Category: garage sales.

Are you headed up north for the holiday weekend?  Maybe to your lake home?  or your cabin in the woods?

If so, lucky you!  If not, you are also in luck because Sue is having a pop up vintage sale!

On a whim she decided to host a small sale at her house in her fabulous dining room … you remember her fabulous dining room right?

Well, now you have a chance to see it up close and personal with the added benefit of lots of lovely things for sale.

And I am guessing that you could easily take a quick spin around her garden in the back and she wouldn’t mind.

Need some ironstone?

Maybe some white platters?

Or perhaps some fabulous vintage linens?

This floral oil painting is simply gorgeous (please squint a little to try and ignore the reflection of me in my striped jacket taking this photo!)

There is some black to punctuate all of the white (and oh no, more of my stripes, clearly this was a bad clothing choice for taking photos).

And some lovely florals.

I even saw this guy poking his head out from a pile of stuff for sale.

The main reason Sue decided to have this sale was to offer up some of her gorgeous china.  The pieces are priced individually, so if you don’t want a whole set, but just some gorgeous plates to eat dinner on … or maybe a lovely set of dishes for serving just dessert, then this is perfect for you.  And omg, you can even see those stripes reflected in the platter!  Good gracious.

There are several lovely patterns to choose from.  Wouldn’t that small bowl be perfect on your dressing table to hold your bracelets?

 So, if you’ll be in town this weekend why not plan to swing by Sue’s house on Saturday morning?  I’m sure you’ll find something lovely to add to your home, and if nothing else just being near Sue’s gorgeous gardens and lovely home will inspire you!

Here are the details:

I’ve mentioned before that Sue and I work together, and occasionally we get called away to important breakfast meetings.  These mostly take place on Thursdays or Fridays in the summer, in other words, garage sale season.

We had one of these meetings this week.  It’s an annual sort of thing.  A small block sale just a mile or two from our office that we watch for every year.  We know what their signs look like, and Sue and I both drive right past the corner where they usually place one on our way in.  As soon as we got in to work, we both agreed it was time for an important breakfast meeting.

 One of the gals who participates in this block sale is an antiques dealer who is slowly selling off her inventory and getting out of the biz.  Her prices are always phenomenal and I manage to find lots of awesome stuff.

Wouldn’t this red and green tin be great at Christmas time?  It would make an awesome gift filled with cookies and bars.   And how much do you love that toy beater with its tiny red handle?  One could tie that on with twine to complete the gift.

The chair they are sitting on will be getting a chippy paint job for sure.

These old tennis rackets have the most fabulous patina.  For now I plan to keep them as potential future furniture photo shoot props.  If they don’t work out for that, they will likely make their way into my next sale.  They would be awesome hung on a wall.

I nabbed a pile of old buckets.  I love stenciling on these.  Some of these will get “French Market”, and some will probably get numbers.

 I also picked up some vintage ornaments to add to my collection.  You can’t really tell the scale from this photo, but the smaller round ornaments are about the size of marbles.  They will be great near the top of my tabletop trees.

And isn’t this “how to speak French” hankie cute?  I wish I was going to Paris, how fun to take this handy hankie along for quick and easy translation.  It would also be great tucked into a basket with a Paris guide book and maybe some French wine to create a fantastic bon voyage gift, if I knew someone going to France.

I did bring home a few more things that didn’t manage to make their way into the photos.  All in all, it was a very successful breakfast meeting!

Yesterday was the ‘ECCO Super Sale’.  At least that is what they call it.  You know, I have been going to this sale for years, but I have no idea what the extra ‘C’ stands for.  I know it’s the East Calhoun neighborhood, I think the ‘o’ at the end is for organization … but that extra ‘c’ … no idea.

And I’m not so sure about the ‘Super Sale’ part.  There were 58 houses participating this year, but I don’t know if it was super.  It poured rain the entire time!  Luckily my companion and I both wore fabulous rain boots.  We didn’t go around puddles, we just went right through them!  I haven’t been that soaked in a long time.  My raincoat turned out to not be so waterproof after all.  My ball cap was dripping wet by the end.  But we still had a great time, and even in the rain that neighborhood has some gorgeous houses, not to mention an awesome homemade taco stand.  Delicious!

Here is my tiny haul after a morning of slogging through the rain.

The table is quite rustic, in a good way.  I’m know I definitely won’t paint the top, but I’m toying with the idea of painting just the base.  I have another of these tables in the workshop at the moment, and I took the leaves off that one.  With the leaves off, one can use these as a small desk.  I’m going to have to study this one for a bit before I decide what to do with it.

