Bad Buys: the garden swing

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 13 July 2010 in bad buys, frugal | 0 comments

This will be an occasional series of posts documenting my worst buys over the years and why they were a mistake. I hope it’ll help me – and other people – learn from my mistakes.

When we moved into our new house last autumn, there was an old garden swing cemented into the patio in the garden. My mum and dad had a similar swing for a few years when I was a kid – a white metal tube frame with big puffy plastic-coated cushions – and according to our photo albums, our family lived on it in the summer. John wasn’t keen on the swing here though because it looked rickety, somewhat knackered and in white, stood out against the natural colours of our garden – but I thought we might as well use it since it was there. Maybe play up the retro – brighten up the white & cover the dated floral cushions with a red polka dot design. It was put on the list for “things to do over the summer” and forgotten about.

Then a (used) swing popped up on my “around here and cheap” eBay search. In a mushroom-y beige colour, it wouldn’t stand out so much, it looked more solid and best of all, it was more practical because the seats were the plastic mesh, meaning we could use it without having to climb two flights of stairs to get the cushions. It was £30 and only a short drive away. We ‘bought it then’. At no point did we ask ourselves whether we actually wanted a swing – we were just hell-bent on replacing the old one with a better one than the one we had.