Found It! Antique Marble Top Coffee Table

I never thought it would happen so quickly, but it did!

Remember my mood board for our new living room that had some very specific harder-to-find antique furniture?

To be precise, see the wood and marble coffee table in the middle?

Well now it’s sitting in the middle of our living room!

All of this came about when I was perusing online all local upcoming auctions for the week and saw one of my favorite auction houses was having a furniture sale [see my best resources for finding your local auctions and estate sales here]. Pictures were already up of most of the items that would be for sale, so I started looking through and…nestled between some bigger pieces…there it was!

One of the reasons I love this auction house is because I have found it to be one of the best kept secrets in our local area: there’s a very high chance that you will be able to buy a piece for a great price as compared to other places I’ve been. Not to mention the owners run it as a family and are personable, trying their best to know their frequent clients. Even though it’d been a few months since I’d last been to one of their auctions, they still recognized me and mentioned how it’d been awhile. Very cool.

Bidding started and we moved our way down rows of furniture. Most pieces were going for fantastic prices. I bid on a drafting table that Karl wanted and scored it for $15.

Got to say, nearly everyone bidding at auctions plays it so cool and nonchalant. They flash their bidder’s card, they calmly give slight nods to acquiesce to the price being asked, and perceive the difference between when the auctioneer is fishing for a higher bid or asking them for one.

I wish I felt as collected as they looked. It’s nothing short of amazing how from the time I go from listening as a bystander to the auctioneer to actually participating in bids how suddenly my understanding of what the auctioneer is saying goes out the window.

When I’m bidding on an item, I’m excited! I can grasp what the going price is, but feel a bit lost as to whether I’m winning or not with all the vague head nodding happening. It’s something I’m working on.

Life goals, yo.

As we came closer to the coffee table, I was a bit concerned as I had tried bidding on a similar table back in March at a different auction house that was in less favorable condition and it had gone for $75 – more than I’d wanted to pay for something I’d have to fix up and regrettably I’d had to bow out.

Bidding started on the coffee table. Auctioneer’s opening offer started high but went low before someone else took the bait (good rule of thumb – never accept the auctioneer’s first offered price). From what I could tell it was just myself and that person interested in the table, and we went back and forth a few rounds.

I won.

Winning bid?

A steal at…$15.00.

Told ya I liked this auction house.

Karl, not very interested in the auction now that he had his drafting table but more interested in when he’d get to load things and go home, popped his head up from his phone a few moments after I’d won the table and asked if I had bid on it. I was tempted to tell him “Yup, we got it for $200! Great, right?”…but he knows me too well and that kind of comment would have made him pause for only 2 seconds before realizing the jest…not to mention the happy dance I was doing kind of tipped him off that we’d gotten a bargain. ;)

Being the awesome hubby and gentleman that he is, he took on the arduous task of lugging the HEAVY marble top into the pickup and then into our living room that night.

…and now here it is!

I still can’t get over how quickly things happened from the time I posted my mood board here on the blog to scoring this table, not to mention the price!

Now to find that empire bookcase…

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