gearing up.

I returned home from Canada just in time to gear up for my upcoming sale.

Way back when I chose this date I was worried that it might be too cold to have a sale in October.  I certainly never expected that we would still be having summer weather, we are expecting highs in the upper 70’s to low 80’s yet this week.  In Minnesota!  In October!  Go figure.

I’m definitely not complaining, but is the weather going to make people less inclined to buy Christmas decor?  Because I’m going to have a bit of it at the sale, including one of my ornemanistes toolboxes.

I’ll have a number of stenciled sleds available as well …

Unfortunately, I’ll only have a smattering of vintage ornaments.

I wish I had more of those on offer.

I also hope that someone decides to take this bucket home.

It’s not overtly Christmas, at least to English speakers.  But if you were Dutch it would be (it translates to peace on earth and goodwill to men).  I think this bucket would be fantastic with a small Christmas tree filled with vintage ornaments in it.

But maybe you’re not quite ready for Christmas yet (and who can blame you).

That’s OK, because we’ll also have some fall merch like my rusty pumpkins.

And don’t forget about my black hat society sign.

The French flower buckets that I shared last week will be in the sale …

As will the ombre stacked boxes.

I’ve got quite a stash of rusty pots.

I know this isn’t exactly gardening season, but these would be perfect for holding a mum for fall, followed by a winter arrangement of evergreens.

I’ll have a few of my toolboxes at the sale including this one …

And this one …

And I’ll also have some of my floral books.

The sale is taking place this coming Saturday, October 4 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

We accept cash and Venmo only (sorry, no checks or credit cards).

The address is 6041 47th St North in Oakdale, MN.

Hope to you see you there!

carriage house sale recap.

Just a quick recap of the Carriage House sale for anyone interested.

The weather forecast for last Thursday was sunny and 75°, at least right up until Tuesday.  Then they added in a slight chance of rain.  Then on Wednesday they said we’d have morning showers on Thursday.  By when I woke up on Thursday they were predicting rain from 5 pm to 8 pm and I started to wonder what I did in a previous life that I was being punished for now.

OK, maybe that’s a bit dramatic.

But it was almost comical that rain was predicted for precisely the time frame of our sale (we were open from 5 pm to 8 pm on our first day).

It was a beautiful afternoon as we were setting everything up.

But we kept most of our merch inside rather than expanding out into the driveway like we usually do.

Sure enough, right around 4:30 we could see the dark clouds massing to the north of us.  The wind picked up and I started to wonder if we were going to have to hold our tents down.

But in the end, I must have actually done something right in a previous life because we only got a few drops of rain here and there.  The bulk of the storm traveled just barely west of us.  In fact, my friend Annie who drove over from that direction said she passed through a massive downpour on her way over.  Thank goodness that missed us!

All of that being said, we had a smaller crowd on Thursday evening than we had last year.  It’s hard to know why.  Did I not do enough advertising in advance?  Did the forecasted rain keep people away?  Were people out of town all week for the Memorial Day holiday?  Is vintage decor no longer as popular as it once was?

The weather on Friday morning, however, was nearly perfect, and we had a fairly steady flow of customers.  Most of them were people who’d seen my signs at the corner and stopped in on a whim.

The award for furthest traveled goes to Julie who came all the way from Duluth.  Thanks for that Julie!  I hope it was worth the drive 🙂

If you’re wondering what sold and what didn’t, I can tell you that my rusty stuff was some of the first stuff out the door.

I knew there had to be fellow rust lovers out there!

I plan to spend a good part of the summer coming up with more rusty creations for our next sale.

I had some sets of vintage kids books that sold really well.

I had them bundled by color and they all sold except for the yellow ones.  I get it, I’m not a huge fan of yellow myself.

I was surprised to find that my decorated boxes sold well.

I didn’t have high hopes for those since they haven’t done particularly well in the past (although they do well really well at the shop).

That being said, the stuff that didn’t sell included anything galvanized.  Watering cans, olive baskets, totes, scoops …

One notable exception was minnow buckets.  I had three of them, and two sold.

Honestly, I never seem to have a good feel for what will sell well and what won’t.  It changes from year to year.  Stuff that didn’t sell last year was some of the first stuff to go this year, and vice versa.

As I was cleaning up after the sale I made four piles; stuff to save for the next sale, stuff to donate, stuff that can go to the shop and stuff that’s slated for a do-over.

Speaking of the next sale, I’m considering adding a fall sale this year.  That will depend somewhat on my schedule since Mr. Q and I have a trip to Canada planned for September.  But maybe?  We’ll see.