I found a few nice glass pieces.  A large Pottery Barn bowl that would be great for serving salads or popcorn.  Another nice glass canister (Terri, do you need another one of these?), a square jar with a great green lid, and an awesome mid-century cocktail mixer.  I also came home with a pair of vintage green binoculars.  I’m thinking of keeping them as a prop for future furniture photo shoots.

This seems to be the year of the doll sized furniture.  In this case, a bow front china cabinet.  I don’t think it’s old, but is seems fairly well made.  I grabbed it mainly because I think it will be charming painted.

I love buying perennials at garage sales.  I have filled quite a bit of space in my garden with garage sale plants.  When you buy them this way, you can be fairly sure that they thrive in your climate, otherwise the seller wouldn’t have extras to sell.  Generally they also tend to be plants that spread for the same reason.  So, buyer beware, these things might take over your garden!  As might be the case with the Sweet Woodruff I purchased today.  I will plant it in my shade garden and hope it doesn’t take over too much territory.  And at 3 plants for $5, it’s hard to go wrong.

They look pretty cute in the tiny wagon I purchased, don’t they?

We called it quits a little earlier than usual due to being soaking wet, not to mention that I had plenty to do back here at home to get ready for the Carriage House Sale!  Here’s hoping that I have better weather for that!

 

There was a quiet little holiday weekend neighborhood sale in Minneapolis yesterday.  The Armitage and Kenny neighborhoods combined forces and there were about 45 houses participating.

It was a gorgeous morning, and because of the holiday there wasn’t much traffic or competition for the good stuff.

Although I didn’t fill up the truck, I did come home with some great stuff.

The blue motel chairs are perfectly chippy and fabulous.

I will paint the blue suitcase and the little wonky stool in front.  The vintage desk lamp will be great in future desk photo shoots.

I found a fun old Spartus 35 F camera, a fabulous old movie camera and some great vintage gardening books.

I’ve been adding stencils to old breadboards, and I found 3 good ones!

I’m hoping the glass shade will fit on a fixture I already have.

The chenille bedspread is a new reproduction (Martha Stewart in fact), and it is in great shape.  It’s always good to have extra white bedding.

We were home just a little after noon, and I already slapped some paint on the little stool.  First a coat of MMSMP in Flow Blue, followed by a thick coat of MMSMP in Eulalie’s Sky.  I wanted it to look chippy and old.

I popped it into the garden and took a couple of quick photos.  That host in the front is June.  I’m not sure what the little plant with the purple flowers is, I bought it at a garage sale!  Naturally.  It’s really looking gorgeous this year, covered in those purple flowers.  It will re-bloom later in the summer, but it won’t be as full of flowers as it is now.  Does anyone know what that is?

Can I mention that in the last week or so the garden has just popped?!  Stuff is up and blooming and looking fantastic.  I always love this time of year in the garden, before the slugs start eating the hostas, or a huge hail storm turns everything raggedy.  The fresh growth is pristine and beautiful.  Maybe I’ll have to take some more photos to share with all of you.

I staged the chippy stool with my new vintage garden books, and a fab vintage garden tool that I picked up at the estate sale while playing hooky.

I’m sure most of these items will make their way to the Carriage House Sale!

OK, I wasn’t exactly playing hooky.  It was a legitimate PTO day from the day job.  I had originally scheduled a couple of days off to extend the Memorial Day weekend and to get a bunch of stuff done before my upcoming Carriage House Sale.

But then, the forecast was perfect.  70 and sunny.   And to top it off, my new friend Michelle was willing to head out to the big city (Minneapolis, that is) with me to check out a garden center that I have always wanted to visit.  Furthermore, she’d spied an ad for an estate sale we could stop at on the way.  I was really playing hooky from a day planned for furniture painting.

It was so worth it.

The estate sale was fantastic.  A house crammed full of probably 75 years of stuff.  An attic to dig through.  And clearly Michelle knows how to dig!  Look at this incredible toy dresser she pulled out of a corner of the attic.

Those tiny glass knobs are to die for.

Michelle is going to use it in her shop, Rose Mille, to display ribbons and such.  First she will put her own touch on it by lining the drawers with some vintage wallpaper.  I can’t imagine anything more perfect for her.  Maybe Michelle will share an ‘after’ picture with us.  How about it Michelle?

After seeing this amazing find, I headed over to the same corner to see what else was there.  I saw a darling vintage metal toy stove and refrigerator, and a little toy sized carpet sweeper.  I passed on those items, but I had to have this little hutch.

