I have now come to the conclusion that it is virtually impossible to get moderately good, reasonably priced furniture in Halifax. Torontonians have the lovely fun IKEA, as well as hundreds of moving sales and garage sales practically everyday. “Look- I got this amazing brand-new sofa/dresser/table for about fifty bucks! The owner had a job offer in America and couldn’t wait to leave Canada!” is a oft-heard brag amongst the immigrants. In Halifax, by contrast, the pace of life is more leisurely, and people, if ever, get job offers to work in Dartmouth, the sister-city over the bay and the industrial heart of the Halifax region. And so moving sales are few and far between. Garage sales are more common, where people decide to display their junk on the pavement or in the back-yard, hoping to sell broken dirty stuff for slightly higher than the original price tag.
Anyway, the cheap shoddy chest of drawers from the infamous JYSK store recently collapsed under the weight of my bras and panties, and it became necessary to find a replacement container for the mentioned items. Temporarily, after spending several days on the floor, they found shelter in a green Dalhousie University tote, free courtesy gift from the International Development department.
We tried the internet first, searching for second-hand drawers in Halifax. We made an appointment and went to see one which was offered for ten bucks. It actually looked quite sturdy and neat. We paid the price, the seller empited the drawers and we hauled the frame out. We got as far as the door when the frame gently collapsed in our hands, the back fell off leaving the bare sharp nails grinning at us like sarcastic wolf fangs. Buyer and seller apologized to each other in confusion, we retrived our tenner, and backed out, leaving the distressed frame in the doorway.
The we visited a vast warehouse which sold second-hand funiture left over apparantly from Mrs. havisham and her peers. The furniture was mouldy, ugly, chipped and expensive. A horrible six-drawer dresser with falky paint was priced one hundred dollars.
We considered going back to JYSK, but it was too hard.
We finally ended up in Wal-mart, and bought a white plastic set of three drawers, with a faint wicker design, for 27 dollars.
And we fantasized about the fantastic Yaftabad area in west of Tehran, a neighbourhood the size of Halifax covered with funiture malls and shops, where you could get almost any kind of furniture, and any kind of style, at any kind of price.
Tags: buying furniture, buying furniture in Halifax, cheap furniture, shopping in Halifax