Until then, a huge thank you to everyone who turned up.  It was great to see so many familiar faces!  I hope you’ll come back again next time!

the carriage house sale.

Just a quick public service announcement to say that the Carriage House Sale is open this morning from 9 a.m. until noon.

We have plenty of stuff left, so if you weren’t able to make it last night all is not lost.

Plus we’ve slashed some prices.  So even if you did come last night, you may want to come back again!

Please note, that Hiawatha thermos is sold, but we still have the silver one, and those beautiful vintage tablecloths.

So if you’re local, do consider stopping by.  It’s going to be a lovely morning to be out hitting the sales!

Hope to see you there!

vintage garden style.

I recently picked up a copy of Better Homes & Garden’s Vintage Garden Style magazine at the supermarket.

This is one of those special publication re-print sort of magazines, ‘back by popular demand’.  Which tells me that people still love vintage garden stuff as much as I do.

As I’ve been getting ready for the Carriage House Sale (which starts tonight!), I realized that ‘Vintage Garden Market’ is definitely the theme of our sale.

We have quite a few items from the various categories featured in the magazine starting with watering cans.

This first one is a no-brainer.  Of course we have vintage watering cans …

and some that are maybe not so vintage.

Next up, vintage enamelware.

Yep,  we’ve got this too.

The article in the magazine on collecting (or non-collecting in my case) vintage garden books really struck a chord with me.

There were so many lovely books featured.  Now I’m tempted to be on the lookout for vintage garden books myself.

And Sue brought a few for the sale.

We’ve got a few newer garden books too!

There was also a feature in the magazine on filling unique vintage items with succulents.

We have quite a few wooden totes like the one shown above that you could fill, plus any number of other vintage pieces that would be perfect as succulent planters.

For example, I’ve decided to sell on my antique newspaper roller that I used to plant with succulents myself.

I loved the look of the succulents in rusty iron urns shown in the magazine …

And I just happen to have a very similar faux rusty urn for sale …

along with a bunch of other rusty pieces of salvage for the garden like these old iron headboards.

I also am selling this rusty lady …

Remember when I purchased her in bright white?

Doesn’t she look so much better rusty?

FYI, I use the Dixie Belle Iron Patina Paint with the Green Spray to achieve that rusty look.

There’s another fun article in the magazine about giving an old structure a new life as a potting shed.

While I don’t actually have an old shed for sale, I do have one in my back garden and if you come to the sale you are welcome to pop your head in and check it out.

I recently recovered the seat of my wicker chair with some gorgeous vintage bark cloth that I purchased at my friend Lisa’s sale (one of these days I really have to share her sale with you).

Not that I didn’t love the bark cloth that was previously on the chair, but I needed to scavenge that for a chair that I am including in my sale.

The florals on it were perfect with the Miss Mustard Seed Apron Strings milk paint color on the chair.

By the way, there are three different shades of pink in that photo from three different brands.  The chair is in the Apron Strings (read about that original makeover here), the French flower bucket is in Dixie Belle’s Apricot (read about that project here), and the oval lidded tin on top of the box is painted in Fusion’s Little Piggy (read about that paint job here).

We’ve got a slightly bigger selection of pink/floral items this year.  I feel like the floral trend is coming back around, what do you think?

Although this next article doesn’t specifically pertain to items at our sale, I still thought it was worth a mention.

It features 7 tips about shopping at a vintage market and the photos are all from the Oronoco Gold Rush held at the end of August about an hour south of the Twin Cities.  I’m sure that most of my local readers have been, right?

I suppose some of the tips might apply to my sale, especially tip no. 6.  Love it?  Buy It Now!  Because if you don’t grab it quick, someone else will.

As I mentioned, the sale starts tonight from 5 pm to 8 pm.  We’ll also be open tomorrow morning from 9 am until the noon whistle sounds in North St. Paul.

We are accepting Venmo and Cash only.

Hope to see you local readers there!

the carriage house sale.

Those of you who have followed me for a long time already know about my occasional sale, but for those who are new around here I thought I’d share a little bit about it today.

My friend Sue and I started holding occasional sales out of my carriage house sometime before 2002 (I didn’t start keeping a record of it until then).  We started out as just a slightly above average garage sale, but over the years we began to curate a nice selection of vintage and upcycled home decor items.

Originally we held just one sale a year, but then we started having one in the spring and one in the fall because we had a lot of inventory.  It was so much easier to find good vintage items at garage sales back then!

I once found an entire box of old cameras at a garage sale.

I can’t even imagine coming across that today.

How about this haul from 2015 …

Not just one, but two vintage typewriters … and two sleds.  Plus a couple of tackle boxes too!

