Last weekend my sister and I packed pretty much everything we love about summer into one weekend; garage sales, patio dining, gardening, and ice cream.
We started out at the Tangletown neighborhood garage sales. This neighborhood got its name from its windy, curving streets. Most Minneapolis streets are laid out in a grid pattern, so Tangletown stands out because it’s not grid-like at all. I have to admit, those very structured grid-like streets in other neighborhoods make garage saling easier. Numbered streets go one way, named streets go the other and are in alphabetical order … Aldrich, Bryant, Colfax, Dupont. It’s so simple to find your way around in those neighborhoods. Tangletown is a different story. We found ourselves tangled up in Tangletown quite often, driving past the same intersection multiple times before realizing we’d gotten turned around again.
But that’s OK because it’s a very pretty neighborhood full of gorgeous houses.
We didn’t mind doing a little sightseeing. In addition to the beautiful homes, we also stopped at the Washburn Water Tower to get a closer look.
The original water tower in this location was built by Cadwallader (seriously, can you imagine that name? did they call him Cad for short?) and William Washburn in 1893. It was replaced with this art deco version in 1932 which is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
The tall ferocious looking dudes with the swords are the eight ‘guardians of health’ that protect the water supply.
After checking out the water tower and hitting all of the sales in Tangletown we stopped off at a local restaurant, Wise Acre, for lunch. I have to admit we mainly picked this spot because it had patio seating.
The atmosphere was fantastic, the service was friendly and made us feel right at home, but I’m not gonna lie, neither of us really cared for the ‘farm to fork’ style food. We probably ordered the wrong things, or perhaps the simple fact is that we just aren’t hipster enough for this place. The fries came with a homemade beet ketchup … yep, you read that right … ketchup made from beets. It pretty much tasted just as you would expect it to, like beets. It worked on the burger, but not so much on the fries.
After lunch we drove home, unloaded our garage sale finds and then headed off to my favorite spot to buy my summer annuals, Country Sun Farm in Lake Elmo. Debbie and I both found lots of gorgeous flowers and we filled up the SUV again.
Buying garden supplies is exhausting work, so we headed to Nelson’s Ice Cream in Stillwater next. I didn’t manage to get my own photo, but I found this one online which pretty much shows the average serving size of ice cream at Nelson’s. This was much more our style than the beet ketchup.
I went with the Blueberry Cheesecake and Debbie chose Peppermint Stick, both of which were amazing.
The next morning we got up and headed to the Bryn Mawr Festival of Garage Sales. And Festival really does belong in the name. They have all of the ingredients required for a festival; live music, food trucks, portable toilets and lots of people.
I didn’t come home with much from either of these neighborhood sales, but I did find another amazing vintage ironing board that I plan to turn into a sign. The woman who was selling it mentioned that her daughter found it in the attic of the house she recently purchased.
I love that the label shows shows someone ironing while seated. Hey, even if you can’t stand for long periods of time you can still do the ironing with this adjustable ironing board. How convenient!
I also found some mid-century barware and some faux ice cubes that I plan to use for staging a piece of furniture that I’ll be sharing on Friday.
I also brought home a couple of piles of miscellaneous small stuff.
I found some odds and ends to turn into signs or chalkboards.
Well, technically this one already is a chalkboard. But I’m going to see what I can do to refurbish it.
I suppose the fact that I chose the fake ice cubes as the ‘find of the day’ speaks volumes about my finds (or lack thereof).
But then again, the ice cubes really are realistic and I’m going to have so much fun using them for staging future furniture photos.
All in all, it was an awesome kick off weekend for garage sale season 2018. I hope you’ll stay tuned to see what I do with some of my garage sale finds.
q is for quandie 
What a great weekend! Makes me miss the Midwest so much. I think you found great things – I love the small folding chair and the chalkboard. The midmod glasses are pretty fantastic, too. I am thinking there are bar carts calling for you to revive them. And that ice cream….
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I think you might be a tiny bit psychic Laura, I’ve got a bar cart coming up on Friday 😉
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Sounds like a fun weekend even though you didn’t find much.
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It was an awesome weekend!
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Ice cream, garage sales, and to do with your sis. That’s just the cherry on top! (Note that I said cherry, not beet). Live this time of year. Thanks for sharing☺️
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LOL, yep, no beets on top for sure 😉
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Looks and sounds like a very fun day. I love early summer garage sales. When the weather starts to get nice people start to declutter! I know that I do. What an amazing water tower! Great day! thanks for sharing.
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I’ve been noticing that there is a lot more furniture listed on Craigslist lately too. People are definitely decluttering!
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What a fun weekend. It was great to see you and Debbie! I’m so glad she moved here so you guys can have sister time. The weather was gorgeous. When we lived in Tangletown, we had a view of the water tower from our upstairs windows! I have the exact ice bucket! I found mine at Arc and use it for compost, although there are so many dents (boys take the compost out and I don’t know..,slam the bucket? How on earth…) so it’s time to replace but love it! I found the same one at an antique store for $35. A little too steep for compost, but a great find. Your barware keeps up with the MCM theme you have going 🙂
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How fun that you had a view of that water tower. It really is impressive looking. I’d never stopped to take a closer look before, so it was interesting to see it up close. And $35 is definitely a bit steep for the ice bucket! As you can imagine, I paid no where near that much for mine 😉
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That sounds like so much fun. You are lucky to have Debbie for a sister, she obviously likes the same thing you do. You will have a great time with your bits and pieces. I had an ice bucket exactly like the one in a picture. Can,t imagine beet ketchup. I love the sound of Tanglewood. Have a good day …..Betty
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The hammered aluminum ice buckets must have been all the rage back in their heyday!
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First off the water tower is pretty amazing. Absolutely love it. Are y’all near the place where the Kensington Runestone was found? Those look like Knights Templar figures on the tower.
I have oops had the same ice bucket.
It was my husband’s grandmother’s.
Unfortunately in our last move he gave a wrong box to Goodwill. 😢
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The runestone was found about 150 miles from here. As for those guardians of health, they do look a bit knight-like don’t they? Must be the helmets and the swords. I can’t find any connection between them and the Knights Templar though. Apparently there was a typhoid outbreak going on at the time the tower was constructed, so they needed some serious looking protectors for the water source!
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I’ve got some Masonic friends (descendants of the order), I’ll ask them. They are all up on the Kensington runestone and its authenticity.
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Oh my typhoid the perils of that age.
By the way sounds like a fab weekend particularly the ice cream maybe not so much the beet ketchup.
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Nice haul! I think I have the canisters that go with that tin container next to the cook book! I wonder where I put them.
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I think I’m going to put that metal bread box in my pantry. It the perfect size for hiding the extra small square boxes of kleenex.
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Sounds like fun and you came home with some great finds. I guess beet ketchup would be ok if you like beets. I think I’ll pass. 🙂
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Beets with french fries, not the best combo for sure 😉
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It was a very fun first weekend of garage sales. i got even less items then my sister did. But I am more in it for the fun and spending time with my sister. The ice cream was awesome and it was fun to see the water tower. I did get some fun flowers and a strawberry plant.
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