Not nearly as fab as Michelle’s little dresser, but cute.  I knew I could up the cute factor with some milk paint too.

I wanted to keep the green and yellow vintage paper, so I decided on some MMSMP in Mustard Seed Yellow for the first coat, then a top coat of Linen.

Isn’t it sweet?

It’s the perfect spot to display a tiny little ironstone creamer and some vintage play silverware.

The base coat of yellow just peeks out around the edges.

I am sure that this sweet little hutch will end up at the Carriage House Sale and go home with some lucky shopper!

After a cold and rainy Friday, Saturday dawned bright and sunny.  Perfect garage sale weather.

This week’s neighborhood garage sale was in Blaine.  We had high hopes because they had 150+ sales, and even had official porta-potty locations and concessions stands.  Hey, it doesn’t take much to make die hard garage salers happy.

We got there and found tons of people.  Parking spots were few and far between.  We had to park and then walk …. and walk … and walk.  Luckily we had a cart to haul our goodies in, and I wore my serious walking shoes.

My first fab find was this old coffee jar.  I love these old jars.

My next great find was this old newel post.  The sellers told us all about how they took it out of their 1901 house.  We didn’t have the heart to ask what they put in its place.  I’m guessing something ‘new’.  Quelle horreur!  Why would you remove this?

I plan to try a MMS layered paint job on it to make it super chippy and shabby.

I grabbed this little camp stool just because I loved the shades of green on its seat.  Can’t you picture it next to a comfy chair with a stack of magazines on top?

My absolute best find of the day was this dress form.  Isn’t she lovely?

These have become so popular, you don’t see many of them at garage sales anymore.

There were a few more treasures in our truck, Bee’s Knees brought home a lovely waterfall style dresser that she is going to refurbish.  I found a few more small things for my occasional sale.  We must have walked miles, which certainly means we burnt off the corn dogs we ate, right?

Next weekend we are back in Minneapolis, most likely Linden Hills.  Hopefully there will be more fab finds waiting for us there.

 

We look forward to the Bryn Mawr neighborhood sale every year.  Probably because it’s the first big Minneapolis neighborhood sale of the season.  And also because we always come home with a truck load of goodies.

This year we had the truck filled by 10 a.m.

Now most people might have called it quits when the truck was full, but not us.  We are gluttons for punishment.  And sad thing is, we found almost nothing else after 10 a.m.  We may as well have gone home and taken naps after that.

But still, it was a fantastic day.  We are more than happy with our finds.

 It was a vintage luggage-palooza!  All of the suitcases came from one sale.  These days prices have gone up on vintage suitcases.  Sadly, I think the days of finding them for $3 each are long gone.  But this seller gave me a package deal on 4.  Now I have to decide, do I leave them as is, or do I paint them?  Any thoughts?

I know this dresser and desk combo will be painted!  No question there.  It’s just a matter of what colors.  I won’t keep them as a matched set.  If you’ve read my blog for long, you’ll know that I am opposed to matched sets of furniture.  Likely these two will go to separate homes, and they will be painted different colors.

So, now I seriously need to get crackin’ and paint some furniture!  It’s going to be sunny and warmer here today, so maybe I can actually get a few pieces painted in the Carriage House!

Yesterday started the neighborhood garage sale season in the Twin Cities.  I was so looking forward to it!  I’d been suffering serious garage sale withdrawal all winter.  Every year the Diamond Path neighborhood is the first big neighborhood sale.  They had over 100 homes in a fairly small area that were participating.

We’ve been going to this sale for many years and we know what to expect.  Crowds of people happy that spring is here, amazing homemade eggrolls for $1, but not a lot of fabulous finds.  We don’t usually come home with much of a haul, although last year we found quite a few things for Bees Knees new apartment.

Here’s what I came home with.

Definitely not a haul.  At the same time, I feel like each of these is a little treasure.  The little metal measuring cup with a lid is just like the one my mom always uses to make gravy.  I think I’ll use it to mix paint!  The little books are from 1905 and were a quarter each.  How do you pass that up?  The hand-painted creamer and sugar were $1 for the pair.  And look how pretty they are.  I still have a weakness for floral china, I just can’t help myself.

Underneath the china is a pair of embroidered pillowcases.

They are made out of the most delicious linen, you know, that heavy vintage stuff that you never find in new pillowcases.  And they are embroidered in white.  I looked all last year for white on white embroidered pillowcases and didn’t find any.  Now I have this pair for $2.  I’m guessing that these were never used, and likely never even washed because they still have the blue lines of the design under the stitching.  Those should wash out.

