Showing posts with label garage sales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label garage sales. Show all posts
Friday, April 26, 2013
Saturday Fun for $7.75
The need for a certain kind of casters got me out and about this past Saturday morning, as well as the desire to score some inexpensive hooks and cup pulls for a project I'm working on. Didn't find what I was looking for, but for $7.75 I snagged all these goodies and had a good time talking to some fun people along the way.
Thursday, April 04, 2013
The Mod Squad
Mod: popular, fashionable, modern - Yep. This fits the bill.
I've had my eyes peeled for one of these for a very long time. I passed up a cute blue one at a garage sale about a year ago because the woman was only willing to go down to $25.00. Being uber-cheap, that was too much for me. I hadn't seen another since...
...until last Saturday.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Bringing Thrifty Back
I'm cheap. There, I said it.
Cheap has a certain beauty, no? This is what you get to see if you get up and get moving on a Saturday morning. Caught this beautiful sunrise as I left one of the sales I stopped at on my one-hour-garage-sale-tour-of-the-week.
Cheap has a certain beauty, no? This is what you get to see if you get up and get moving on a Saturday morning. Caught this beautiful sunrise as I left one of the sales I stopped at on my one-hour-garage-sale-tour-of-the-week.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Cracks, Couches and Sorter Siblings
It suddenly seemed imperative that I begin rearranging my dining room shelves last Sunday morning before church. Why I chose that moment to discover it was high time to change out all the books for the colorful blue and green plates I've found so cheaply, I have no idea, but begin I did and what a mess.
This is one of the few shots I could find that shows a hint of the general idea of how the shelves looked laden with books. I forgot to take a picture before I started rearranging.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Fun Finds on the Fly
I want nothing.
I need nothing.
I have room for NOTHING! (My son just arrived home from California and told me it seemed crowded in here (or did he say cluttered). Number one: He doesn't know clutter, and number 2, Eh, hem! I beg your pardon! This is the random treasure of the world carefully stacked, arranged, or otherwise crammed into place for maximum visual effect. He also had questions about the giant pickle. Who doesn't.
Imagine the nerve of him not seeing the junky/beautiful splendor of it all. Apparently I have some work to do on that front. But if he would hurry up and get a place here, I'd be able to unload all the excess onto him. I'm waiting! I got most of it for HIM, after all.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Aqua Blue and Party Pink
The time has come for the "after" shot of my tall brown chest of drawers (and the little tray I bought last week), the painting endeavor whereby I threw out my back while standing in front of said chest holding one of the drawers out to my right. That's all it took. The back is much better, I'm no longer leaning like the tower of Pisa, but my back is only happy with constant movement or when lying down. I thought I was healed but this morning, it is still sort of calling the shots.
Brown Chest of Drawers Turned Blue
Now, I didn't despise this chest being brown. I stay on good terms with my furniture whenever possible. There was no animosity toward its dreariness. Its rustic look had a certain charm. However, I was in a mood and tired of the brown wood with the terra cotta floors. And mind you, there is also an Ethan Allen desk of a similar color wood to the left just outside of the picture. There was enough of that golden/orangey tone going on, so my other list of paint to-do's got tossed and paint gave this a similar look to the little chest in my kitchen that I also painted.
Friday, August 10, 2012
The Longest Yard Sale - Tips for the Novice
It wasn't but a day or so before I was to leave to visit Cally in AL that I found out this long-wished-for opportunity would come my way while I was there with her, and that it was starting only an hour from where she lives. What!? I could hardly believe the brilliance of the timing. After driving over 11 hours to get to Mountain Brook, what was one more hour on the road the next morning? I knew the joys that would await! Cally was kind enough to oblige me, despite the fact that spending a full day in the heat wandering through and looking at people's old junk was not on her list of top 10 ways to spend her waking hours, especially when it was one of two days she had off of work to get her new place in order. Thank you, Cally!
The adventure began with breakfast at the hotel that I had stayed at the night before. We got on the road a bit later than planned but the experience was every bit as fun as I thought it would be. I do regret that we couldn't go for more than one day, that I didn't concentrate on taking more (and better) pictures and that we passed up so many good things thinking we might come back to them later if we didn't find something better.
Now hear this: There is no going back. You snooze, you lose.
I have a few other tips from my novice trip to the World's Longest Yard Sale. Feel free to learn from my maiden journey to this enticing venue of junk and stuff and treasures.
Have a Spending Strategy
or Come Prepared to Go For Broke
You may have heard it said, "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight," well I say don't bring a fist full of dollars to the World's Longest Yard Sale. That is unless you are a tightwad like me with fairly strict self-imposed spending limits and a thrifty daughter in tow who will keep you in line whenever you dare to err where financial prudence is concerned. Actually, even I came prepared with plenty of cash on hand. I knew the likelihood of finding something spectacular that I might not see for some time (if ever) again, if I didn't come with enough cash to spend. In the end, I found that space for hauling things might be more of a consideration than price, but my spendthrift ways did go a long way to holding me in financial check, that and Cally's facial expressions whenever I considered buying something pricey or that she considered too frivolous. Cheap habits die hard and they run in the family.
