I sometimes misspell things on purpose . . .like dinning room.

In your example above, you might try sofa's, ha, ha!

I just go the Furniture listing, click on By-Owner, then click the box "has-image." It gives me the whole list and I click on the titles that I want to see.

I have a tough time transitioning to sleep at night, ive found that 20 mins of craigslisting is a nice low key activity (books keep me awake). It's almost a puzzle to see what turns up that might interest me.

I often use keywords that would attract my attention without adding additional parameters, like:

glass doors, or down, or iron, or walnut, or teak, or hardwood, or quality, or custom, or artisan, or leaded glass... I cant predict what will pop up but it is fun to see. I also sometimes sort by high price and see what people have listed at crazy prices, knowing that in a month or two the prices will fall some.

If you are searching for a pair of sofas, then i would also run a daily search on just the word "pair" to see what turns up.

I also use a site that turns the craigslist page into just photos, i find it saves time on the clicking forward thru the link.

I agree that Craigslist is a bit difficult to search. I don't use it often, but I tend ot use graywings approach with a couple of tweaks.

After my results page comes up I will sometimes use "CTRL F" to search the results for specific words. In this instance I would search for "sofa" without the "s", in case someone has added an errant apostrophe.

Then I will open up each listing I am interested in reading more about in a new tab either by "middle" clicking on my scroll wheel of my mouse or pressing CTRL while I click on my touch pad. When I get to the end of the page I will check out each listing in its own tab and close them as I eliminate them.

I just love using tabs for shopping and browsing online. In fact that's how I read this forum. I open up all the threads that I want to read in new tabs and close them as I finish reading them. Right now, in addition to my email I have 10 more tabs open.

I click on "by owner" and check the box for photograph. I'll search for a specific item or specific manufacturers:
Henredon, Century, Baker, Sherrill, Hickory Chair, Ethan Allen, Pennsyvania House, Drexel, etc.

kiki,

what is that site that turns the craiglist page into photos, do you remember? I'd like to do this because it's so much quicker than opening each ad.

I use the Greasemonkey Craigslist Fusion 7.9 add-on that allows you to see large photos of items without clicking on the listing. I love it, except that the add-on works only with Firefox, which is not my usual browser. So I switch back to Firefox just for Craigslist searches.

I'm in a big metro area, so if I'm really looking for something, I limit search to 'by owner', and further limit with a very general term (table, e.g.). Too many terms - especially ones frequently misspelled - limits your hits. A couple of times I've noticed that if I search 'for sale' generally rather than limiting to 'furniture', I find good stuff in antiques, household goods, etc.

If I'm just browsing for my own enjoyment, I limit my search to owners, and see what comes up.

If I'm looking for a specific item, I use Statewide List, and scroll down to the cities closest to home.

Here is a link that might be useful: Statewide List

Nanny2a, im sure there are several different ones. I use craigseasy. I put my search in the regular way, for example
Sectionals,
By owner,
Sort by high price first,
Then i click the craigseasy button installed on my computer toolbar/favorites bar.

It extracts all the photos from the posts, and i can quickly scroll down thru.
If i see one i want to read about, i click it and that takes me thru to the craigslist ad.

I think it speeds things up a lot.

Here is a link that might be useful: Craigseasy with which i have no affiliation

Oh, wow, kiki - THANKS! Craigseasy works with Chrome - my preferred browser. Great!

You can also go to google and type "craigslist wedgwood toilet" or whatever item you are looking for. Tha gives you a national search. Doing it this way works well if you are looking for unique items.

Wedgewood Toilet - LOL!!! Just picture it with the white curlicues.

I love all of the advice here. I LOVE the idea of opening up each listing in another tab. Who knew you can do that?? I tried it, and it saves so much time.

I used to search "matching sofas", "pair sofas", etc, but then it finally occurred to me that they all say sofaS. Searching for "sofa's" brings up every singular sofa listing which I don't have the patience for.

Bird Lover, when you search "Century" furniture, don't you end up with mostly mid-century listings? How do you exclude them?

The apps for managing CL sound really interesting, but honestly... I'm not tech savvy enough to deal with them. Plus I'm not a fan of Firefox, I like Safari.

Nicole

Furniture or Furniture by Owner, or Antiques

Then:
Retro
Vintage
Mid or mid-century

Sometimes search by manufacturer

Wow! I'd never heard of craigseasy--just tried it and it's amazing! I use Firefox and it works great with that! Thanks, kiki!! ...and nigel for asking the question!

My searches are much the same as already mentioned, but now I'll just narrow it much quicker using this.

I love all of the advice here. I LOVE the idea of opening up each listing in another tab. Who knew you can do that?? I tried it, and it saves so much time.

I have been addicted to tabs since I started using Firefox years ago. And now Internet Explorer and other browsers also use tabs. I have been surprised to find out how many people I know don't know how to use tabs in their browser. They are a huge timesaver. Not so much back arrow clicking, makes shopping and surfing so much easier.

I do as Graywings does- I just scroll down checking out the images and clicking on what interests me. I just use internet explorer and make sure that show images is clicked.
I dont have specific needs in mind.I surf through furniture and antiques. Once in awhile I look at materials or farm and garden.
I just bought a vintage buffet on CL that I am painting to sell.

I have a bunch of these set up in my Google Reader. I use single word searches (bamboo, birdbath, chandelier, ottoman) and always check 'title only' and 'by owner'. Every time one of those words is posted in an ad it goes straight to my inbox. I can even set up instant email notifications.

Here is a link that might be useful: Using RSS to Watch Craigslist Ads

Wow, I had no idea that all these possibilities existed. Thanks to all you smart people I am going to enjoy searching craigslist even more.

I have a related question. Is there someway to delete items from your search? For instance, if the same ratty red couch keeps coming up and you don't want to see it anymore, is there a way to delete it?

WhiteRiver, pick out a word from the listing that is unique and put a - in front of it in your search.

I have NO idea that handy little browser tool existed. It is fantastic! Thank you for sharing.

Thanks anele, I will try that.

Tournant, thanks! Very useful!