Top Decoration

...from the comfort of my own home.

It was nice!

I didn't even realize that the neighbor was having a garage sale until Will left to go to an appointment and called me shortly after he left:

Will: Did you see the neighbors yard?

Me: No....why?

(thinking it must be something horrible like they had been T.P.'d or their cars had been egged - I started walking towards the window right away)

Will: Just go look. You'll want to see what's...

(before he could even finish his sentence)

Me: *GASP* - oh my goodness!

Will: I'll be back shortly.



Their entire driveway was covered in items that they were selling and it looked like good stuff!

I immediately started surveying the scene and that's when I saw this...

I have wanted to get a chair like this for so long, but my husband doesn't like chairs resembling anything having to do with wicker, or rattan or anything of the handwoven nature. Since chairs like this aren't cheap, I had decided it was best not to get one.


That is, until my neighbor was selling hers at her garage sale!

It still has some of the packaging left on it...

And aside from a teeny-tiny bit of wear on the arms, the whole chair looks brand new!

It even came with a cushion.

A perfectly clean cushion!

It's obviously from Ikea (you can tell from the leftover packaging), so I looked it up online.

It's a $50 chair, plus the $14.99 cushion.

That's a $65 investment.


Want to know how much I got it for? Cushion and all?

A whopping $10

Nice!

The kids love the new chair. And it's even cozier than I thought it would be.

And guess who else sits in it...

yep - the handwoven-ratan-hater himself!

Ha!

I knew he would come around.



Did you come across any great garage sale finds?

Either way, I hope your weekend was wonderful!





P.S. Every week Rhoda has a blog party over at Southern Hospitality. To get in on the fun, just post your weekend finds and Thrifty Treasures. Everyone is welcome to participate!

Around noon yesterday, the whole family set out on a trip to Costco. As much as we dislike going to Costco on a weekend, we had to. It was time. So we loaded up the kids, promising churros and berry drinks if they were good, and we were on our way.

Immediately we started seeing "Garage Sale" signs, and even though I wanted to stop and look, I wasn't about to say anything because we were on a mission.
Get to Costco, shop, and get out - before it gets even more crowded!

When we realized that we had passed about 25 "Garage Sale" signs before we had even made it half way to Costco (which isn't all that far from our house), Will said:
"should we stop?"

Heck, yes!


So we did, and here is what I found...

At one house we found treasures galore and had we needed it all, I would have tried to bring it home with me, for sure!

But these two things were the first to catch my eye and I wasn't willing to give these up in order to buy something else.


Vintage Wood Folding Measuring Sticks...

They had about 5 of them that they were selling. None of them in perfect condition - all of them were broken off at some point, but this one was the longest at 65 inches...

I have an idea for how I want to use it. I just need to figure out how to make it work!

My other find was this trunk...

It is an old Military Communications Trunk. It had labels all over it at one point, and still has writing on it and stamps telling what it's purpose was...

The hardware still works great...

...and I love how aged it is!

Here's the coolest part!

On the back there is an envelope holding an invoice...

...the date on it: October 24th, 1945

There are spots that are extremely beat up, but it just adds to the character!

At 30" long, by 12" tall, by 11" deep, it isn't huge, but is just the right size for storing all of my candles that I'm not currently using.

It fits perfectly in its new spot (and looks great with the rest of the room), but before I show you where that is, a small makeover needs to happen first. It is a project that I have wanted to do for a while and have talked about before. Now I have the perfect motivation to get it done!

Oh - and I almost forgot...I got these two things for a grand total of $10!

I was pleased with that!


So what was supposed to be a quick, get-it-done shopping trip to Costco, ended up being an unexpectedly productive garage sale day!

Gotta' love it when that happens!



Did you stumble upon any treasures this weekend?

I hope so!

......................................................

If you're curious to see what other Thrifty Treasures people were able to get their hands on this weekend, head over to Southern Hospitality and click on the links!

But how can you say "no" when you find these at a garage sale?

My friend, Kelly, who lives down the street from me, had her garage sale with a couple of friends on Saturday. We were supposed to do our garage sale on the same day , me referring people over to her and she referring people over to me, but then....well, you know.
I decided to drop by her house that morning to see how it was going (they were flooded with customers!) and to see if they needed anything because I was heading to the store. And as I'm walking up to her driveway I see this perfect pair of old, beat up, gorgeous oars!

Price: $15

Was that too much?

I'm not sure, but I was sure that I wasn't going to let anyone buy them out from under me!

They still have the metal hardware on them, which I love!

And they stand at a whopping 7 feet tall!

They're perfect!

Now I just need to decide where to hang them. I would love to build small brackets and hang them together horizontally in the living room, but I'm not totally convinced yet. I have considered breaking them up and putting each in a different room, but I think they'll make a bigger (and better!) statement if I keep them together.

And then there's always the option of displaying them outside...

As you can see, my mind is far from made up.

The "perfect spot" will come to me - just have to give it some time!

(I'm sure my husband will laugh at that last comment - when it comes to decor "Impatient" is my middle name!)

It will come to me...



How about you?

Any good Garage Sale finds this past weekend?

On Sunday we had our Annual Garage Sale.

It was good. Not great, but good.

We sold about 3/4 of our stuff, which we were happy about,

but we know we could have done even better had we done a few things differently.

Here is what we learned that works and doesn't work:


1. Saturday is THE day!
We had been planning on having our sale on Saturday, but Will got called out to fly and I wasn't about to do the Garage Sale all alone. So we postponed it by one day and had it on Sunday.
Bad choice.
People aren't as willing to stop and look at what you're selling, because they assume that Sunday is day 2 of your sale and that all of the good stuff has already been picked over. I would venture to say that having it on a Friday would have even been better than having it on a Sunday!


2. Listing your sale on Craigslist really works!
Our very first customer showed up at 9am on the dot and bought more stuff than we ever thought possible for one person to buy! We found out, towards the end of her shopping spree, that she had noticed our ad on Craigslist, which meant that she knew what we were selling and came on a mission to find it!

Thank goodness for her!


3. Price is everything!

After a few hours had passed, we realized that we had probably already seen the bulk of our traffic. In an effort to enforce the "Everything Must Go!" policy we made the decision to announce that everything was priced at 25 cents!
Yep, a quarter...for anything!
Some of the reactions we received were pretty comical! Some of them included language that I can't say on a family friendly blog, like this - and lots were simply stated as "No way. Seriously?"
One little girl said:
"You should have called it a quarter sale!"
She was right! And had we known how bleak Sunday was going to be, we would have!
You can bet I'm saving that idea for next year!
No doubt we would have sold it all with that kind of gimmick!


One thing that we don't do for Garage Sales is price everything. In the past we have spent a lot of time marking everything before the sale, only to reduce the prices once the sale is in progress. We've found that people aren't discouraged by the lack of price tags and certainly aren't afraid to ask!

In the end, we loaded up the back of our car and took all of the clothes to a Big Brothers/Big Sisters donation site and everything else to the Goodwill. We were happy to see it go!

For some tips on having a successful Garage Sale, check out these links:

Ten Tips For Garage Sale Prep

How To Have A Successful Yard Sale

Yard Sale Checklist

And if you are planning a Garage Sale for 2009, we wish you the best of luck!
Here's hoping that you will have a better go at it then we did!