Photography 101
Take lots of pictures! By all means, if you are going to carry a humongous camera with you as you drive and haul it along every time you exit the vehicle, and if you are actually going to have it on your shoulder with every step you take - for heaven's sake, use it and use it well!
Get in and get close. This was one of the few times I did just that. This huge light was something I would like to have bought, but at $25, it was way too expensive for me. I thought it would be a cool addition to the shop my friend and I want to open but she wasn't there to consult, so I let it lie. I saw soooo many things that would be cool for our potential shop, but without a consenting voice of affirmation, I had to pass them up.
- Don't just take pictures as you are walking or driving or practically running from one place to the next, snapping random thoughtless distant shots of the general area as I did. What a waste! Learn from my mistakes. Look at my photos; you'll see what I mean. They could have been so great, but I didn't take the time.
- Do take in the sights then set aside your concerns of what people think of you taking pictures (even your daughter) and just do it. I wish I had pictures of the people I spoke with too. They were one of the best parts of the whole day! Get your memories stored in digital format so you have them later (Especially if you are going to blog about it. People want interesting visuals! Right?)
- Besides, if you don't take pictures, you'll forget all those cool things you let get away. Capture them on camera so you can fully mope about, and rehash, what could've, would've and should've been when you get home.
Slow Down
This shot was one of those taken quickly from the car as I waited in standstill traffic.
- We were in a bit of a hurry because, well, first of all there is so much to see that you don't want to miss a thing. Secondly, we were looking for some specific furniture pieces for Cally's new place. We did a lot of scanning of sales as we drove by, trying to see if they were worth stopping for, always mindful not to hold up traffic like some people in front of us did. I refrained from being a horn honker myself even though people inching down the road with a line of fanatical garage salers piling up behind them made Cally and I crazy a time or two. We tried to be polite and patient. One angry woman drove a long stretch of road laying on the horn for an eternity despite the fact that the woman in front of her was going along what seemed to be perfectly fine. Just come to the sale with your driving patience in good working order.
Enjoy the Experience
The fact is you aren't going to see it all, so you might as well actually take in and enjoy that which you ARE able to see!
The fact is you aren't going to see it all, so you might as well actually take in and enjoy that which you ARE able to see!
- We did do some quick run-throughs of some of the different vendors to see if they had anything remotely close to what we wanted. The day seemed short and the yard sale, endless. It's hard to stop and enjoy what's in front of you when you are thinking about what someone else might have that could be better and cheaper down the road (apparently what is true in life is also true with reard to yard sales!). The best parts of the day were those where we stopped and interacted with people, tried to score a deal (when it worked and even when our attempts failed) and those where we got an up close and personal look into the lives and stories of the folks along the way, not just a look at the items they had for sale.
A Strong Bladder Helps
Go to the bathroom before you begin and bring lots of water, preferably in a cooler.
- Having a vehicle with a good AC in it was invaluable for recharging our energy as we drove from one group of sales to the next. After each jaunt through a section of sales, we'd get back in the car and crank the air and chug water. Luckily we were so hot and we sweat so much that the water never seemed to make it to our bladders. That didn't stop us from following the signs to the Black Creek Fire Department on Tabor Road and Blackwell and Styles Bridges Roads that lured every woman at the Gadsden end of the sale with their strategically placed signs for miles; signs that boasted CLEAN RESTROOMS and great BBQ.
The #2 is where we started the sales, and we went as far as the #3 to the Black Creek Fire Department and then back again. How does anyone get through all the way to MI or even halfway in four days. Talk about rushing...
- After stopping at a zillion sales on our way there, we decided to make that fire department our turnaround point, at which time we were going to go back and hit all the places we had noted down side streets, as well as others we had passed up. We wanted to revisit some stops where we had seen potential purchases, at that point still hoping we might go back and score a deal. Although we went all the way to the Black Creek Fire Department to find the bathrooms (just in case we needed them by then - seeing as it was the only hope of bathrooms we'd actually seen), once we walked in to what on the outside appeared to be a tiny little ho hum building with only one person sitting on a rocker out front and a couple guys grilling out back, there on the inside it reminded me of a small church fellowship hall from back in the day. We opened the door and the place was bustling with lots of folks buying food and drinks and eating at tables packed together to accommodate the masses as women lined up against the walls to have a turn at what appeared to be the one bathroom available, a line that snaked all the way around the inside of the room. That was enough to make mine and Cally's decision for us. We didn't need to go - it was agreed. We were fine. Really. Good thing, I didn't want to sacrifice that much of my quickly dwindling yard sale time partaking in the camaraderie of a long bathroom line. So we hopped back into our car and made tracks to the next set of vendors.
The Early Bird Gets the Worm
Try to go on the first day before everything gets snapped up and while vendors have the most stuff from which to choose. Then if you see something you want, buy it right then while you can or put it out of your mind and move along to what lies ahead.
