A day in the life of a furniture upcycler.
People often ask where I get my furniture, and the honest answer is all over the place. On occasions, like this morning it involves picking something up from a private seller, this is usually 'interesting' and you are never quite sure how it's going to go...

So I leave home at the almost unthinkable hour of 8am this morning (I'm still in lazy school holiday mode) to battle the traffic to what can possibly be described as one of the busiest roads in the Bournemouth and Poole conurbation to collect a chest of drawers. Now just so you can fully appreciate the scene, I had done my homework (thanks google) as there was no was I was going to abandon my vehicle on double yellows while extracting a chest of drawers from a second floor flat on such a busy road. No, that's too much like hard work!!! Fortunately it was a house with a driveway. Result, nice and easy...
So I arrive slightly early ✅ (traffic was fairly light) ✅ manage to reverse into the drive while avoiding double decker buses ✅
I ring the doorbell and await Rebecca to answer the door. ❌

Well 'Rebecca' it would seem is actually a very small, middle aged Chinese bloke

Now again to set the scene, when you buy furniture privately they don't want you in the house. Said item is usually abandoned on the driveway or at very least it's in the hallway.
Not here. 'Rebecca' invites me in and tells me its upstairs, and I follow him

Now, although it is daytime, it's a semi, there are no landing windows bringing in rays of sunshine. It's dark, and he doesn't turn on a light. We get to the top and he points to another flight of stairs. Not a nice family staircase but a narrow set of steps, which would definitely not pass any current building regs. 

Again, there's no light and I follow him it is about halfway up, I have 'that' moment , I think I may never get out of here alive. Who knows where I am? How long before anyone would actually miss me? 

Then the light goes on at the top and all is well with the world...well for 3 seconds... until he points to THE WORLDS BIGGEST CHEST OF DRAWERS!!! and I realise I've got to get this thing down 2 flights with mini man Rebecca!

Now this is not some lightweight IKEA piece, this is old, its solid wood, its heavy and its huge. So I suggest we take the drawers down first so two trips each up and down the two flights and I feel like I've run a marathon. Yet, we still have the main event. The first flight and 'Rebecca' goes backwards. It's at this point I need to tell you about his footwear. He's wearing slippers, not sensible slippers but mule type things without backs and the stairs are varnished wood. Suddenly I have a vision of him falling backwards down the stairs. What would I do? I wouldn't be able to help him without dropping THE WORLDS LARGEST CHEST OF DRAWERS on top of him, so if the fall didn't kill him the drawers probably would....

Fortunately, a disaster was averted and then it was my turn to go backwards down the next flight... well I'm not quite sure how but I ended up with this monster of a chest balanced on my head, but it worked and we got the damn thing out to the car. Now it's a big car, it's never been beaten yet, well until today. There was no way THE WORLDS LARGEST CHEST OF DRAWERS was  going in, not ever, no way, no how  
Now, fortunately Mr Rebecca was a very understanding man (or rather he couldn't face taking the bloody thing back up two flights of stairs) and has agreed to keep it in his hallway, where all furniture awaiting collection should be stored! I have had to admit defeat and pass this job over to the husband.

In future I will be behaving like a middle aged woman on a dating website and make sure my whereabouts are accountable when meeting men called Rebecca ‍♀️