I think most of you will agree that it’s getting harder and harder to find good vintage items at garage sales these days.

Anyway, eventually we slowed back down to just one sale per year, and then it all got to be too much for me and we quit having sales altogether after 2016.

At that point I had added blogging to my to-do list.  That plus a full-time job, plus some pretty steady furniture painting kept me pretty busy.

Flash forward to November 2021 when I retired from the day job.  I definitely had the time to host a sale then, but did I have the inclination?  It took me until last year, 2024, to decide it was time to try it again.

My friend Sue signed on again, and my friend opK joined us as well.

And now, they are both back this year as we once again host a Carriage House Sale this Thursday and Friday.

I’ve been so busy getting ready for the sale that I haven’t actually had time to take any photos of the merch.  But once again we will have lots of vintage and upcycled home decor including quite a few of the items that I’ve shared here on the blog, like the flower market tote.

And the vintage camp chairs.

I’ve also got this pretty floral box for sale …

And these pretty french flower buckets.

I’ve got some faux apothecary style amber bottles,

as well as this garden herbs tote.

And so much more!

This year it looks like the weather is going to cooperate, the forecast is 76° and sunny!

So if you’re local, I’ll hope you’ll swing by either Thursday evening or Friday morning … or both!

planning ahead.

I’m starting to plan ahead to my 2025 Carriage House Sale.  We’ve tentatively chosen Thursday, May 29 and Friday, May 30 as the dates for the sale.

While on the one hand it’s 7 weeks away, and that should be plenty of time to prepare, on the other hand I have a couple of trips coming up between now and then so it will be here before I know it.

In fact, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but I’m actually away right now visiting my mom again (she lives in a suburb of Las Vegas).  This time my sister has joined me, and we have planned some fun stuff like a night staying at the Bellagio.

We haven’t been down to the strip in years, so it will be fun to explore it for one evening.

But once I get home again I’m going to have to get my act together and start getting ready for the sale.  Step one will be to muck out the carriage house.  If I can find the time, I may do some painting out there too.

I will be joined by my old garage sale mentor and Carriage House cohort, Sue, as well as my friend opK for the sale.  I’ve been a little worried that I won’t have enough inventory to justify as sale, but I think between the three of us we’ll have plenty of awesome items.

So, pencil it in if you’re local.  But do just use pencil.  I’m going to try not to change the date this year, but if a tornado is forecast than all bets are off.  Stay tuned for further updates!

wait a minute, what?

0My friend opK and I headed to a town north of the cities to do a little garage saling recently.  Unfortunately, the sales we found were mostly a bust.  My meagre haul includes a tacklebox and a folding ruler from a sale where everything was a dollar.

I also picked up a pretty cool sled that I’ll paint up for Christmas at an estate sale we stumbled upon.

As we were heading home we also happened across the once monthly Picket Fence Gals vintage occasional sale.  I hadn’t realized it was their weekend to be open, so it was a fun little bonus.

This sale features lots of different vendors, each with their own little distinct area or ‘booth’.  As I walked into one particular booth I was thinking to myself ‘this seller has great style’ …

I love that there are pops of green scattered throughout giving the entire booth a cohesive look.

Then, wait a minute, what?

To my surprise, as I was glancing over the space, I saw this …

Are you seeing what I see?

It’s my slide projector case!

And once I realized that, I looked just behind it and recognized my rusty finials.

I don’t believe that I ever shared the ‘after’ of these, but they were from the same garage sale haul as the hardware bin earlier this summer.

I ‘re-finished’ them with some of Dixie Belle’s Patina Paint to give them a rusty look.

As I was chuckling to myself at finding a couple of my things in a shop, I glanced down and saw this …

I painted that way back in May 2023.

But it ended up at my own occasional sale this past June.

As did this clock plate and cloche, which is another project I didn’t share here on the blog.

That clock transfer is from the Brocante set from I.O.D.

Finally, I noticed this green … um … cage thingie?  I’m not sure what you would call it.

I didn’t actually paint that, but I did sell it at the Carriage House Sale.

Some creators get annoyed about shop owners or vendors buying their stuff to resell it, but not me.  I consider it a compliment.  I also purposely price my stuff low knowing that someone could potentially buy it and mark it higher to resell.  There have always been a fair number of shop owners that shop my sale and I’m happy to have them.

I’m not sure who this booth belongs to, but kudos to whoever you are.  You did a beautiful job styling your space.  I was immediately drawn to it and I especially loved all of those touches of green.  If I have another sale next year (so far the jury is out on that one), I hope you’ll come again!

the carriage house sale recap.

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.

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.

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!