- On our way back, one place I wanted to revisit was the set up under some trees on the side of the road of an older guy who had lots of interesting antique things, one of which was a large square weathered metal box with faded buttery paint on it. He was only asking $15, but being the cheapskate that I am with my general $5 limit per item, that felt high for me early in the day. His wife also had some wood folding chairs like I've been collecting, and he said she wanted $8 each (about $5 too much). When we came back by on our way through as we were leaving, he'd been wiped out of almost everything he'd had for sale earlier. The man with the one dresser we were considering for Cally had also sold much of what he had when we stopped by earlier. I'll tell you about him in the next installment.
- If there are any one of a kind or special things at the sale that you think are to die for, buy them, right then. Most of the trendy stores in Homewood, AL wanted way more for items similar to those that one guy I'll tell you about next time was selling. And when I say the trendy stores want "way more", I'm talking as much as $100 more. There were so many fantastic things in the Homewood stores, but woo-wee! were some of them expensive! One store had a burlap pillow for $100. Sure it was cute...but $100 for a pillow...and made of burlap? Those stores made the expensive yard sale vendors look like dime (not dollar) stores in comparison.
The Road Less Traveled
Next time I would go to more of the sales down the side streets where individuals are actually having yard and garage sales.
- Many of the vendors in the lots on the main thoroughfare were dealers with their antiques and pricey items (often the same type of glassware and expensive signs that other vendors had). So many of those were not all that rare, and similar treasures might easily have been up for sale by an individual clearing out their garage or cleaning up their yard or storage area for a fraction of the price the dealers were asking. However, we could fit more stops in if we parked by a large group of vendors, got out and walked to a bunch of sales on the main road before getting back in the car to move along to the next set. Some of the side streets only had a sale or two at a time. You never knew what you might find anywhere!
Speak Up and Ask!
- In many of the places, the items were not priced, so after finding out how high some vendor's prices were, it was tempting to assume everything like those that I wanted would be out of my price range at the other vendors' sales as well. I almost passed up some old windows because I assumed they would be as expensive as they were at the guy's place next door. I ended up asking though, and this guy's prices were half that of his competitor's. Because of that I didn't try to talk him down further, which Cally reminded me, I may have gotten them cheaper. I was just glad to get them for cheaper than what I paid for one at home and half of what the guy next door was selling them for. I completely forgot to try and bargain with him. You have to stay on your toes and be on your best game! The longest yard sale is no place for bargain slackers. Gotta be thinking about your strategy every minute.
It seemed that most of the prices were higher than yard sales here where I live. Deals were still to be had though, and there were so many cool items, especially if you didn't mind paying flea market prices rather than garage sale prices.
We were going fast, so I didn't take the time to really linger too long at any one place or take the time to soak everything in and really peruse all the cool items littered about. It takes time to scope everything out and relish the sights. Mind you, Cally has an eye for a different aesthetic than I, and she tends to turn her nose up at the old scrappy junk I could spend hours pouring over. I saved lots of money because of her response when I'd show her some remarkable old thing that I apparently (in her mind) have no use for. I really didn't buy too much. I spent $57.25 altogether which was plenty, but one of my items was significantly over my usual limit. It was something I'd wanted a long time and had only seen previously for two and three times as much as I got it for here, so I was happy with that. I also got the couple of windows I mentioned for $10 each. The few other things I got were each a dollar or less. The whole experience was lots of fun for the amount of ground we were able to cover in a day, and we made some memories for sure!
It was a day of entertainment, exercise and unequivocally good junk and good people.
Next up I'll tell you about a couple more people I spoke to and show you a bit of the scenery (not sale related) that we saw which added to the experience as well as show you what I brought home with me!
I'll be sharing this with:
We were going fast, so I didn't take the time to really linger too long at any one place or take the time to soak everything in and really peruse all the cool items littered about. It takes time to scope everything out and relish the sights. Mind you, Cally has an eye for a different aesthetic than I, and she tends to turn her nose up at the old scrappy junk I could spend hours pouring over. I saved lots of money because of her response when I'd show her some remarkable old thing that I apparently (in her mind) have no use for. I really didn't buy too much. I spent $57.25 altogether which was plenty, but one of my items was significantly over my usual limit. It was something I'd wanted a long time and had only seen previously for two and three times as much as I got it for here, so I was happy with that. I also got the couple of windows I mentioned for $10 each. The few other things I got were each a dollar or less. The whole experience was lots of fun for the amount of ground we were able to cover in a day, and we made some memories for sure!
It was a day of entertainment, exercise and unequivocally good junk and good people.
Next up I'll tell you about a couple more people I spoke to and show you a bit of the scenery (not sale related) that we saw which added to the experience as well as show you what I brought home with me!
I'll be sharing this with:
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Vying For My Style Affections
Before I share stories and photos from my recent trip and our day at the longest yard sale, I have to back it up a bit. Here's a smidge of what ensued as I got ready to travel to visit Cally and help her get her new apartment in order ~
I'd had a successful Saturday on the hunt the weekend before I left. I came home with a succinct grouping of items that cost little, and I loved the touches they added to my place.
I'd purchased some silver pieces, but I also found these two books which complimented my living room sweetly.
But wait...I should back up even further and let you in on a bit about where I'm coming from. It kind of hints at where it is I'm headed.
