabinet that belonged to Don’s mother. The living room walls were covered with porcelain gas station signs, the short hallway to the bedroom had shelves up high that displayed antique oil cans and bottles. The bathroom had the only rectangle shaped toilet I’ve ever seen in my life. The bedroom off the living room had been turned into an office with a massive roll top desk that literally took up a third of the floor space, two oak filing cabinets that matches the desk took up more floor space. When my husband moved into the house it had a pink kitchen stove which he trashed on his first day of ownership. He didn’t cook so that open space stayed open for several years…until Don fell in love with The Butcher Block. A few years later it became a stand for a microwave. Yes, there was no mistaking that house for anything but a bachelor pad. I often said that the only reason Don knew there was a kitchen in the house was because he had to walk through it to get to the garage.

Fast forward to the current house I live in, and that butch block sat in the garage being used for a---drum roll, please---stand for my paper cutter. I’m in love with my giant paper cutter but that’s a story for another day, but let me tell you that I’m going to cry when I have to let go of that.

I cleaned the butcher block up using instructions I found online that included using vinegar and salt and food grade mineral oil, I took some pictures and listed it on Market Place. Within a half hour a woman contacted me and said she’d take it for my asking price of $235 and she’d pick it up within an hour. I made sure she understood I wanted cash, no check, and that she’d have to bring someone with her to help load it in her vehicle because I couldn’t.

Turned out she, her husband and I went to the same high school gleaned from the fact that we had a mutual Facebook friend. Her grandfather had a butcher block just like the one I sold. She’d wanted one forever but when his estate was divided her brother got the grandfather’s butcher block. She came into the garage and handed me the money without even getting close to the block and I said, “You’d better look it over first to make sure you want it. It’s got a few flaws.” The flaws were listed in the posting but still I didn’t want her to get it home and regretting not looking over the split leg and scratch on the side. “Oh, I’m taking it,” she said with conviction, “I’ve been looking for one just like this for thirty years!” I probably had it priced too low because I had five other offers afterward, before I could mark it sold. But I’d checked out all the other butcher blocks listed and noted how long they'd been on Market Place and I took that as a clue they were overpriced. Better $235 in hand than a hope a hundred or two more that may or may not ever come.

Downsizing stuff you’ve loved for many years can be a rush when they connect up with the right people like this butcher block did and my childhood dollhouse did last week. But my favorite downsizing sale is still an e-Bay sale of a pair of twin Pendleton Wool bedspreads. The woman who paid $350 for them said she cried when she won the auction. She had owned a set just like mine and lost them in one of the forest fires out west. Lost everything she owned. I got such a nice letter from her after she got them in the mail and that letter made me cry happy tears. The bedspreads were bought with a $1,000 prize I won in a writing contest so besides them being perfect for our western themed house, they had an extra reason for me to be sentimentally attached. I only hope when I’m finally able to sell my house I end up with another great downsizing story to tell about the new owners ©