Category: garage sales.

Whenever I share photos of the haul from a Saturday spent garage saling I get lots of comments from people who say they wish they could find such great stuff themselves.

So I thought I’d share some garage saling tips with you guys today.  Because there definitely is a method to my madness.

Tip no. 1 – shop neighborhood sales.

This is a biggie.  It’s my number one tip because it’s definitely the most important one.

I like to focus on neighborhood sales for the simple reason that it’s efficient.  My sister and I can often hit 50 – 60 sales in one morning at a neighborhood sale because they are all close together.  The more sales you visit, the greater your chances of finding something good.  I’d say there is about one good sale for every 10 or so lame ones.  You know, the ones where you wonder why the people didn’t just rent a dumpster.

If you don’t know whether or not there are any neighborhood sales in your area, try checking the Craigslist garage sale postings frequently.  Some of our neighborhoods are still really old school and post ads in the newspaper too.  Once you find them, be sure to keep track of when they are held.  Most neighborhoods stick with the same weekend (like the 3rd weekend in August for example) every year.

There are two distinct neighborhood garage sale seasons here in the Twin Cities.  The spring season starts the last weekend in April and runs until the end of June.  The sales totally dry up by the 4th of July and tend to not resume again until late August and then run through the end of September.  I’m trying to wait patiently for them to kick in again this year.

Tip no. 2 – the early bird gets the worm.

I can’t stress this one enough.  The good stuff goes fast.  You have to get out there as soon as the sales open.  In general we usually find our best buys before 10 a.m.  After that the finds are hit or miss.

Tip no. 3 – shop the first day.

Everything I said above also applies to shopping the first day of a sale.  As you all know, I have a day job.  Every once in a while I can take a Thursday or Friday off work to get to one of the sales that starts on those days, but for the most part I stick with ‘Saturday only’ sales.

Tip no. 4 – going back for something.

At the Linden Hills sales earlier this year I purchased three large pieces of furniture plus two chairs at the very first sale we stopped at that morning.  Clearly all of that would have filled up my sister’s SUV and we would have been done for the day, which was not an option.  So instead I asked the proprietor if I could come back for everything later in the day.  I’ve done this quite a few times and I have yet to have anyone refuse to allow it.

However, if you’re worried about whether or not your stuff will still be there when you come back I have a great tip for you.  Take just one drawer (or shelf) with you.

Brilliant, right?  I learned that tip from my garage sale mentor’s sister.

If you take a drawer there is no chance the person can sell the piece out from under you.

Also, be sure to make note of the address and get the proprietor’s phone number.

Tip no. 5 – study the map ahead of time.

Most of the neighborhood sales around here provide a map and a listing of the sales.  Oftentimes they also include either a little blurb from the seller about what they have, or a chart of some kind indicating whether they have kid’s clothes, baby stuff, furniture, antiques, etc.  In most cases (although not always) the map and listing is available online in advance of the sale, usually at the neighborhood’s website.

For an example, check out this link to see the map and listing from the Linden Hills sales last May.  The sale we went to first was the one that listed “Vintage furniture, linens & books. Some small antiques.”  And that’s where I scored all of that furniture!

So if possible, study the map ahead of time.  Find the sales that have the sort of items you are looking for and be sure to head to those first.

Tip no. 6 – when all else fails.

When all else fails, money is no object, and you just can’t find any neighborhood sales, it’s time to head to your favorite outdoor antique market instead.  We have quite a few of these in our area and next weekend is one of the best, Oronoco Gold Rush.

My sister and I plan to head there again this year.  We don’t usually buy a lot because the prices are definitely higher than garage sale prices, but we do enjoy checking it all out.

And if nothing else, we’ll definitely come home with some homemade fudge.

I hope some of these tips were useful to you.  Do you have a favorite neighborhood sale in your area?  Or maybe an outdoor antique market that you always like to visit?  Anybody else going to Gold Rush this year?  If so, I’d love to hear from you in a comment.

Two of my favorite garage sales took place this past week.

First there was the ‘breakfast meeting’ garage sale.  My friend/co-worker Sue and I go to this sale every year.  We both pass the sign for it on our way in to work, so when we see it we know that we need to head back out for our annual ‘breakfast meeting’.  Shhhhh, don’t tell anyone.  This is our little secret.

I always find some great stuff.  Here is last year’s haul.

Seeing this photo reminded me that I did some fun stuff with a few of those items.

I kept the bucket ‘as is’ and I even used it as a prop in last Friday’s blog post after filling it up with peonies.

The little stool under the bucket was revived with some of Miss Mustard Seed’s Flow Blue milk paint and I’ve kept that so far too.