The chintzware teapot was a total find at $10.  It will be added to my collection.  I’ll post about that later.

There is one thing that I came home with that isn’t pictured.  A mid-century Lane cubist credenza.  I found it early in the day.  I hesitated about buying it.  Why?  Mainly because it looked heavy.  Yep, this is the way my mind works sometimes.  It looked heavy, and I knew that if I bought it I’d be moving it around a bit.  Into the truck, out of the truck, into the garage to store, into a better spot for painting, into another spot to take after pics … you get the idea … I move furniture around A LOT.  But the price was right, $20!  And mid-century is SO hot right now.  Plus I knew it would be fantastic painted.  So I whipped out my $20 and bought it and asked if I could come pick it up at the end of the day.

Well … here’s what happened.  When we went back to load it up, there was a note taped on top.  Someone “really” wanted it and would pay “good money” if I would sell it to him.  Hmmmm.  Interesting.

We loaded it up (and as suspected, it is very heavy) and drove home.

I tried to do a little research and found that similar mid-century credenzas were selling for anywhere from $500 to $1,200 online.  But, I couldn’t find this exact style.  Also, the pieces on line were in good shape for those prices.  This one was really beat up.

I have since found the exact piece online, and here it is.

 I am sure that if there are any mid-century aficionados reading this, your little hearts are beating a little faster now knowing that I paid $20 for one of these.

In the end, I decided to pay it forward.  I’m not a mid-century expert.  I don’t have any mid-century dealers in my rolodex.  I suppose I could have put this on craigslist and sold it for more without doing anything to it at all, other than moving it around and taking pictures, but instead I texted the guy and said I would take $175 for it.

He wins, I win.  I make a tidy profit for nothing more than being the first person to spot this.

Does he wish he’d seen it first for $20?  I’m sure he does.  But is he thrilled he got it for $175, probably so.  Does the original seller wish he’d realized the worth and priced it higher than $20, I’m sure he does.  But is he happy he got rid of a heavy piece of furniture that he didn’t want to move again?  I’m sure he is.

Do I wish I’d asked for something closer to $300 or $400?  Maybe a little.  And to be honest, I was kind of looking forward to transforming this with paint.  But am I happy that I don’t have to move this heavy piece around and around, definitely.  And who can complain about making a little extra money in a span of less than 8 hours?

And thus, my brief flirtation with the cubist period comes to a close.  But you can bet I will snatch the next one up much more quickly, even if it does look a bit heavy!

Update on 5/28/14:  Just saw an ad on craigslist for this credenza asking $550 at a shop in Minneapolis.  Do I think it’s the same one I sold?  Yes, I do.  Does it sting a little that the buyer lied to me and said it was for his own home?  Yes, it does.  And it’s unfortunate because both the dealer and I could have benefited from making a connection.  When I find future mid century pieces, I won’t be calling this guy.

As much as I enjoy visiting with my mom and sister and the warmth and sunshine in Vegas this time of year, there just is no way I could ever live there.  The garage sale scene is just entirely too dismal.

It’s not that there aren’t any around, there seem to be plenty, but the selection of items for sale is pretty pathetic.  I have a theory about this, I believe that probably 80% (unscientific guesstimate) of the people living in Vegas moved there in the last 20 years.  They moved into a brand new houses and I’m also guessing that many of them bought all new furniture when they did so.  In other words, there is a lot of bad 90’s furniture in Vegas garage sales.

I am a die hard garage saler.  I’ve been to a LOT of garage sales, so I know to expect some junk.  But usually you find at least one or two cool vintage items, even if they aren’t something that you want.  My sister and I went to probably about a dozen sales, and out of those there was only one that was even slightly decent.

All of that floral china is no longer my cup of tea, but at least it wasn’t cast off free coffee mugs from the casino.  This gentleman also had some very lovely paintings.  And in fact, I did buy a small one that would fit into my suitcase (more on that in another post).

Other than that, the only thing I purchased was a John Sanford book to read on the plane for 75 cents.

To round out our thrifty morning, we also stopped at the local Goodwill and Salvation Army stores.  Again, nada.  Zip.  Zilch.  More bad 90’s furniture and tacky casino freebies.  My sister did find a lovely blue carnival glass bowl (she collects it) that was tempting, but it was priced at $18.99.  Not exactly an amazing bargain.  Plus she was worried about getting it home in one piece.

None the less, it was lovely being out in the Vegas sunshine and scouting for garage sale signs.  My sister was a good sport and played along.  It just whetted my appetite for garage sale season in Minnesota, which is probably still more than a month away.  Sigh.