{"id":312,"date":"2003-06-25T14:53:18","date_gmt":"2003-06-25T21:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbaraguggenheim.com\/bg\/?p=312"},"modified":"2012-03-16T10:33:15","modified_gmt":"2012-03-16T17:33:15","slug":"adventures-on-ebay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barbaraguggenheim.com\/bg\/adventures-on-ebay\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventures on eBay"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Art Consultant Barbara Guggenheim Takes on the Challenge of Furnishing a House Online<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Just when I\u2019d finished constructing and redecorating our house in Los Angeles, my husband, Bert, came home with the news that he\u2019d bought the Malibu beach house we\u2019d been coveting for years. Another year of antiques shops and fabric stores and searching for bath fixtures was more than I could bear. With a full-time job and family responsibilities, I\u2019d run out of steam, not to mention time. No antiques shop, flea market or even Bloomingdale\u2019s is open at 10 at night, when I was available. Then I thought, What about eBay? As an art consultant, I\u2019d long been pessimistic about the prospects of buying serious art online. But I wasn\u2019t looking for serious art, and, desperate, I was ready to try.<\/p>\n

The house, a Cape Cod-style cottage, came with a few basic pieces of furniture, including a pine cabinet with a plate-rack top. Though it occupied a big space in the dining room, it also created a serious problem. How was I going to fill five 12-foot shelves? OK, I thought, here goes. I went onto eBay and typed \u201cironstone\u201d in the search field. What came up was amazing. Within a month we successfully bid on hundreds of pieces\u2014bowls, pitchers, gravy boats and enough plates to serve 24.<\/p>\n

In the process, my husband became an addict. One day, when our bids for a soup tureen were repeatedly topped by \u201cIronstone Ike,\u201d Bert asked if we could send an e-mail to our rival. \u201cTell him if he tops our bid one more time, we\u2019ll spend the rest of our lives outbidding him on every object he tries to buy.\u201d \u201cCalm down,\u201d I said. \u201cThat can\u2019t be legal.\u201d<\/p>\n

One night Bert suggested that we find an antique ship painting for the living room. My eyes rolled. But having scored with ironstone, I entered \u201cold ship painting\u201d and hoped for the best. Eight works came up, one more gruesome than the next. Bert picked one he liked, undeterred by my observation that it didn\u2019t look old. I placed a low bid, hoping we wouldn\u2019t get it. Of course we did. Sometimes sellers send personal notes explaining the provenance of your purchase, such as, \u201cMy grandfather carried this vase in his arms all the way over from Russia.\u201d The owner of the \u201cold ship painting\u201d wrote: \u201c I am so glad you got my painting. I just finished it last night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antique oil lamps, tablecloths, pillowcases, candlesticks, rugs and silver followed.<\/p>\n

I may be a veteran now, but I still have a moment of angst when an eBay package arrives.<\/p>\n

My most disappointing moment came over a sailor\u2019s valentine I intended to hang in the entrance hall. It looked quite splendid on my computer screen, filled with tiny shells, hearts and bows. When I opened the box, it was only an inch in diameter. Still, it was my fault for not having looked closely at the description and dimensions.<\/p>\n

Then there was my foray into sock monkeys. With their wide red smiles and floppy arms and legs, they make me laugh. As I scrolled down all the selections on eBay, I was sure that there was a connoisseurship to sock monkeys, but it eluded me totally. I couldn\u2019t tell good from bad, old from new, but I didn\u2019t care. I liked them all.<\/p>\n

One thing about eBay: It\u2019s easy to get sidetracked. In a search for quilts and blankets, I stumbled onto Indian saddle blankets. Before I knew it, I owned two and realized I was way off course. Still, if Bert ever comes home saying he\u2019s bought a house in Santa Fe, I\u2019ll be ready.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Art Consultant Barbara Guggenheim Takes on the Challenge of Furnishing a House Online Just when I\u2019d finished constructing and redecorating our house in Los Angeles, my husband, Bert, came home with the news that he\u2019d bought the Malibu beach house … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humor","category-magazine-articles-by-barbara"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraguggenheim.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraguggenheim.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraguggenheim.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraguggenheim.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraguggenheim.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraguggenheim.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":357,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraguggenheim.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions\/357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraguggenheim.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbaraguggenheim.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraguggenheim.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbaraguggenheim.com\/bg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}