AN EXCELLENT DAY FOR DUCKS

Rain. Rain, rain and more rain. The weather gods must not have realized it was Saturday morning. About the only sale I could find on Craigslist was an estate sale in ultra posh Corona del Mar. I figured the prices would be high but the ad mentioned Danish furniture—which I figured would look good in the midcentury house we’ve just bought. I was a little surprised that the rain had kept away all the other shoppers, but maybe it's also being near the holidays. In any case, I was right about the prices. I liked this table lamp a lot…

…but not this price tag!

Liked this desk too, but I can't even remember the price. When you get much over fifty cents, the numbers just won’t stay in my head.

I did have to laugh when I got to the room with the ‘art deco sewing machine’ mentioned in their ad. It was the exact same sewing machine cabinet I bought a couple of years ago. Mine housed a Singer 201 in excellent working condition, and theirs had another model, probably from the Fifties. Admittedly their cabinet was in better shape than mine, but when I compare their $375 price tag with my five bucks…I win.

However, I did buy one thing. Just couldn’t resist these wind up duckies.

Couldn’t believe it when they charged me sales tax! I'll be glad when we get through the holidays and yard sales start up again.

I did manage to refurbish one of my finds from last summer, this vintage magazine table.

Took me weeks to get the top to unwarp and stay glued, then more weeks to decide how to paint it. Then a couple more to actually do it. But I really like the way it turned out.
Used flat black spray paint which oddly enough I bought the same day as the table. Man, was it flat. I wanted a little bit of shine, so I got a can of rub-on polyurethane, which I'd heard about and wanted to try. I only did one coat (the can recommends three) but that was enough to give it the gleam I was after. Inside the lower compartment I used periwinkle blue left over from painting my bathroom a while back.
The little ball feet got the blue paint too. And since it needed door/drawer pulls, I used some of the Lucite pieces I scored back in October. I'm not sure I'll leave those permanently, but they’re fine for now.

I have to admit that my husband may have been right on this one…I really don’t know where to put it. It's beside my computer desk for now, and the cats like it there. They can hang out with me while I'm working and have someplace to sit when they have finished walking on my keyboard.

While I've got you here, just wanted to let you know I may have to take another little blogging hiatus. Our annual Christmas open house is next weekend so I suspect I won’t be garaging, and the two weekends after that are holiday weekends. I'll be away most of that time, back up in Oregon getting our house ready to rent. I hope to do my year-end round up of 2009’s thrifting somewhere in there. Meanwhile, have fun and frugal holidays!