Before we go on any trip, we always jump on thethriftshopper.com to print a list of the thrift stores in the city we’ll be visiting. It’s our idea of vacation fun.

This past weekend we were in Charlotte, NC for a conference, so we hit the town armed with our list of 24 thrift stores, and we managed to hit all of them. The Habitat Restores in Charlotte were hands down the best Restores I’ve ever been to. The cashier at one of them said they were the number one Restore in the country. I don’t know if that’s true, but I suspect it is.

I bought the primitive blanket chest shown above for just $75. The wood is hand-scrapped, and some of the boards are 17 inches wide!

I’m such a sucker for primitive pieces, but they’re usually crazy expensive. $75 was a steal.

It has sturdy dovetail joints …

and at four feet long, it has lots of storage space.

I plan to use it up at the cabin to hold board games. As sturdy as it is, it’ll double as extra seating.

And I found this set of antique chairs there, too. I’ve been looking for a set to use up at the cabin with the farm table that we curbshopped a while back, but it’s really hard to find a matching set (especially when you don’t want to spend a lot). These were just $10 each. Insane!

Look how beautiful the seats are. They sort of have a cafe look to them. Makes me wonder if they might have started life as restaurant chairs. They’re stamped made in Poland, which I also find interesting.

Now, getting them home … that was rather interesting. We didn’t expect to find furniture on this trip, so we were driving our gas-sipping four-door sedan. The chest fit in the back seat with just a half-inch to spare. Taking the lid off allowed us to stash two chairs inside. The other two chairs went in the trunk. Phew!

But the sad part: there are two more chairs at the store that we didn’t have room to haul. And it’s driving me a bit crazy. Make me contemplate another road trip crazy.