On the advice of someone I trusted, I hired a mason to build some stone retaining walls for our new construction, also because he was the lowest bid. Before he started, I checked with the state and found his license had expired a year previous and that there was a lawsuit pending. When I called the relevant office, they would not give me specifics, but basically said I should be very careful in hiring someone whose license had expired. I asked the contractor about it; he told me the lawsuit was because a client had insisted he do certain cement work in January against his advice, and now it had cracked. He also said he had sent in his licensing fees the previous week and would be receiving it soon. When I asked to see his license application as well as his insurance papers, he backpedaled and said he'd get them to me. The next day he appeared with the paperwork I requested, but I noticed they were both dated that day, so I knew he was stretching the truth. I hired him anyway, knowing I would have to keep a close eye. When he started, he added $2000 to the estimate because he said the walls were longer than what had been measured out before, and I went along because I thought he had a point. The first wall went up fine, so I relaxed and eased up on my hovering. When he said he was finished, however, I pointed out that the third and most important wall which bounded our patio was not as tall as we had specified and besides, it did not form a smooth curve, but had a slight jog. He then had a 3 hour temper tantrum, (much to the bemusement of the other subs) but I held my ground and refused to pay him the balance until he went back and made the wall taller. I suspect that his partner (a retired mason who probably provided the cash needed) was the voice of reason and convinced him to do what I asked. The wall was OK, but not as lovely as I would have liked. The workmanship of the walls built when I stopped hovering was definitely inferior to the first. I got what I paid for.

OOPS!! Linnea, I feel for your frustration. My husband has cognitive issues and fortunately never was interested in gardening. As others have said, they will come back but most likely will not bloom next year. Many years ago in my old garden in CA, my husband asked if he could help. I was planting about 150 daffodil bulbs and dug wide holes to plant them in large groups. I gave him a bucket of bulbs. He stood about 10 feet back from the holes and tossed the bulbs, one at a time, into the holes. I thanked him for all the help and then spent the next 30 minutes righting each bulb and spreading them out evenly at the bottom of the prepared hole. Covered them and tried to keep calm! Of course all summer and after he explained to visitors that he had planted the display of daffs and was very proud of his accomplishment. It is funny now, but not at the time. Some events just need a historical view to be appreciated.

Once I got started it was hard to stop. I covered a bunch of stuff with frost blankets, sheets, trash cans, buckets or pots lined with cut up frost blanket and even a couple card board boxes. Got down to 29° early this morning. Most things look great. A little frost damage on some covered stuff along with some bent leaves here and there. Some frost damage on uncovered stuff, but for the most part, everything fared well. Seems like location was the deciding factor. Having space between the cover and the plant makes a huge difference. Of course, more will be revealed as some damage may not be apparent yet.

The price is whatever you thnk it is worth to you as a functional piece of furniture that you compare to other furniture you might need. It has no special value just because it is old because the market for brown furniture of any style is very weak. No one wants it and there is a glut in the market as boomers die or down size. Because it is sturdy, many pieces are still around and so they aren’t rare. I couldn’t sell any of my beautiful vintage stuff and so I gave it away because I preferred gifting it to selling it for pennies and dealing with the hassle of selling. FWIW bargaining is not scamming. The scam on Craigslist is that if you are selling a relatively expensive item, people will offer to purchase it sight unseen with some story about a friend picking it up. There are others but this is the one that happened to me when I attempted to sell a relatively expensive MCM piece. I immediately got several of these and they just didn’t seem right and when I googled, the scam was explained So anyone selling firmiture or other higher priced items is going to be deluged with scammers almost immediately.