For the record, I used to be a minimalist. However, these days there is more than one suitor vying for my style affections.
On the inside I still long for "white" space and zero clutter; my heart and mind are grounded upon that comfort and they find security there. However, there was a day when it dawned on me that an unfinished dresser planted solidly in the middle of my family room walkway gave off a "we're moving" vibe in a household going nowhere. It was then I began to suspect that my clingy relationship with clean lines and open spaces might be in jeopardy. Yeah, relationships are tricky. Even in the world of style sensibilities.
That dresser has come and gone; it became a kitchen island at my friend Lynette's house (I'll have to tell you that story and show you how that turned out sometime soon). These days, however, scooting something out the door doesn't preclude something else getting carted right in to take its place. Sometimes it's many "somethings" that take its place.
My Florida room and my loft studio now comprise a sort of clearing house for a random collection of the rustic and the useful, the pretty and the unique. The discards of someone else's life seem needy and they lure my junk-wandering eye to imagine how I could love them into a new version of themselves. You see, as much as I like "minimal", I also enjoy the company of articles from a time that is no more...and since they come in so many forms and with so many functions, and often with such a cool demeanor, the sheer volume of stuff I must have but have no way to use is competing with my love of minimalism. I'm finding my heart is daily wooed by the drama, the sentiment and the passion of the rare and beautiful, the flashy and the functional. It beats wildly at the craftsmanship built into the pieces of the past.
I'd had a successful Saturday on the hunt the weekend before I left. I came home with a succinct grouping of items that cost little, and I loved the touches they added to my place.
I'd purchased some silver pieces, but I also found these two books which complimented my living room sweetly.
But wait...I should back up even further and let you in on a bit about where I'm coming from. It kind of hints at where it is I'm headed.
~~~
On the inside I still long for "white" space and zero clutter; my heart and mind are grounded upon that comfort and they find security there. However, there was a day when it dawned on me that an unfinished dresser planted solidly in the middle of my family room walkway gave off a "we're moving" vibe in a household going nowhere. It was then I began to suspect that my clingy relationship with clean lines and open spaces might be in jeopardy. Yeah, relationships are tricky. Even in the world of style sensibilities.
That dresser has come and gone; it became a kitchen island at my friend Lynette's house (I'll have to tell you that story and show you how that turned out sometime soon). These days, however, scooting something out the door doesn't preclude something else getting carted right in to take its place. Sometimes it's many "somethings" that take its place.
My Florida room and my loft studio now comprise a sort of clearing house for a random collection of the rustic and the useful, the pretty and the unique. The discards of someone else's life seem needy and they lure my junk-wandering eye to imagine how I could love them into a new version of themselves. You see, as much as I like "minimal", I also enjoy the company of articles from a time that is no more...and since they come in so many forms and with so many functions, and often with such a cool demeanor, the sheer volume of stuff I must have but have no way to use is competing with my love of minimalism. I'm finding my heart is daily wooed by the drama, the sentiment and the passion of the rare and beautiful, the flashy and the functional. It beats wildly at the craftsmanship built into the pieces of the past.
I live in a 56 year old home that still has many of it's original finishes showing. My budget and abilities are minimal. Dreaming of "fancy" in this small space with it's midcentury sensibilities, fixtures and finishes never seemed like a reasonable pursuit. Low rafters and jalousie windows put a ceiling above and walls around the direction I could take my home. Remodeling has been and remains out of the question for financial reasons anyway. Besides, glitz and glam just never seemed to suit this home whose bones reflect a simper time. Then there's the fact that this owner's pocketbook represents a stark reality better suited to a more practical and uncomplicated time.
So I decided to pat the head of the past and make it my pet, to devolve rather than to go for the glitz. I chose simple ideas and homespun touches to take the place of the popular notions of what makes certain spaces ideal in today's design culture, one that often gets hung up on granite and glamour. I work to make my place homey (to me) and I work to make-do. Ah yes, quite a bit of making-do. I guess you could say I married my home for love, not money.
With that said, a smattering of "pretty" is still vital to my otherwise devolved decorating scheme. All junk and patina gets boring and lends a dreary old feel to the surroundings. A room needs some pop and shine, some color and a freshness that comes with a hint of sparkle and a little something sleek or new. I've recently been enamored by silver and found myself picking up pieces dirt cheap for a few weeks in a row. I'm enjoying the much needed touch of elegance they bring to my ordinary-coastal-vintage-midcentury throwback of a home.
I found all of this a couple of weekends ago, including the tablecloth which I bought for 50 cents, and the pack of cloth napkins which cost me $2.50 (I waited to purchase anything until I revisited this sale later in the day when prices had been slashed to half). I paid my $5.00 limit for the pitcher because they wanted a lot more and I figured since Goodwill charges $10 or more for such things, I might as well get it while I could for less. Besides, I thought it had a pretty coloring to it and it is practical. I do so love things that are "practically pretty". That's the best of both worlds.
The original idea was to possibly make chalkboards out of the trays, but once again, after I cleaned them up, I wasn't so sure that was an appropriate ending for such lovelies.
