Yay!  Garage sale season has finally arrived!

Here Minnesota we tend to have about six months between garage sale seasons.  We can sometimes find one or two sales in October, and last year we even got lucky and found a sale in early November.  But that was a fluke.  We then don’t see any more garage sales until the season kicks off the last weekend in April.

In other words, we have a long, dry season with little to no garage sales.

But when it finally rains, it pours.

There were no fewer than 37 neighborhood/city-side sales to choose from this past weekend including the 100 Mile Garage Sale that runs along The Great River Road.

So my friend opK and I stocked up on small bills (no one wants to make change for a $20 when you’re only spending $3), and planned a garage sale marathon.

We started off on Thursday when our city plus the two adjacent cities were all having city-wide sales sponsored by the Lions Club.  There were 3 or 4 garage sale signs on every street corner.

This area can be hit or miss.  Last year we didn’t find much at all.  But this year I came home with a decent haul.

I couldn’t pass up the vintage camp stools.  They’d be perfect for a cabin.

As would the minnow buckets.

They would make cute vintage planters for out on the dock.

The title of this book alone made it worth the 25 cents I paid for it …

and I’m looking forward to giving the wood tote a makeover.

The guy I purchased the vintage lumber yard apron from said that this particular shop was under the Earl Street Bridge in St. Paul and that it was torn down some time ago.

I also found a sled that was within my price range, so that will go in the pile for a Christmas makeover.

I picked up this rather cool looking birdbath.  I don’t think my photo does it justice.

I’m planning to have a garden theme for my upcoming occasional sale at the end of May, so once I clean this up a bit it will be added to my inventory for the sale.

Those of you who are local should pencil it in if you haven’t already.

Day 2 of our garage sale marathon was a bit of a bust.  I’m blaming it on the weather.  It was only in the 40’s and a bit overcast, drizzly and breezy.  Not a good combination.

We started out in what is typically one of my favorite neighborhoods, Tangletown.

I must give them a lot of credit for putting together a fantastic map of their sale locations.  Their map clearly showed the name of each street, each sale location and whether or not it was open on Friday (some were only open on Saturday).

It was super easy to make our way around to each sale location.  Unfortunately, a few of the sales that were supposed to be open weren’t actually open.  I’m sure the proprietors took one look at the weather and thought ‘nope, I’m not going to sit out there all morning in that!’ and I can’t blame them.

Here is the rather sad look at what I found in Tangletown.

We’d made it to all of the available sales by 10 a.m. so we moved on to another city-wide sale north of Minneapolis.  Sadly, it wasn’t much better.

We ended up at one sale that promised ‘vintage’ items.  And she did have vintage items.

Quite a lot of them as a matter of fact.

But she definitely didn’t have garage sale prices.

This cookbook may be listed somewhere on eBay for $80, but it’s also listed at AbeBooks.com for $13.60 and on Etsy for $15.  I’d be willing to bet that no one was willing to pay $50 for it at a garage sale.

We also stopped at an ‘estate sale’ that pretty clearly wasn’t an estate sale, but just a regular ol’ garage sale.  I did find something to buy there though, this figurine.

She’s a bit stark in her coat of bright white (does anyone else immediately think of My Big Fat Greek Wedding here?) but I plan to give her a rusty patina using Dixie Belle’s Iron Patina Paint (you can see how I did that once before here).

Day 3 of our garage sale extravaganza dawned beautifully sunny.  At 8:30 a.m. it was already warmer than it had been all day the previous day.  We had two classic Minneapolis neighborhood sales to choose from, Linden Hills and Bryn Mawr.

We ended up in Linden Hills simply because they had more sales listed than Bryn Mawr.

I wouldn’t say it was the best garage sale haul ever, but I found a few fun things.

I picked up several pairs of vintage ice skates that I’ll put away to work on for next Christmas.

I’d noticed a significant shortage of furniture on the first two days, so it was fun to actually find a piece of furniture that I wanted to work on.

That pretty curved door on the front will be the perfect canvas for a transfer of some kind.  I’m looking forward to giving this a new look.

I scored some lovely vintage linens on day three too.

And lastly, I picked up this metal banker’s box.

I’m calling it the find of the day simply because I love these metal boxes.  I aspire to one day have a row of them in stacks like this example in Kabinett & Kammer by Sean Scherer.

I’ve got three of them now, so we’ll see if I ever get there.

It was awesome to be out hitting the garage sales again.  I’m looking forward to doing a lot more of it this coming summer, how about you?