And in fact, the little watering can in that last photo was also from the ‘breakfast meeting’ sale last year and it got a coat of Flow Blue as well.  I brought that in to Reclaiming Beautiful to sell.  I figure my non-collection of 10 watering cans is sufficient and I don’t need to add to it.

The plain plywood box in that photo went from drab to fab with a paint job and an IOD transfer applied to it.  So far I have it in my giant English cupboard holding all of my photography supplies like extra lenses and so forth.

I still have the chair that’s in the photo.  I’m saving it to pair up with a desk sometime down the road.

The rest of the stuff I purchased that day was sold as is.

At this year’s sale I found another little pile of fun goodies like this pretty pair of pyrex dishes.

And this set of McCoy nesting bowls.

Isn’t this ‘cottage’ doorstop adorable?

With a house as old as mine there is always a need for doorstops.  My doors all have a mind of their own.

I also nabbed this pretty quilt to use in my guest room.

In addition to the ‘breakfast meeting’ sale, the Nokomis neighborhood sales were on Saturday.  My sister and I love to go to those because that’s the neighborhood where our parents grew up.  We always drive by our grandparent’s old houses.

Once again though, this past Saturday was rainy.  If you’re keeping track, this was our third Saturday in a row with rainy weather for garage saling.  As we headed into Minneapolis there was thunder, lightening and a heavy downpour of rain.  But we were not to be deterred.  And this time we had my niece with us, which is a rarity, so we really were hoping to find some great stuff.

We really didn’t have much luck though.  Even though there were around 100 sales listed on the map, most of them did not open due to the weather.  I’m sure many of them planned to have their sales out in the yard, and that just wasn’t going to happen.  I always feel so bad for people when they’ve gone to all of the trouble to get ready for a garage sale, and then the weather doesn’t cooperate at all.

I did find some fun things though, like a bag full of mid-century modern drawer pulls for only a quarter.

You never know when I might run across a mid-century piece that needs hardware.  For a quarter, this was definitely a good investment.

I also came home with some more mid-mod barware.  This set is in pristine condition and has six glasses plus the ice bowl and tongs.

It wasn’t all mid-century though.  I also purchased this ginormous scale.

I really should have taken a ‘before’ photo so you could see the transformation.  This was probably the most disgustingly grimy thing I’ve ever purchased at a garage sale (and that is definitely saying something).  The entire thing was covered in a thick layer of greasy dirt.  It also had quite a few paint splatters on it.  But it cleaned up beautifully with just some Dawn dish washing soap and a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

By the way, if any of my local readers are lucky enough to have a large kitchen with space for displaying something like this (which would look great with a plant on it, or maybe a couple of ironstone pitchers) this scale is going to be for sale, so be sure to leave a comment if interested.

We finally gave up on the sales at around 11 a.m.  We were driving around in circles at that point and not finding very many sales that were actually open.

So we did what any normal people would do, we drove over to Minnehaha Falls to do some sightseeing and to admire the amount of water going over the falls.

And then despite the fact that we looked like drowned rats, we stopped off for lunch on the way home.  We may not have scored many bargains, but we still had a great rainy Saturday!

In the past I have always gone to the ECCO neighborhood sale the first weekend in June.  I’m not going to lie, I mainly go for the tacos.  There is a family in that neighborhood that makes authentic tacos and sells them out of their garage during the sale.  But early this past Saturday when I printed out their map just before heading out I discovered that ECCO had only 21 houses participating this year.  I’m not sure what happened with that, but when you’re used to sales with 80+ participants, 21 is a small number.

So I did a little googling and discovered that the Kenny/Armitage neighborhood had moved its sale from Memorial Day weekend to this past weekend instead.  I always wondered why they chose a holiday weekend in the past.  It can’t have been good timing for many.  It was obvious that more households were participating as a result.  There were 74 homes on their list.

So I pulled a last minute switcheroo.  Instead of ECCO, my sister and I headed to Kenny/Armitage.

The weather forecast was fairly dire.  The chance of rain starting by 9 a.m. was 80%, 100% chance of rain by noon.  So we went prepared with hats and rain jackets, but we actually stayed fairly dry until about 11 a.m.  We had a few things in the car by then but we were hardly full up.  Still we thought about packing it in at that point.  But then we saw just one more sign, and then just one more, and, well, you get the picture.  A little rain never hurt anyone, although it does make life difficult for those having a ‘yard sale’ rather than a ‘garage sale’.  Besides, I feel really sympathetic for those people who have gone to all the work of having a sale only to have it rain on their parade.

Some of our best bargains of the day were found after the rain started.  One plus to a rainy garage sale day is that it keeps the crowds down.  There were very few shoppers out and about in Kenny/Armitage.

Our very first purchases in the morning were hostas.

