the carriage house. – Page 2

the carriage house sale recap.

Published on July 1, 2024June 30, 2024 by Quandie12 Comments

Well, the carriage house sale is over. I thought some of you may be interested in hearing how it went.

But before we get to that, one quick thing. One of our very first customers at the sale on Thursday evening purchased this metal exit sign …

Unfortunately, my sister wrapped it in newspaper and then set it down on the table. It never made it into the customer’s bag (or maybe it was a box). In other words, someone purchased this sign, but it didn’t go home with them. If it was you, please reach out to me by either leaving a comment here on the blog or emailing me at qisforquandie@gmail.com so that we can get this to you.

Now, on with the sale recap.

First up, the weather. It was not great. Thursday evening was cloudy, humid and a bit drizzly at times. Luckily we had tents to help keep things dry, and there wasn’t any severe weather. Friday was cloudy, humid, wet from overnight rain and rather chilly. Once again, tents were a necessity. We finally saw some sun on Saturday, but it was quite breezy and still chilly. I ended up having to find a jacket to put on!

Next up, the attendance. We had a great turn out on Thursday evening. It was fun to see so many familiar faces, and to meet some new ones. Friday was quite a bit slower, but sales were still decent. We blamed the lack of attendance on the gloomy weather. However, Saturday (the nicest day weather-wise) was nearly a complete bust. We literally had $26 in sales on Saturday and probably under a dozen shoppers stopped by, although I did meet a couple of my blog readers which was lovely.

I had a bit of a mix of merchandise for the sale. Naturally I had all kinds of projects that I’d shared here on the blog the past year or two, like my cupboard door signs and painted buckets.

As you can imagine, these items were priced on the higher end for a ‘garage sale’, but certainly not high in general. For example, that bucket was priced at $28.

Unfortunately, not very many of these sorts of items sold. I’m telling myself that it was the higher prices that held them back, not a lack of talent on my part. I hope.

I did sell the North Pole Bed & Breakfast sign …

But not many other signs.

Surprisingly, my furniture sold well. In the past that wasn’t usually the case.

I sold the bookcase …

and the washstand.

And a huge thank you to Shelly who drove 2 hours to come to the sale, and then did it again the next day to come back for the green legged table.

That pair of white folding chairs also sold.

I do still have my rooster cupboard though, and I have to admit I’m not sad about that.

Not much sold from the ‘science-y’ area. I was surprised that the really cool beaker didn’t sell.

It would make a fun vase.

However, the Naturalist’s Box did sell.

As did my daisy lockbox.

Not much of our Christmas stuff sold. That’s not terribly surprising though is it? No one is thinking about Christmas decorations in June.

But what did sell really well was anything garden related.

It wasn’t surprising that the adorable cement dog was one of the first things to go.

As was rusty St. Francis.

All in all, despite bad weather and a really low turnout on Saturday, I’m going to call the 2024 Carriage House Sale a success. In all I sold 243 items (what?! how did I possibly sell that much, and yet still have so much left?).

So the question is, will we do it again? I can’t make any promises, but I’m definitely thinking about it. I’m considering focusing on a garden themed sale next year, maybe even including some plants. I also think it would be better to have it earlier in the season, perhaps the first weekend in June? Lots to think about between now and then.

In the meantime, I’m going to take a bit of a blog holiday over the next week. I need to take some time to pull my workshop back together, and I’ll also be enjoying the 4th of July up at Lake Pop-a-gasket (a.k.a. Lake Wapogasset).

Thanks again to all of the locals (and even not so locals) who stopped by!

day two.

Published on June 28, 2024June 30, 2024 by Quandie1 Comment

A huge thank you to everyone who came out last night for the Carriage House Sale.

We had a great turn out, and it was such fun to see so many familiar faces!

Today is day 2 and we are open from 9 a.m. until noon, rain or shine. And it looks to be mostly rain. I was awake at 4 a.m. listening to it just come down!

Most of the merchandise is staying dry inside, but I probably won’t be able to say the same for the Carriage House staff!

But we won’t melt, and neither will you!

And we still have lots of great stuff left like the fabulous black watering can …

And the Garden Herbs tote.

I still have both of my larger metal boxes, this one …

and this one.

Nobody has snatched up this painted bucket yet …

or either of these buckets.

The Flora Parisiensis suitcase is still available.

I still have the simple white framed mirror.

and the cut flowers chair.

There is still plenty of fabulous merch left for sale, so if you’re local, come on by.

the carriage house sale.

Published on June 26, 2024June 30, 2024 by Quandie4 Comments

As promised, here are the details for the Carriage House Sale.

This time around we will be open rain or shine!

We will be accepting cash and/or Venmo only. No credit cards or checks.

We will have a holding area for items that you know you want to purchase, but don’t want to carry around as you shop. Please do not place items in the holding area unless you are sure you want to purchase them.

The sale will open promptly at 5 pm on Thursday, no early shoppers allowed 🙂

Hope to see you there!

christmas in june?

Published on June 25, 2024June 24, 2024 by Quandie5 Comments

We’re exactly halfway to Christmas!