These silver items were $2.00 a bundle. They have yet to be cleaned.
I got all of these for $2.50...
...and all of these for $2.50!
And lest you think all I do is spend my life and money dragging things home from garage sales...here is a little of what else I was up to as I prepared to help my daughter move into her new apartment:
I had two of these cabinet doors lying around in the garage from when we refinished my kitchen cabinets some years back. Of course, I forgot to take a picture before I sanded them down.
Cally asked for a chalkboard but I wasn't sure when I started which color she'd like, so the first one was painted a lemonade green which got distressed a bit. It wasn't until it was done she told me she wanted coral. Luckily there was another cabinet door in the garage. I did not want to paint over this one. I was very happy with how it had turned out.
Remember those drill bits I picked up at a recent garage sale...just as I thought, I ended up needing them...see? So I actually bought with purpose! Whew!
Cally suggested hanging the chalkboard from rope, so for the coral board, I drilled the holes before I painted.
The store didn't have an appropriate coral color paint to match the lamp I bought at Target for Cally's room, so I mixed three craft paint colors together and was able to pretty well match them up.
Here's the lamp.
Here are the chalkboards as they looked before I left on my trip. I coated the coral painted frame with polyurethane to give it a sheen that felt more cohesive with the shiny lamp.
The colors I used to brew up the coral were:
Tangerine (Ceramcoat brand)
Peony Pink (Americana brand)
72013 Ivory (Craft Essentials brand from Joann's, which is really a pale yellow)
I added too much of the pink at first and had to keep adding the tangerine, then I added a bit of the yellow to get it right. It was trial and error, so I don't have an exact formula to offer.
Cally had hoped I'd find and bring her a full length mirror, but on the way home from church I found this one at the road in front of a neighbor's house. I snatched it up just in case it would do on top of a dresser or leaning against a wall in her room. It was free, so what the heck... so I hauled it along with me as I traveled North.
I wasn't sure if the green chalkboard would be needed, but Cally found a place for it in the hallway just outside of her bedroom door, and I went ahead and drilled the holes in it while I was there so we could hang it. I'd brought rope and happened to purchase a pair of rusty scissors at the longest yard sale (25 cents) (which quickly became one of my most useful purchases in a long time). They were pressed into service to cut the rope. You may see more of my trusty rusty scissors in an upcoming post. They were my hero!
Before I left on my trip, I bought some of the plain white flour sack towels at Walmart that are supposed to be 5 for $5.00. I got home and discovered someone had removed one of the towels so I only got four. I was bummed. If you go to buy some, just be sure you get five in your pack. I had counted them at the store, but they were trickily folded and arranged to look like five. Grr!
These towels are a great canvas for any number of projects. I was in a hurry, so taking time to stitch something on them, as I would have liked to have done, was out of the question. Instead, I got out my craft paint and thought I'd experiment on one of them by painting a wide stripe down the middle and a skinny stripe on each edge of the towel. I wanted to paint thin stripes on either side of the wide stripe as well, but didn't have time. If you look to the left you can see one of the finished thin stripes with the tape removed. I never got a shot once I removed all the tape. Things were hectic as I prepared to leave. Sorry about that. Can you visualize the final look?
In the end, it turned out cute, but some of the paint faded when we washed it. I hadn't read the directions on the paint for use on fabric (if there even are any) and I hadn't done anything special to set the paint, so if you do paint on fabric, it might help to use a fabric paint specifically and check out how to do it correctly. I'm a wing-it person when I'm in a rush and I was just experimenting to see what I could come up with in a hurry. Even without any designs on them, these towels are nice little additions to the kitchen. They came in real handy as we cleaned Cally's kitchen, and cleaned...and cleaned...and cleaned.
That's it for now... these were my little pre-trip projects. There is more to come on our longest yard sale adventure last Thursday, and I plan to share some shots of the sights I got while traveling from Florida to Alabama as my road trip took me to the Birmingham area.
Yes, the yard sale vied for my style affections as my eyes feasted upon a treasure trove of vintage goodies spread out as far as the eye could see. I held firm and brought home only a few more items to add to the mix, but boy did my eyes, and my affections, wander.
Stay tuned!
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
The Garage Sale Diet
The sun gets up early these Summer days. So even though I usually leave by 6:45 to head out to the Saturday sales, the sun is already rising and the light has a head start on me.
With Dunkin Donuts coffee in hand (I make my own) and all the dollar bills I can wad into my pocket, I grab my camera, my keys, my detailed list of which houses to go to (and in what order), and then I accelerate into the sunrise!
Gotta love those folks who start their sales at 7:00. By 8:00, I'd love to be wrapping it up and heading to the last few places. Never happens though, because most of the people don't start until 8:00. It's hard to get a jump on the best stuff when everyone starts at the same time and across town from each other.
Lucky for me, most people aren't looking for the good old fashioned junk that I am.