Probably not terribly exciting for you guys to see, but these were probably one of the best bargains of the day.  The small ones were $1 and the larger ones were $2.  The guy selling them had a gorgeously landscaped garden full of a variety of hostas.  He was just dividing off some of them to control their size.  I bought three, but my sister bought six!  These weren’t your run of the mill boring hostas either.  One of mine is a Sunpower, and my sister got a couple Guacamole’s.  I’m a big fan of ‘garage sale gardening‘, why pay $20 for a hosta when you can get it for $2?

It was a sort of garden-y themed day.  I also found this fab garden pedestal for $15 …

By the way, that is my own Guacamole hosta there on the right, and June on the left.

Another garden item I purchased was this clay pot brush.

I never knew they made such a thing, but it has a really stiff bristle that is designed to brush the dried dirt out of your clay pots.  How fab!  It was just $2.

I also purchased this vintage enamelware pitcher for $2.  You don’t normally see them with a flower design on them.

I thought this one would make a great vase for my peonies, which are just starting to open.

However, as is sometimes the case with vintage pieces like this, this one was not watertight.  So I thought I’d share my trick for dealing with that.  Just use a jar that fits inside to hold the water and the flowers.

I’ve learned the hard way to always test vintage containers for their water tightness before I fill them with flowers and place them on my table!

The last garden-ish find of the day was a box full of glass cloches.

OK, a couple of them look more like cake stand domes rather than cloches, but potato-potahto.

I love using these to bring more interest to a vignette.  Everything seems slightly more important when it’s under a glass cloche.

Even just a simple photograph.

You may have noticed that I used the largest one while staging the Bunker Hill Blue buffet that I shared on Monday.

A couple of you left comments about my luck in finding a mannequin at the Roseville sales last week, but you’ll never guess what.  I found a genuine dress form this time!

She’s wearing a rather unattractive and slightly holey grey jersey right now, but once I get that off you won’t even recognize her.  I’m saving that transformation for another post.

The guy I bought her from said he found her in the attic of his house.  Every time he went up to the attic to look for something he was freaked out by seeing a headless woman out of the corner of his eye, so he had to get rid of her.

As for the desk, it was such a good bargain that I couldn’t possibly not buy it.

It’s going to need just a little help from my handyman Ken in the form of some glue and clamps.  But aren’t those knobs kind of fantastic?

I’ve reserved ‘find of the day’ status for this amazing vintage portable typewriter.

Isn’t it gorgeous?

It’s quite small and even fits on the Colliers’ Atlas that I purchased last week.

The gal who sold it to me said that her grandmother used to type all of her letters on this typewriter!

All in all, my sister and I had a great time at the Kenny/Armitage sales despite the rain, although we did miss those tacos!

 

When I was a bit younger if you’d asked me if I wanted to be one of those ‘ladies who lunch’ I would have answered with an emphatic ‘yes’!

Who wouldn’t want to be free as a bird every day, with the disposable income required to meet your gal pals at fancy restaurants for lunch.  I could totally see my future as a lady of leisure.

But in reality I’ve pretty much had a full time job since I left school.  That was … um … egads … 37 years ago.  However, every once in a while I take a staycation and try to pretend for a week that I live that way all the time.  You know, I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that I’ve been off work all of this week!

But I should have known that I’m not really cut out to be a lady who lunches.  I’m much more of a lady who skips lunch to go to garage sales!

So yesterday my friend Meggan (a.k.a. the thrift doctor) and I headed out to the Roseville city-wide garage sales for the day.  It was a total luxury for me to be able to go to a neighborhood sale that started on a Thursday!  This was the second time Meggan and I have done this sale, we did it two years ago too.

Once again we had a great time and we managed to fill up Meggan’s SUV, and in fact Mr. Q and I had to go back later with our van to pick up this pair of twin beds that I found.

Aren’t they going to be amazing with a coat of paint or two?

I also brought home a mid-century piece.

Technically I think it’s a table and it has these clever little pop out leaves that make it bigger, but I think this would work beautifully as a desk.  The blonde ‘wood’ is all Formica, and the legs are metal.  I’m debating painting the legs … maybe?  Or maybe just cleaning them up.  Either way I’ll definitely clean the piece up a bit, stage it as a desk and then see if I can flip it on Craigslist.

I also ended up with a bit more mid-century glassware.

The crazy thing is that I first purchased the set of tall glasses with a matching ice bowl at one sale, and then found the matching shorter glasses at another!

Seriously, what are the chances?  Cocktails anyone?

I mainly purchased this gorgeous Atlas for the color.  It’s the most lovely shade of green.

But it also has some gorgeous blue and green colored maps inside that would be awesome framed.

I also found this set of books that will be perfect for staging photos, or for filling up a bookshelf.

Obviously I couldn’t resist this little doll sized dresser.  It’s the perfect shade of aqua blue, and you know I’m obsessed with miniature furniture.  Since it was only $5, it had to come home with me.

