As I started to settle into my new apartment, I decided to look for some furniture this weekend. With the budget of a fellow’s salary, that meant looking on Craigslist and going yard sale hunting. To my surprise, a web search for yard sales in Durham alone yielded more than 30 hits! After mapping out the sites and plotting my plan of attack, I set out bright and early Saturday morning. What started as a furniture hunt, however, became an eclectic tour of the city’s diverse neighborhoods. As I pawed through the knick-knacks and paraphernalia from the spectrum of affluent to indigent households, I feel as if I were taking a voyeuristic peek into the lives of these families. Along the way, I also visited a few consignment shops and a store selling unfinished wood furniture, for which Durham is known for. In the end, I scored a few wall shelves, lamp shades, and a wooden futon, which I managed to convinced the short, stocky Hispanic father of 3 teenagers to help deliver to my home with his pick-up truck. For lunch, I stopped at the original Q Shack, where the sub-$10 pulled pork shoulder sandwich complete with a side of mac n’ cheese, hush puppies, and sweet tea made for a satisfying end to the day. On Sunday, I continued to populate my home with more household goods and groceries. My full-day shopping circuit included trips to Target, Walmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, Home Depot, Ross, Dollar Tree, Kroger, and Li Ming. Needless to say, it was a very unproductive weekend in terms of work. But step by step, I was beginning to turn my new pad into a home.