I usually manage finding junk-o'plenty. This week I was beyond proud that I had gone almost everywhere I wanted and only spent $4.00. A bad day junking is a good day for the wallet. I felt like I was making up for weeks past when having run out of allotted garage sale funds, I cleaned out the ash tray cash (which isn't saying much), pilfered all the quarters, dimes and nickels from the car door handle, searched through my purse's zipper area and my little change purse in hopes of resurrecting a sum needed to purchase some important artifact (I'm sure). Aside from my $5 limit per item, having only so much cash on hand keeps me from getting caught up in a spending spree. Dollars add up fast!
Here's what I hauled home for the pittance I spent this week:
When I got home, I worked on polishing it for a while and gave up on the handle cleaning for the time being. Overall, it's coming out nicely.
This is a VERY SHINYsilver, and it's the sweetest little bowl. I didn't know I could love and adore a silver bowl. Now I know.
I think I'm entering a silver phase. It will probably last until I run out of my sundry containers of silver cream and my nails and fingers, black from polishing, crumple up and stop working. In other words, the phase may not last long, but I'll enjoy it while it does!
Okay, now steady yourself, and I mean it. Are you ready for a real surprise? Are you sitting? You're not reading this on your iphone while hiking through mountains or walking near a busy street are you? Pay attention...I don't want you to get hurt when you flip out seeing what else I got. Okay, okay, you won't be that excited. You may not even think it's cool, but I do, so I'm counting on you all to at least play along. Nah...that won't do. Go ahead and tell it like it is. I can take it. I'm pretty sure I can count on certain daughters of mine to give me THEIR honest opinion.
Well, here's what happened...there was this sale that I had gone to last year where there were these two patio chairs popular back in the Old Florida days of my youth. I could have cared less about them as a kid and would've gone so far as to call them "old lady chairs" at the time (maybe like certain daughters of mine might?). But since they appear now as part of the supporting cast of my childhood memories, they have taken on a beyond cool vibe that now invites me back to that place and time, and to which I happily oblige. Hence, the "old lady chairs" meet "me as an 'old lady'" and guess what...we sort of fit with each other in a way we previously didn't. That's what happens with age, kids!
Last year at that sale when I first saw them, all chippy and turquoise and straight out of the early 60's, I asked if they were for sale but the woman said she'd only sell them if she could get a good price and proceeded to tell me how old and special they were. I knew she wanted too much for my stingy budget. However, I thought my friend Lynn might want them for her new home when she moves, and then I could enjoy them whenever I visited. Lynn and I had seen a white, chippy, rusty bench of this kind at a salvage yard for upwards of $1,000. I called her at the time, but she and her husband were planning to pack things up and downsize for their move, so it was a no-go. That was that. I had to walk away, but the memory of those chairs stuck with me.
Fast forward. Here it was garage sale day again, and with it came a sale that sounded like it was in that same townhome complex. I wondered...could it be? If it was, would the chairs still be there? Might she want someone to take them off her hands for less? I remembered that the front of one of the seats was broken and needed to be soddered. I was unphased. I almost dreaded going and finding the chairs gone, or worse yet, seeing them there but discovering they were still out of my financial realm of possibility.
So I pulled up and it was the same place. Pulse quickening, I craned my neck to peer into the carport. Oh my goodness! Sure enough, the chairs were there still sitting up against the wall in the exact same place. Gorgeous aqua/turquoise paint was still flaking off and no one was even glancing in their direction. They were obviously meant for me. She must have wanted too much last year to still have them, or else no one else NEEDED these 1960's time travel apparatuses as did I. The question was, would they be for sale, and if so, for how much? I got out and did my nonchalant wander-around looking at the goods on all the tables, afraid to discover the awful truth... that I just couldn't have the chairs. Before I left, I got up the nerve and asked if the chairs were for sale. "Yes," she said. "Make me an offer!"
Uh, uh! No, ma'am. I was not falling for that again. No way! (That happened to me with the blue metal chairs, remember?) So I told her, with a laugh, that I didn't have a clue as to what to offer because I had a very low budget for garage sale items. I didn't want to offend her because I knew they were old and worth more than my typical garage sale limits would allow, but I didn't want to blow it by offering based on my assumptions of what I thought she wanted. These were true gems. I had walked away last time and waited the better part of year for this second chance; I was hoping she was one year closer to wanting them out of her hair. My patience should account for something! Financial leniency toward my self-imposed limits was being called upon.
She went ahead and thought a minute and said she would take $50, I countered with a $30 offer, but she was completely unwilling to go that low. I was stuck because I have a hard time spending money. Her friend who was helping her sell told me that if I offered her $40 and held the cash out to her, she'd probably take it. Problem was, I didn't have that much with me. That gave me time to drive away and think, go to the rest of my sales and get more cash if I decided this was indeed the necessity I was being told it was by my Old Florida inner child.
Mind games are a wonderful thing! And so it goes, everytime I want something over my limit, the garage sale diet comes into play. It suffices to say I do not have a weight problem. In this money shuffling game I give up basics, make trades and juggle funds for the love of a different kind of sustanence... "JUNK food".
So look what I got for going without groceries this week...
I gathered together some money, drove back, and the woman looked at her friend for confirmation (and getting it) accepted my $40 offer. The turquoise painted cast iron chairs found themselves at home where other treasures have found safe haven before, in the backseat of my car.
Turns out some of these exact same chairs have sold for $200 each recently online. Whether that's typical or not, it still makes me feel pretty good about my score at $20 each!
These doors were in a huge trash pile in front of someone's house not too far away from me. I got 16 of them and figured if nothing else I could just get all the knobs off of them. I know I could eventually use this wood for a project or two, if I can just find somewhere to put it in the meantime.
Fridays Unfolded @ Stuff and Nonsense
Open House Party @ No Minimalist Here
What's It Wednesday @ Ivy & Elephants
With Dunkin Donuts coffee in hand (I make my own) and all the dollar bills I can wad into my pocket, I grab my camera, my keys, my detailed list of which houses to go to (and in what order), and then I accelerate into the sunrise!
Gotta love those folks who start their sales at 7:00. By 8:00, I'd love to be wrapping it up and heading to the last few places. Never happens though, because most of the people don't start until 8:00. It's hard to get a jump on the best stuff when everyone starts at the same time and across town from each other.
Lucky for me, most people aren't looking for the good old fashioned junk that I am.
I usually manage finding junk-o'plenty. This week I was beyond proud that I had gone almost everywhere I wanted and only spent $4.00. A bad day junking is a good day for the wallet. I felt like I was making up for weeks past when having run out of allotted garage sale funds, I cleaned out the ash tray cash (which isn't saying much), pilfered all the quarters, dimes and nickels from the car door handle, searched through my purse's zipper area and my little change purse in hopes of resurrecting a sum needed to purchase some important artifact (I'm sure). Aside from my $5 limit per item, having only so much cash on hand keeps me from getting caught up in a spending spree. Dollars add up fast!
Here's what I hauled home for the pittance I spent this week:
Each of these items cost me $1.00. They wanted $5 for the box, but I get tool boxes for $1 all the time, so I didn't feel out of line asking if they'd take $1.00. The dad said "Sure." The kid who was helping said, "Dad, that's 4 dollars off of 5!" The dad wisely told him "I want to get rid of it - someone wants to pay me something for it - it's a garage sale - you take what you can get and get rid of it."
Smart man. The handle is super shiny, but the box itself is a perfect shade of red and it's all chipped up. Then... look at that cool scale! $1.00. I didn't think I'd ever find one. Score!
I spent way too much time digging through a can of stuff so I could find just the drill bits that I needed. There's also some sort of a pick that looks like a dental instrument. It'll come in handy for sure. Altogether these cost me another $1.00. I should've sprung for the old scissors they had, after all, they're on my list! However since this was only my second stop, I didn't want to buy too much and be out of cash later.
Did you see the not-so-silver serving tray with handles peeking out from under the red box? Here... have a close up view. Looks like someone baked it in mud for about half a millennium. I got it for $1.00! I'd been wanting to get some silver items and use them in my decorating. I have a few ideas. I figured this would clean up for the most part. To find one with handles is sweet!
These handles were mere murder to clean, so I moved on to clean the other silver.
"What other silver?", you might ask. Well, that's a fair question. It's like this...
I went by Goodwill after the garage sales and I found the little silver bowl below for $1.00. All the other silver there was priced higher than I wanted to pay, and I couldn't decide if I needed it THAT badly, (even though I passed up a cool silver champagne cooler a couple weeks ago because it was $8.00 (I thought that was high), but when I realized I HAD to have it and went back for it, it was gone! I was so mad at myself for passing it up! Me and my pricing standards - I went to another Goodwill near me and their silver was $15 to $25 each piece! What!?) Then I spotted this bowl and it was a buck. It was tarnished of course, but I could tell it was a good one. A buck for something useful and quality is always too tempting to pass up. Sold.
Before
After
I think I'm entering a silver phase. It will probably last until I run out of my sundry containers of silver cream and my nails and fingers, black from polishing, crumple up and stop working. In other words, the phase may not last long, but I'll enjoy it while it does!
Brace Yourself!
Okay, now steady yourself, and I mean it. Are you ready for a real surprise? Are you sitting? You're not reading this on your iphone while hiking through mountains or walking near a busy street are you? Pay attention...I don't want you to get hurt when you flip out seeing what else I got. Okay, okay, you won't be that excited. You may not even think it's cool, but I do, so I'm counting on you all to at least play along. Nah...that won't do. Go ahead and tell it like it is. I can take it. I'm pretty sure I can count on certain daughters of mine to give me THEIR honest opinion.
Well, here's what happened...there was this sale that I had gone to last year where there were these two patio chairs popular back in the Old Florida days of my youth. I could have cared less about them as a kid and would've gone so far as to call them "old lady chairs" at the time (maybe like certain daughters of mine might?). But since they appear now as part of the supporting cast of my childhood memories, they have taken on a beyond cool vibe that now invites me back to that place and time, and to which I happily oblige. Hence, the "old lady chairs" meet "me as an 'old lady'" and guess what...we sort of fit with each other in a way we previously didn't. That's what happens with age, kids!