OK, I don’t normally post about Christmas in June, but we do have a holiday section at our upcoming Carriage House Sale.

It will be a bit of an experiment to see if Christmas stuff sells in June, so I’ll try to keep you posted on that.

I have a few items left over from last year’s holiday season that will be included such as the Bed & Breakfast sign.

And this North Pole sign.

I have a pair of ice skates.

And a tacklebox.

And some bottle brush trees in vintage silver.

But I also have some projects that I just completed including this adorable little lantern.

And this much larger lantern.

I haven’t permanently attached the trees or the silver deer just in case the future owner wants to switch the lantern up for the various seasons.

Instead I used some Stick-Um candle adhesive to hold them in place.

I also painted up a bucket in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth and added a design from the I.O.D. Noel paint inlay to it.

This was my 2nd use of this particular inlay, and as you can see it turned out fairly faint.

If you want to read more about the results when using a paint inlay for the 2nd time, check out this post.

I did also paint up a sled for the sale.

We’ll also have a couple of sleds that aren’t painted.

And finally, I want to share these lovely vintage Christmas tablecloths that Sue is selling.

Perfect for your vintage holiday table.

We will be holding our sale this week rain or shine. As of writing this post they are forecasting the possibility of rain for both Thursday evening and Friday. Good grief. It seems that we can’t go a day or two without rain so far this summer. On the bright side, the hostas are getting ginormous. They are loving all of the rain.

So … we’ll have tents and we’ll do our best to keep everything dry for the sale.

We will be accepting cash and Venmo only (no credit cards or checks).

I’ll post my address tomorrow here on the blog and also on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist.

If you’re local, I hope to see you there!

vintage housekeeping.

Published on June 24, 2024June 22, 2024 by Quandie8 Comments

OK, I have to admit, I am not the greatest housekeeper.

Our house is tidy most of the time, but it’s not always especially clean. I’m just not a big fan of cleaning. I’m also not a huge fan of cooking, or doing laundry.

But I am a fan of vintage housekeeping items, and we have some fun ones for our upcoming Carriage House Sale.

Maybe cleaning would be more enjoyable if I had a cool box to keep my supplies handy.

LOL, well, probably not, but those cleaning supplies would look snazzy in my pantry.

Remember my large non-collection of whisk brooms? After realizing that I’m probably never going to get around to making a whisk broom wreath, I priced them up for the sale. Ironically, Sue also brought over a bunch of them.

So, yeah, we have a large supply of vintage whisk brooms available. If they don’t sell I may have to revisit that wreath idea. That bucket is for sale as well. I added a segment from the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer to it.

We also have a small sampling of enamelware for sale.

You may remember that pot in the middle that I added an I.O.D. transfer to.

I purchased the pot at an estate sale earlier this year, and I really intended to keep it for myself. But as it turned out, I couldn’t find a good spot to display it in my house so I decided to part with it.

We have a fun selection of vintage linens at the sale as well.

Sue has quite a few pairs of embroidered pillowcases.

As well as this charming foldable laundry bin.

We also have a couple of quilts, and some lovely vintage tablecloths.

I also created an ironing board laundry sign.

My neighbor nnK found this ironing board free at the curb for me.

It was a bit worse for the wear with a couple of serious burn marks. In addition, the metal legs that held it up were no longer stable. So with my handyman Ken’s help, I removed the legs completely. Then I added a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth paint. Next up I added a floral section from the I.O.D. Lattice Rose paint inlay, and then the wording from the Laundry transfer from re.design with prima.

I followed it all up with a couple of coats of matte spray sealer.

I’ve added some D rings on the back so you could hang this sign on the wall, but you could also just lean it against the wall if you don’t have quite that much wall space in your laundry area.

So, how about you? Are you a fan of housekeeping? Or maybe just a fan of vintage housekeeping supplies? Leave a comment and let me know.

And for those of you who are local, I hope you’ll be able to swing by this week!

I will be posting my address and other details about the sale on Wednesday morning, so be sure to stay tuned.

any ironstone fans out there?

Published on June 21, 2024June 20, 2024 by Quandie18 Comments

Any ironstone fans out there?

‘Cuz we’ve got some at the Carriage House Sale.

We have more than a dozen pitchers ranging in size from small to medium (sorry, no really large ones).

And ranging in price from $3 to $12.

We’ve got some gravy boats for a mere $4 each.

We’ve also got some chamber pots for $15 each.

We also have a whole bunch of these little guys …

Were they originally used for syrup? I’m not sure, but they seem the right size for that.

But personally, I like the idea of displaying them en masse in a bowl.

And at only $3 to $4 each, you could easily buy them all … and the blue bowl to go with them!

This pretty pitcher is marked at $12, but I keep debating whether or not to keep it. It makes such a pretty vase.

But for now it has a tag on it.

As a reminder, the Carriage House Sale has been rescheduled to next week due to the potential for severe weather that is predicted for both today and tomorrow.

If you’re local, I hope to see you there!

the naturalist box no. 5.

Published on June 19, 2024June 18, 2024 by Quandie1 Comment

Sometimes a particular formula just works, and you can’t help but repeat it.

