Another First for My Thrifting Scrapbook

Ooohhhh, four sales programmed into the GPS for Friday = two happy women. (Judy was out of town or it would have been three.) The first was at a lovely Fifties home on the West side. I very much wanted to take home the spotlessly clean original tile kitchen counters, but had to content myself with some crafty supplies (pipe cleaners, knitting stitch holders, embroidery thread) and some vintage yarn that’s so old it’s not in Ravelry’s yarn database.

But at fifty cents a skein for wool and mohair, I don’t see how I can go far wrong. And I couldn’t resist a pair of little handmade gnomes (felt glued onto a wine cork)

because Judy and KK both told me recently that they like gnomes. So, a tiny gift for each of them! And I may have to try my hand at making cork gnomes.

Then we tootled over to an estate sale in Monmouth, where KK was thrilled to find the vintage Viewmaster she’s been looking for. I picked up some ornaments (I'm afraid the bagpipe-playing Scotty made my husband groan out loud)

(isn't this the cutest bottlebrush tree ever?)

and a 100% alpaca scarf

and over a yard of yummy fabric that was fifty cents.

The last two sales of the day were meh. But that’s okay, because I was waiting for Saturday morning. In fact, I'd been waiting all week, ever since I saw the headline for an ad on Craigslist:

Historic Funeral Home going out of business, 80 yrs of accumulation

I tell you, I've been doing this thrifting thing a long time, and this is the first estate sale I've ever seen for a funeral home! The ad went on to say

Historic Barrick Funeral Home is being sold. Over 80 years of accumulation needs to go, lots of variety here. Vintage ephemera, oddball antiques, artist finds, lots to see with something for everyone. We are still uncovering more every day until the sale.

I couldn’t even tell you what some of the things in the pictures were, but here are a few from the ad.

Yes, that is a pine coffin. I'm not sure if anyone had bought it but it was still right in the foyer when I was there!

Their building appears to have been remodeled in the Sixties. The lower part is covered with pale green panels, possibly aluminum, and the upper portion is this amazing three dimensional metalwork. I've never seen anything like it, and admire the building whenever I drive by.

I arrived a few minutes before the scheduled start time. Big crowd out front waiting to get in. Had to park a block away. Judy was already there, and we had plenty of time for a nice long chat, since they were letting in about thirty people at a time and our number was…85!

Predictably, what there was had been pretty picked over when we finally got in, but sharp-eyed Judy spotted this great MCM ceiling light on one of the pews in the chapel, which I ended up buying for ten bucks.

Can’t wait to put this up somewhere in my house. MCM fixture, good; MCM fixture with a story, great!

It’s probably just as well that this light had already been sold. We might have had to fight over it, even though it was way too large for either of our homes!

Judy spotted another light a bit later, a pull-down counter-weighted lamp very similar to this one.

The lamp swings out from a piece of teak that fits over a wall cleat; unfortunately the cleat was missing. But as we were walking out, I noticed an identical piece of teak (sans lamp) lurking quietly on a wood paneled wall, reached up, and slid it off – and there was the exact cleat she needed. Evidently there had been another of these lamps, but we were told it went on the fritz recently. So they went and found a screwdriver, and Judy got the cleat!

While we were looking around, a young woman was taking pictures. We figured she was just interested in a piece of furniture and tried to stay out of her way. But a few minutes later she came up and told us she’s from the newspaper and got our names. She’s only been there a couple of weeks, and today got sent out on assignment to cover a funeral home’s estate sale.

You just have to love Salem! And you just have to love Judy. You know how most of us shrink from having our pictures taken? When we walked away from the reporter, Judy's comment was, "I didn't know she was taking our picture. If I had--I'd have posed!"