What's Old is New Again...Or Whatever

Ok, so I have zero clue why, but over the past 6 mos or so I've been obsessed with those vintage old school style lockers like the one above. The style is pretty much the complete opposite of EVERYTHING we have in our apt, I don't have room for one, don't need any additional storage space, and honestly have no fucking clue what I'd do with one even if I bought it. 

But, alas: I keep looking, and searching, and asking my husband to hide all of our credit cards whenever I see one. 

This beaut above was, I think, around $1500 on Etsy. I've seen others that ranged from $900-$2000.

This old school swim basket style one to the right is $1100:

Anyway, I just keep looking. And, of course, pinning these things whenever I see them, cause obviously the day will come...one day...some day when I desperately need a vintage swim basket locker system and goddamit: I'm gonna be prepared when that day comes.

Well, lo and behold: I got lost down the rabbit hole of Pinterest Friday night and at some point in the middle of my hazy pinning orgy, I came across this industrial, brightly colored book cart thingy that looked kinda like it was in the same family as these lockers. So I clicked, and then clicked again and upon further investigation, I went to Hertz Furniture, the original source (which is some online store that sold furniture for schools and churches-n-shit) and I found pretty much THE exact same super cool, vintage looking (but brand new) lockers, for about a billion dollars less than all of the actual vintage ones I had been stalking from sea to shining sea all these months.

Now sure: these things don't look quite so scuffed and cool...and Danny Zuko never left his wet swim trunks in any of the baskets, BUT: instead of costing $1000+ dollars, my shiny new basket locker system could be had for the low low price of $194!!!!???

Un huh: you read that right. A hundred and ninety-four fucking dollars. And not only is it a gajillion times cheaper, but the thing is available in TWENTY different colors! I'm talking: cardinal red, mandarin orange, turquoise teal, and on and on and on. Now depending on where you are you're going to have to pay some additional cash for freight (I calculated to NYC and it was $94 bucks). Plus these suckers apparently take 4 weeks. But that's still a whole helluva lot of Benjis saved. 

And if you really wanted to get down-n-dirty and make the thing look old, you could scuff it up a bit, and paint some random, scratchy numbers on the front like the green one above. And then just take all your left over money that you didn't spend on the "coooler" vintage one and, oh, I don't know: TAKE A FUCKING CRUISE TO TURKS AND CAICOS!

Ok so: lesson learned. I do always love the history of a vintage piece, and I will certainly keep buying them. But I don't always need to empty out my 401k to make it happen. There are other options out there, ppl.

Except, wait: I STILL DON'T NEED THESE AT ALLLLLLLL.

Here's the new (but old looking) basket lockers that could be had for the price of a 90 minute facial: