LAMPS, TOLSTOY, AND TEAPOT LIDS

“Bring boxes and gloves,” said the ad for an estate sale on Craigslist. “Be sure to come every day. New stuff will be unearthed from the bottom of the piles each day.”

How could we resist such an enticement? I checked the address—about two miles from home. We made our list of errands to run on Friday, with “Estate Sale” in the number one position.

I've been to a lot of sales. A LOT of sales! And I have never seen anything like this. The company running the sale posted a bunch o’ pictures here. It wasn’t just the thousands of items inside the house—every inch of the back yard was covered in stuff, piles several feet high. There were 3 or 4 outbuildings, full of stuff. Practically everyone shopping the sale could be seen to shake their heads and ask did you ever see anything like this? We were still looking around the first room when I heard another arrival say, “I wonder if people look at this and want to buy stuff, or if it makes them want to run home and get rid of everything they’ve got?”

We were there at least an hour, and it was fun—but we were awfully glad we had a spare bottle of water in the car to rinse off our hands afterward! We’d barely arrived when a young woman approached and asked if we were looking for anything in particular. I thought she might be working for the sellers and trying to steer customers through the maze. But actually she is a graduate student at one of the local universities, doing a paper on estate sales. She gave us her questionnaire, and we chatted on and off during our sojourn through Stuff City. In fact, I got one of my favorite quotes of the day from her. She was looking at one of the dozens of dolls that were strewn through the piles of heaven knows what, and I saw her arrange the arm and then take some pictures. “I kind of like the dolls,” she said. I agreed, saying they were like a macabre art piece. “Yeah—the victims of this guy’s obsession.”

A family group was poking through piles nearby. “Hey Grandpa, look!” the teenage boy exclaimed. He’d found some walkie talkies. Grandpa was appreciative. “I bet you could call Mars on those,” he said. Must have been BIG walkie talkies. When I got back inside I watched a mother holding a young daughter, maybe age two, looking at stuff in one of the bedrooms. The child was squirmy, and mom finally put her down, with a stern admonition: “Don’t touch anything! Dirty!”

We talked for a few minutes with the man running the sale. He said his family has been in this business for nearly 50 years. I'd be curious to know how many sales in that time have been as jam-packed as this thing was. Frankly, I admire them for being willing to take it on. “We brought 45 boxes of stuff down from the attic,” he told us. “Avon. One was full of face powder. They dropped one of them and it exploded all over the place.”

I think my husband managed to unearth the best thing in the whole darned place. Though the sale had started the day before, and we didn’t get there till after 10 a.m., so heaven knows what was already gone. Anyway, in a back corner of one of the outbuildings, behind a bunch of other stuff, he found this floor lamp that we both liked.

We think it's brass and will be pretty spiffy when it's been cleaned up and an interesting shade found for it. Here’s where I tried cleaning a spot.

Our other purchase here was some 50s vintage paperbacks (there were thousands to choose from). We couldn’t resist these covers…


…and look what they did with Tolstoy!
We resumed our errand-running, and there just happened to be another sale on the way to Home Depot. By now it was nearly noon but we stopped anyway, and found this Ansel Adams print we like.
The nice lady having this sale said her friends were bringing more stuff that evening, so I made this my first stop again in the morning. Her friends had come through. I picked up a lambswool sweater for felting
and two trellises that will enjoy living in a pot with some vines. Or maybe hanging out with Edward.
As I was looking around, another young woman arrived and started looking through the clothes. “I don’t know why I'm doing this,” she said. “I'm having my own sale this morning. My husband is making me get rid of stuff, and he’s going to think I’m crazy to buy more.” She was one of those people who, every time someone else tried to speak, would resume talking, mostly about how her husband was making her sell her stuff. After a few minutes a little girl about four years old came running up. “I told you to stay in the car,” the woman said. The child ignored her and walked up to me, holding out her hand. “What’s your name?” she asked me, completely self possessed. I shook her hand and told her my name (she was so formal I told her I was Mrs. H—rather than my first name), then asked hers. Katie. She proceeded to shop around the garage, with her mother bleating in the background, “Katie, I told you to stay in the car. Katie, don’t touch anything.” In a calm voice Katie replied, “I’m just looking,” and one second later we heard CRASH! Katie had dropped the lid to a teapot. Mom came rushing in. “Um, how much did you want for your teapot?” she asked. The young woman having the sale was so gracious—she took one of the matching handleless cups, put it on the top of the pot for a lid, and said not to worry about it, then started picking up pieces. The mom seemed to take it for granted that someone else would clean up the mess and went back to her shopping, yapping at her daughter from time to time. Katie continued to ignore her.

I'm only sorry I had my back turned when Katie dropped that lid. I'd give a lot to know if it slipped from her little hands, or if she did it on purpose.

The rest of the morning was very pleasant. I tooled through one neighborhood with dozens of sales, and managed part of another before I'd had enough. Chatted for a bit with the Harley-riding detective I remembered from last year, along with his nice wife. We got to talking about accents (my Missouri/Oklahoma/North Carolina/California mixture had him wondering) and he told me when he first left Iowa and went into the Marines, the other guys claimed they couldn’t understand his accent. “And they were from Texas!” Later I talked about gardening with a couple who have pretty much ripped out their front yard and relandscaped with veggies. I met up with some of the other regulars I haven’t seen for a while—Carol was buying a baby gate for her son and daughter in law and told me about passing up some golf clubs a few weeks ago that were priced at $25, which she thought was too high. Then she’d kicked herself for not getting them. But she’d just found the same thing for ten bucks, and she was gleeful. We nodded our heads wisely and agreed that if the price is too high, pass it up, because you’re going to see it on someone else’s driveway if you just wait.

Met some nice doggies, including Maggie, a lovely black lab.
She’s only 7 months old and was such a good girl. How come my dogs are never that calm? There was also lovely Lucy, who was so wiggly it was hard to get a picture of her wonderful blue eyes.


I finally held out my camera in front of her face and clicked. Then managed to pull it out of reach before she could give it a smooch!
Had to take a picture as well of the dad at this sale—he was so perfectly framed as he noshed on his breakfast. He said the frame was for a flat screen TV.
Our two days of garaging ended up with an outlay of $31.25. Besides the lamp, books, picture and trellises, I brought home:

A monkey for a door prize
A new fanny pack, required equipment when you go garaging.
Three wooden manikins to add to my collection. One turned out to be missing a foot, dang it, but maybe he can go decorate a pot in the yard or something.

A wooden yard bunny. He’ll have to try out different spots to find the exact right place.

A package of cute little round candles with a $16 Pottery Barn price tag on the bottom.
A clock to hang outside so I can time exercising in the pool. We get no rain here in the summer, so a clock will usually last several months outdoors. I know they make outdoor clocks, but for a buck or two I just get a fresh one each summer. This came from a sale with a lot of high-end stuff, so I suspect it may have been from someplace like Restoration Hardware.
From the same sale I got this wooden marble labyrinth game, and the nice son patiently went through his coffee can of marbles he was selling to find one small enough to go through the holes. So far I've managed to get all the way to hole number three…out of sixty!

The deal of the day came when I found a stack of clothing to augment my wardrobe. For fifty cents each I got a cute rayon shirt with matching pants—love the contrasting fabric used at the ends of the sleeves and pant legs, and for an inset pleat in the back of the shirt. I think I'll shorten the pants to crop length…

…Coldwater Creek pants…
…Liz Claiborne pants of a nifty silk and linen blend…
…and navy cotton Jones New York pants.
Fifty cents each for those brands is good, right? Well, it got even better when I got home and tried them on—and found this in one of the pockets!

MAKING CONNECTIONS--PETS AND THRIFTY FINDS

Somehow this morning I ran across Rhoda's Southern Hospitality blog, where she is hosting a feature on Mondays for us to show off the thrifty treasures we've found over the weekend. Welcome to everyone who's visiting from that link! Keep scrolling down, I've got tons of treasures to share! And I can't post much now because I've got to get back to her list and check out everyone else's good fortune.

First though I wanted to share something nifty. A couple of weeks ago I included a picture of Bella the bulldog. While I was petting Bella I mentioned to her owners that one of my colleagues was hoping to find a rescued bulldog to adopt, and they said that Bella's breeder also did rescue work. They gave me the contact info, which I passed along, and the happy result is that Kim, my friend, has adopted a dog! Here's her new sidekick, Po:

Isn't she a sweetie pie?! Can't wait to meet her one of these days. But sweet Po is not the first pet I've found for someone at a yard sale. That would have to be Joe the Bunny:I was at a moving sale a few years ago, and the people mentioned they needed to find a home for their bunny. I'd love to have a bunny but we already have four pets so that wasn't going to happen (my husband would have said something more than "Where will you put it?"!!). But I got their contact info and the following Monday sent out an email to my children's librarians. And one of them, Janeane, was indeed looking for a pet for herself and her son, and they adopted Joe. Any time you ask Janeane about Joe she instantly beams and tells you the latest cute things he's done. And I think it's pretty obvious that her son Nathaniel is just as crazy about Joe:

I think it's kind of a hoot that their names rhyme, Joe and Po. And there's lots more names in that vein. Beau, Moe, Status Quo...guess I'll have to keep an eye out for more of these connections to make!

TALK AND TREASURES

We (that’s the royal we!) were delighted to discover this week that we have a lady in waiting! Over on the “Just a Girl and Her 1911 Craftsman Bungalow” blog you can meet a smart young woman who is discovering her thrifty side. We hope you will visit her and convey our good wishes (after you read us, natch!). We are flattered beyond belief to have her in our royal realm and wish her many years of thrifty goodness to come.

As my LIW has discovered, when you own a house thrifting is your new best friend. Many of us are constantly decorating our nests, but before the decorating comes the fixing. I figure the less I spend on the unavoidable repairs and improvements, the more I have available for the fun stuff! Case in point: our patio includes a tile-topped counter with a built-in gas grill. (It was there when we bought the house. Evidently some former owner was a party person.) Over the years the marble tiles have gotten chipped and some are loose, and my husband commented recently he wants to retile it. So when I found a tile cutter at a yard sale this week, I was motivated to ask the price.

One dollar later I owned a tile cutter. Now, these are not hugely expensive tools, maybe $20 or so new, but a 95% discount is always a pleasant thing to receive. And now that we have the tile cutter, I'll start keeping an eye out for tile to replace what’s there now. It's not unusual to find leftovers from someone’s remodeling job at their yard sale. Can't wait to see what turns up!

My friend Marcia was with me this week. There were many, many sales—we only covered one tract. Perhaps we could have rushed along to some of the other neighborhood sales, but we very much enjoyed our leisurely progress and picked up far more conversations than stuff. This is a good thing, since we both already own lots and lots of stuff, and the conversations are even less expensive than the things we did buy.

At one point during the morning we mused about what an amazing institution is the American garage sale. You get to walk up to perfect strangers at their home, look at their stuff, perhaps buy something for very little money. And in that space of time you have the chance to converse. Sometimes it’s just a polite hello-how-are-you exchange, but other times an object for sale will trigger vivid stories. One couple we met on Saturday were selling something dog related (can't think now what it was) that led to the story of the dog they’d lost to cancer, the best dog in the world. (At one point the husband was the only dry-eyed person on the driveway!) Their son, they said, had been especially devastated by the loss, because he had never slept alone in his life, this dog had been his constant companion. The conversation meandered on, and by the time we left I'd learned that the husband grew up in the next town over from where I lived in Oklahoma (and probably at about the same time).

In another yard we enjoyed a recently planted sea serpent topiary.
The conversation began with that, and continued into finding out that the husband is a professional magician. We visited his coworkers—the four bunnies in his garage. He told us he works at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, and that all the magicians there are getting ready to have their annual garage sale. Apparently they all bring in all their magic stuff for a sale. Dream sale for a ten year old boy!

On one street I parked the car near a large sale, then noticed a woman on her driveway across the street. She had one table with a few items, nothing looked compelling, but I told Marcia I'd go take a look. As I walked up the drive I called out that I might have thought she was lonely, but since she was reading a book I knew she couldn’t be. Turned out she’s an artist and was selling quite nice pottery that she has made. She said she hoped to sell a few pieces so she could buy more clay, and we both ended up helping along the clay fund a little! Marcia bought a set of four small bowls or cups, and I brought home this lovely plate.


I love the colors. She told us to check back next time they have the neighborhood sale—she’s hoping to master handles this year!

We met several nice dogs over the course of the morning, including this sweet little 5 month old boxer pup…
…and this is Jack the Wheaton terrier.
I actually remembered Jack from last year. Evidently he didn’t make it into my blog (I think his appearance was pre-empted by some ducks) but here’s the picture I took then. Hasn’t aged a bit, has he?
I spent $8.75 among all this (priceless!) conversing, and along with the tile cutter and handmade plate brought home:
Fun dessert plates to embellish our next Christmas party:

A little deco-looking pin—supposed to hold a picture. I'm thinking one of Edward’s puppy pics would be good.
This little guy is a future door prize. Must be related to Curious George, look at that face! Though I think George’s eyes line up a little better…
Fins. I like them for swimming laps, and my last pair has gotten grungy. I'm not a huge fan of pink, but pink fins amuse me. These came from the magician…wonder if they’ll disappear when I put them in water?
Marcia gets the gold star for overhearing the our favorite remark of the day. While most of the people we encountered were quite pleasant, one woman was a definite exception. She looked like she had made her face ugly with years of scowling and resentment. Marcia observed her with a customer who evidently spoke little English and was trying to understand the price of a can opener. “It’s two dollars,” Grumpy Woman said, and when she wasn’t understood, kept repeating it louder and louder. (I will never get this belief that somehow one can be magically understood if only one says something loud enough.) Finally she added, “It's two dollars! It's brand new. Look, it's a really good one. It's not from the 99 Cent Store, it's from Walmart!”

Remember the bag of silk fabric I bought last week? Turned out to be about 20 YARDS in all—for two dollars. (Even I am amazed.) Saturday afternoon I turned about 6 yards of into curtains for my home office.
Oh my. I never in this world would have thought I would someday have silk curtains. More proof that if you just keep looking, you can find anything on a driveway on Saturday morning!