And that’s what I’ve done today with this wooden box.

My friend opK found this box at a garage sale and passed it on to me.

After cleaning it and giving it a good scuff sanding, I painted it with two coats of Dixie Belle’s Sawmill Gravy.

Then I applied a couple of floral transfers from I.O.D.’s Brocante set up the front and over the top.

I finished it off with ‘The Naturalist’s Library’ wording from their Label Ephemera transfer.

If it all feels rather familiar, that’s because I’ve done some very similar boxes before.

Like this one from January 2023.

And this one from May 2022.

In fact, this is the 5th time I’ve used this wording on a toolbox, whether wooden or metal. I guess it’s fair to say that I really like it.

This box is set up in what I’m calling the ‘science-y’ section at our upcoming occasional sale. If you’re into the dark academia look, this might be the spot for you. You’ll recognize some of the items in that section, like my faux apothecary bottles (price: $5 each).

and the foundry scoop (price: $12).

You may also recognize my painted books (price: $12 for this set of 3).

The really cool beaker came from cleaning out a cupboard at nnK’s house (price: $10).

My sale partner, Sue, brought over a handful of those folding rulers, and they are only $3 each!

If you need some old paintbrushes, you can get a jar with 3 of them for $12.

Sue also brought over this cool old Rx record file box (price: $10).

It pairs nicely with my 1927 Hayes Druggist Directory book ($5).

Once again, I apologize for any confusion caused by our rescheduling of the sale.

But I promise it will be worth the wait!

a change of plans.

Published on June 17, 2024June 17, 2024 by Quandie13 Comments

For me, one of the more stressful parts of having an occasional sale in the carriage house is worrying about the weather.

Will it be too hot? Will it be humid and sticky? Will it rain? Or even worse, will we have severe weather? We did have a sale once when the severe weather sirens were going off, I really don’t want to repeat that experience.

For that reason, we’ve decided to postpone the Carriage House Sale to next week.

Apparently I should have had a sale last year when we were in a drought and barely had any rainy days all summer, because this year is turning out to be quite the opposite.

It has been awesome for the garden.

But not so awesome for having a sale.

The forecast for this week? Yesterday, severe thunderstorms and rain. Today, evening storms. Wednesday, storms possible. Thursday, rain all day. Friday, more storms. Saturday, even more storms.

It’s almost comical. There is wet, stormy weather predicted for this entire week. I really feel like mother nature is trying to tell me something.

In the past our merchandise has typically sprawled out from the carriage house.

As you may know, I have plenty of room for sprawling.

But sprawling isn’t really possible in severe weather, or even in simple rain.

So, I apologize for throwing a curve ball at those of you who were planning to be at the sale this week. Hopefully you can make it next week instead, and fingers crossed that the weather will be better by then!

some of the stuff.

Published on June 14, 2024June 13, 2024 by Quandie22 Comments

Over this past week I’ve been working super hard to get the carriage house ready for my upcoming sale. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I don’t think I’ve done much cleaning out there since my last sale … 8 years ago!

You should have seen the cobwebs. Yikes!

Luckily I had some help from Sue, my Carriage House Sale partner.

Now that the cleaning is done, it’s time to start making sure all of my items have price tags and so forth.

As I’m going along, I thought I’d share some of my available merch with you guys starting with the big stuff like this cedar lined trunk.

You may remember that I painted it last summer. I’d been really remiss about posting it online to sell, and once I’d decided to go back to having my own sale I thought I may as well just hang onto it until then.

I also have this washstand available.

These make excellent nightstands. We have one like it on Mr. Q’s side of the bed.

I will also have this vintage farmhouse table available.

As well as that pair of white chairs.

I’ve also priced up the topless dresser that I picked up last summer.

I never did get around to figuring out a top for it, and I think it’s time to admit that I probably never will. So I’m pricing it low and hoping someone else will take it on as a project. It would be perfect for turning into a bathroom vanity, don’t you think?

I’ve also got a price tag on the rooster cupboard, although I have to admit I am hesitating to sell it.

For one thing, I still kind of love it, I just don’t have anywhere to put it right now. For another, it is losing paint right and left. The milk paint is chipping to beat the band. I originally sealed the piece with Miss Mustard Seed antiquing wax, but it would probably benefit from another coat of wax.

So, anyway. It’s out in the carriage house with a price tag on it, so if it goes, it goes. And if it doesn’t, then I’m meant to keep it, right?

I also have lots of signage available for sale including the Garden Herbs sign I painted up a while back.

And several of the signs I painted up for Christmas last year, like this one …

and this one …

The Garden Herbs tote will be available …

as will several other wooden or metal totes.

I have a few painted buckets.

And of course, several tackle/tool boxes.

And don’t forget that flora parisiensis suitcase …

and the sweet flour sifter painted in Dixie Belle’s Cottage Door.

I’ll have this trio of French pitchers …

and a couple of French flower buckets too.

And don’t forget that gorgeous black watering can.

OK, you get the idea. Lots of the projects that I’ve been sharing over the last 6 months or so will be making their way into my sale. I hope some of you local (Twin Cities, MN) readers are planning to stop by!