apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I'm going to be moving to Chicago on the 1st, and I was wondering if any of the consignment shops/thrift stores delivered. I mean, people get those sofas home somehow, don't they?

There's a fellow or two on Craigslist who will pick up furniture for you with their trucks... nice guys I hear, and quite resonable too...

Thanks Julian, good to know :)

I found a guy in the Reader classfied sections that will even pick up at the house of a craigslist ad and deliver to you and charges by the hour. Don't forget to grab a Chicago Reader and give it read from cover to cover to find all those neat services you will need the first few months.
don

OH! And welcome to Chicago!

I have a great guy who will deliver for you and is the most reasonable I have ever used. I've used 4 of the most well known delivery men on craigslist, and he's the most accomodating and cheapest.

He picked up my bed without me having to be there and delivered it perfectly. If you need his info, shoot me an email and I'll respond shortly.

I've used him 5 times since....he's amazing.

We will be having several guests over the next two months and our air mattress is slowly dying. We unfortunately don't have any more room for a couch or a futon. Any ideas on something comfortable (sleeps 2) and space-efficient?

Dana -- what about a traditional Japanese futon mat that you can roll up when not in use?

Otherwise, I can't think of anything that sleeps two, takes up less room than a futon or couch, and is not an airbed...

Virginia

has anyone had any experience with the car-sharing service zipcar? I see they have programs in NYC, Chicago, SF, DC and others... and now we have one in Toronto too.
I'm seriously considering a membership, because this seems like a more affordable option to buying and renting. I'm just wary that there are those weird catches that you don't notice until you try to use the service.

angelune:
there was some discussion on car-sharing on the last open thread (open thread #15 in the archives). zip car is new to chicago, but there is good info from leah on thread #15 about
i-go, a similar service which has been in chicago for a while.

i'm also very interested and am hoping to hear more on i-go and zip car too...

Zipcar is new in Chicago and not very wide-spread. There's another car-sharing program here, I-Go, which has been around a lot longer and has many, many more cars to go around. I'm a member of I-Go and I *love* it. There are oodles of cars within walking distance of my home, so I've never had trouble getting a car -- even at the last minute. The fees cover insurance, gas, maintenance and parking. For short jaunts (like running errands), it's significantly cheaper than a rental car. I-Go takes reservations both by phone and on-line -- it's ridiculously easy!

The only snag I've encountered -- during July 4th weekend, all of the cars in the neighborhood were booked solid and someone was late with the car I had reserved. I-Go credited me the lost time and I haven't had any other problems.

Thanks for the scoop on i-go Virginia! I've been thinking about joining, but just never have. It is a great option for those of us without cars and need to make trips out to say Ikea or Target!

Dana, I would just borrow an air bed from somebody, rather than clutter up your place with anything new. I'd loan you mine, but I've only got a single. I wonder if we can place classified ads like that on AT? "Looking to borrow an airbed for a weekend, promise to put it in designer sheets..."

My husband and I plan to buy a Calligaris dining room table soon. We're divided on whether or not to get one with a tempered glass or wood veneer top. Part of the dilemma is the fact that we're going to have a baby in a month, so there's a question of what would be more safe and durable with a kid...also, whether or not the glass top would be too trendy.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

One more point about I-Go -- although they're pushing for more members, they're compensating for the increased demand in cars by adding quite a few hybrid cars to their fleet.

thanks for all the info on zipcars. I don't think there's I-go here in Toronto, only zipcar and a few other canadian carshare programs.

I think I'm going to sign up for zipcar, I've heard lots of good things from NYC'ers, DC'ers and Chicagoans. So, any 'zipsters' can come to Toronto and drive a zipcar around our city too!

Donna I don't know about safe and durable but a glass table top may be harder to clean, esp with babies!

Donna,

We have a glass top dining table with semi-sharp corners. When my son was a toddler, I cut self-stick black velcro to size (narrow strips) and wrapped just the four corners of the glass top. I only used the "fuzzy" side of the velcro so they were very low profile (as opposed to those huge safety corners you can buy) but it was enough to take the edge off in case of bumps. It worked like a charm and never needed replacing. They stayed stuck to the glass even with constant cleaning (part of life with a baby no matter which surface you chose!)

Good luck and congrats on the baby's arrival...

Thanks for the input, Anna and Janel--and also for the suggestion on how to take the edge off a glass table top (so to speak). Wood veneer or glass, I see a lot of cleaning products in my future...

Thanks again!

Gateleg Table or Drop leaf: I am in a small one bedroom and really wish to have company for dining....Space is a problem. Does anyone know where I could purchase a dark wood gateleg or drop down table??? Local to Chicago please.
Thanks and enjoy this site.

My new apartment has a great peninsula counter in the kitchen, but the flourescent light fixture isn't pretty. Some sort of hanging drop light over the counter would do wonders for the space, but my landlord won't let me install anything in the ceiling.

I'd like to find something shorter than most floor lamps and taller than most table lamps that I could set on the counter that would produce an effect similar to a pendant light, maybe something like this http://www.cb2.com/family.aspx?c=120&f=2976 but shorter.

Does such a thing exist? Any ideas?

Donna:

I ran across an article about "exploding" glass tabletops just the other day. Click my name for the link. That article focuses on Martha Stewart tables but I did a little more digging out of morbid curiosity and it's not just the MS brand. I am not sure if it only happens to tables that are in the heat, but you might want to look into it.

I also grew up around a mom who seemed to make glass break. I know that sounds strange - and it wasn't that she went around singing or anything - but glass just exploded around her sometimes. She wouldn't be touching it or anything, and it would just break. LOL. I know that sounds silly but I swear it's true. Not saying that's your thing but just throwing it out there ;)

Enjoy the new table and the new baby :)

My parents once had a glass-topped patio table. One night, we were eating dinner inside and heard this terrific crash -- we ran outside and the entire tabletop had imploded or something. There was just a mound of glass shards on the ground. Crazy...and difficult to clean up. My mom got a teak table after that.

Donna: I'm probably way too late to weigh in on the glass-topped table question, but you wondered if it would be too trendy -- friends of mine had a glass-topped dining room table in the early 1980s...so perhaps glass-topped tables are on their way to classic instead of a trend that will pass? (their table, by the way, was very nice looking, and not only survived their baby, but also a move halfway across the country!)

Schaumburg....it's easy to get to and bigger.

-I'm new to chicago... Which Ikea do people use? Which do you prefer... and why?

Sassy and Kathryn--Thanks for the link and info. Glass sounds like it's got more potential for hazards than I had thought, so it's looking less and less likely to happen. (And wow! about your mom, Sassy--I myself have a tendency to make light bulbs go out, especially when I'm stressed--I can't imagine making glass shatter but I can believe some people can make it happen!)

Smallcitybeth--Maybe glass is becoming an alternate classic to wood or other materials...I never would've considered it an option but we stumbled across this table and it's soooo so darned cool looking--the glass is coffee colored, hard to describe. I'm not sure we're that cool, though!