Last year at that sale when I first saw them, all chippy and turquoise and straight out of the early 60's, I asked if they were for sale but the woman said she'd only sell them if she could get a good price and proceeded to tell me how old and special they were. I knew she wanted too much for my stingy budget. However, I thought my friend Lynn might want them for her new home when she moves, and then I could enjoy them whenever I visited. Lynn and I had seen a white, chippy, rusty bench of this kind at a salvage yard for upwards of $1,000. I called her at the time, but she and her husband were planning to pack things up and downsize for their move, so it was a no-go. That was that. I had to walk away, but the memory of those chairs stuck with me.
Fast forward. Here it was garage sale day again, and with it came a sale that sounded like it was in that same townhome complex. I wondered...could it be? If it was, would the chairs still be there? Might she want someone to take them off her hands for less? I remembered that the front of one of the seats was broken and needed to be soddered. I was unphased. I almost dreaded going and finding the chairs gone, or worse yet, seeing them there but discovering they were still out of my financial realm of possibility.
So I pulled up and it was the same place. Pulse quickening, I craned my neck to peer into the carport. Oh my goodness! Sure enough, the chairs were there still sitting up against the wall in the exact same place. Gorgeous aqua/turquoise paint was still flaking off and no one was even glancing in their direction. They were obviously meant for me. She must have wanted too much last year to still have them, or else no one else NEEDED these 1960's time travel apparatuses as did I. The question was, would they be for sale, and if so, for how much? I got out and did my nonchalant wander-around looking at the goods on all the tables, afraid to discover the awful truth... that I just couldn't have the chairs. Before I left, I got up the nerve and asked if the chairs were for sale. "Yes," she said. "Make me an offer!"
Uh, uh! No, ma'am. I was not falling for that again. No way! (That happened to me with the blue metal chairs, remember?) So I told her, with a laugh, that I didn't have a clue as to what to offer because I had a very low budget for garage sale items. I didn't want to offend her because I knew they were old and worth more than my typical garage sale limits would allow, but I didn't want to blow it by offering based on my assumptions of what I thought she wanted. These were true gems. I had walked away last time and waited the better part of year for this second chance; I was hoping she was one year closer to wanting them out of her hair. My patience should account for something! Financial leniency toward my self-imposed limits was being called upon.
She went ahead and thought a minute and said she would take $50, I countered with a $30 offer, but she was completely unwilling to go that low. I was stuck because I have a hard time spending money. Her friend who was helping her sell told me that if I offered her $40 and held the cash out to her, she'd probably take it. Problem was, I didn't have that much with me. That gave me time to drive away and think, go to the rest of my sales and get more cash if I decided this was indeed the necessity I was being told it was by my Old Florida inner child.
I thought so... glad you agree!
"Old lady me" and "inner child me" haggled this decision out across town and back again. I stopped home to drop off salvaged wood I found in my travels, and while there decided that I didn't really HAVE to eat ALL week. I could easily substitute peanut butter sandwiches a few times, have a bowl of cereal for dinner a here and there and make sure to eat every bite of leftovers in the fridge. That would make up for most of it, and in that way my "account" would balance out to $0.00, right? I thought so... glad you agree! The chairs would in effect be free. Duh!Mind games are a wonderful thing! And so it goes, everytime I want something over my limit, the garage sale diet comes into play. It suffices to say I do not have a weight problem. In this money shuffling game I give up basics, make trades and juggle funds for the love of a different kind of sustanence... "JUNK food".
So look what I got for going without groceries this week...
Ta da!
I gathered together some money, drove back, and the woman looked at her friend for confirmation (and getting it) accepted my $40 offer. The turquoise painted cast iron chairs found themselves at home where other treasures have found safe haven before, in the backseat of my car.
A chippy, aqua, romantic patio dream.
I haven't figured out the patio arrangement yet. I've been moving things around and replanting and that new pile of cabinet doors needs to be dealt with, so right now the chairs are just biding their time awaiting placement. They do need to be stripped and repainted eventually, but for now, I'm just loving them as they are and enjoying their shabby beauty as is.
There were still twice this many doors left in the pile and some long doors as well. I didn't even know what to do with the ones I got, so I didn't take any more. The ones I got are strewn about my patio and I have to decide about them quickly. The torential downpours have already come three days in a row, and these will all be bowed soon. Without a storage area, great finds like this being held for some future day can end up being more of a hassle than they're worth. I've moved them around 4 times already. I may have to salvage the knobs and toss the wood after all. [Sad sigh]. Amazing what you can find out there though. If we were doing a wood covered wall, these would have been just the thing!
So there you go. Up until those chairs came along, I had only spent $5 all morning and hauled a few fun finds home, including the free wood. In the end after the chairs, for a $45 morning, total, I was a happy camper. I spent the rest of the day planting two tibuchina bushes in the Florida Summer sun by my patio and gazing fondly at my sweet cast iron lovelies.
Gosh, I just realized - I'm starving! Anybody want some company for dinner?
I'll be sharing this with:
Fridays Unfolded @ Stuff and Nonsense
Open House Party @ No Minimalist Here
What's It Wednesday @ Ivy & Elephants
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