As for this toy truck, the fact that it was the perfect shade of “Millennial Pink” sold me on it.  It’s missing its cab, but hey, it’s a Ford.  I can see it filled with succulents, or maybe with some pink vintage ornaments at Christmas.

I brought home a few other odds and ends as well like this sweet little copper watering can and a perfectly lovely little Oxalis plant that was only $2.50.

I also found my Lula’s sister …

She may not look like much yet, but I’ll work her over and add some vintage details.  After all, the original Lula started out in similar shape to this and now look at her.

I found a few more bits and pieces that I didn’t have time to photograph, so all in all it was another successful neighborhood garage sale.

All things considered, I think I’ll stick with not being a lady who lunches.  It’s so much more fun this way!

 

 

 

 

 

Another one of my absolute favorite neighborhoods, Linden Hills, had their annual garage sale this past weekend.  My sis and I got up early Saturday morning and headed out to be there for the 8 a.m. start time.

There are several things I love about Linden Hills.  First and foremost, it’s a ‘Saturday only’ sale.  Since I’m a working stiff, I can’t get to the sales that start on Thursday or Friday (unless I take a vacation day at work).  All of the good stuff at those sales is long gone by Saturday.

Second, the Linden Hills Neighborhood Council provides a listing of all the sales along with descriptions of their goods, plus a map showing all of the locations.  Both are crucial tools for a successful garage sale experience.  I always try to pick the best spot for starting out in the morning.

Third, it’s just quite simply a beautiful neighborhood full of gorgeous old homes that is a pleasure to drive around in.

Before Debbie and I headed out Saturday morning I studied the list of sales and picked out one at the southern end of the neighborhood to start at.  The description said ‘Vintage furniture, linens & books.  Some small antiques.‘, so I was optimistic.

And we hit the jackpot!

I spent just over $100 and purchased a dresser, a vintage bookcase with a glass door, a 2nd vintage bookcase, two soon-to-be planter chairs, three old books, several sets of linen napkins (I’m going to try dying them with Dixie Belle paint, coming soon) …

some green depression glass, a McCoy pot, and a uniquely shaped Atlas jar …

I’ve already added a little something extra to the Atlas jar in the form of a Tim Holtz rub-on …

 and I also purchased three vintage milk glass light fixture globes at that first sale.

I especially love the art deco wedding cake globe.  In fact, I’m giving it ‘find of the day’ status.

I have a similar style globe on the light fixture on my front porch that I also purchased at a garage sale and I just love it.

So I was hoping that this one would fit my existing bathroom light fixture, and it did!

Since I was completely unable to get a decent photo of my own bathroom light fixture (since I have the world’s smallest bathroom), I borrowed this one from the ModMercantile on Etsy.  If you absolutely love this look, you can buy a similar fixture from them for about $265.  I paid $10 for mine, bwa, ha, ha, ha (insert evil garage sale laugh here).

Anyway, yes, all of that was just at the first of sale of the day.  We couldn’t even begin to fit all of the furniture into Debbie’s SUV, so I made arrangements to come back later with our van to pick it up.  That ended up being a good thing because we filled the SUV up with other stuff as the day went on including this adorable little nightstand and another potential planter chair.

I also picked up this amazing vintage iron crib.

I just love genuine heavy vintage iron pieces like these.

The older couple I purchased it from were quite funny.  They said that they actually used this crib for their kids when they were babies and pointed out this was before people worried about silly things like safety.  They mentioned that they called it ‘the slammer’ because their kids were ‘behind bars’ and then chuckled at those happy memories of their babies in their iron prison.

I’m not precisely sure what the fate of ‘the slammer’ is going to be.  I had initially thought I would put it back together and turn it into some sort of garden bench like this example from pinterest …

but I’m missing some of the parts that hold it together so I’m not sure I can make that work.  The separate  pieces would be gorgeous in the garden with a clematis or something growing on them though.  So we’ll see.

Luckily even after all of that there was still room in the vehicle when we came across this lovely crystal chandelier.

The gentlemen selling this item said he replaced it with something that was more his style.  I was happy to take it off his hands!  I don’t really have a spot for a gorgeous crystal chandelier myself though, so I’ll most likely be selling it on.

Unfortunately by the time we got to the house with the $5 small farmhouse table there was just no way at all we could fit it in the SUV.  And I knew when I came back with the van for the pieces from the first sale of the day there wasn’t going to be any room for it either.  It hurt me a little inside to have to walk away from that table.  I hope someone else found it and is going to give it a new lease on life with some paint!

Meanwhile I finished up a sweet vintage farmhouse style dresser yesterday that I just need to get photos of so I can share that with you here this week, so be sure to stay tuned!