Yard Sale Bloodbath

We didn’t hit any sales last weekend, but the Saturday before that we made the rounds … if you can even use that term for the slim pickin’s on a gray day in early spring.

The first one was in our neighborhood. There were no signs, so we doublechecked the address, then walked around the house, eventually finding two priced pieces of furniture in the driveway. Maybe the rest was inside? We knocked and asked the guy, “Is this your whole sale?” “Oh, no! There’s a lawnmower, too.” I do not understand people.

Next we debated whether it was really wise to go back for round three of the hoarder estate sale that was apparently taking months to unravel. Part one was mostly ancient appliances and kitchen gadgets, part two was plush toys, cat items and just a handful of vintage clothes. Eventually coming to peace with the fact that we’re clearly deranged, we got there right at ten. This time there was no wait to get in. (Maybe everyone except us had wised up.) By now, the sale included the patio, kitchen, AND one small room where new treasures had recently been unearthed.

We all sort of fell in love with this wacky storage box, but not enough to actually bring it home.

We also passed on Style Studs.

All of us bought a couple of items, but nothing that exciting … I guess the archaeological excavation is still ongoing, with more rooms yet to be revealed, but I think at this point we might actually have had our fill.

Driving away, Karl recognized a sign for a different estate sale. He’d been there a few weeks earlier and they had mentioned they would be having another sale soon. The signs were clearly not rained on, meaning they had just been put up in the last day or two, and he said it had been really good, so we went to check it out. It was a pretty unique sale — lots of amazing Italian designer furniture, but they pretty much knew what they had and prices were not cheap (though still probably a good deal for what you were getting). There were also some Asian antiques and a ton of classy books that had clearly already been picked through pretty heavily, but still seemed like they might turn up some gem if you looked hard enough. I didn’t find anything I had to have, but Meghan got a couple of pieces of clothing and a great tote bag. Then I heard her discussing something with the sellers — some kind of black plastic office shelf? They told her it was $15 and I could tell she was happy about the price … though she was concerned that she might get served with divorce papers if she brought anything that large into her house. Karl and I went to take a look and we both thought it was fantastic. I felt like I had seen the thing before in design magazines. (Later, we determined that it was a Vitra Uten.Silo.) Right as Meghan was getting ready to pay she said, “Okay, if I don’t get this will one of you buy it?” It was too good to leave behind! I jumped at the chance. It needed some cleaning and has its share of scratches and scuffs, but for fifteen bucks it is pretty freakin’ cool.

Onward across town to an estate sale that sounded decent. The first thing we found was this mug with a brass-knuckle-shaped handle. I sort of regret not purchasing it.

There wasn’t much upstairs, so we descended into the basement. Built-in bars are always cool.

This one was still stocked! Well, kind of.

We laughed about these cocktail mixes.

I had to pass (remembering some previous ancient drink mixes that I had sent on a quick trip through the yard sale catch and release program) but I was sort of glad that Meghan couldn’t resist the box of Instant Pussycat mix. I mean, come on — the glass has a tail!

We made our way into the rest of the basement. It seemed like an odd choice to hang this color-it-in pseudo-black-velvet art on this shiny insulated corner, but what do I know.

The only other decoration in this room was a paint-by-number with two ballerinas. Someone got a little wild with the faces.

I went back up and took one last look around, but didn’t buy anything — not even these wacky paper napkins.

The sale wasn’t that great, but on the bright side there was a rummage sale at a middle school close by.

Late in the day, but at the very least they’d probably have some baked goods, right? Well, not only that, but students were playing live jazz music while people shopped. This was the best rummage sale soundtrack I could possibly imagine. Here’s a bit of half-assed video just for a small taste of how cool it was.

I didn’t buy anything (other than baked goods!), but it was a great way to end the day.

My husband and I spent about 15 days in Australia for our honeymoon. I thought maybe we would go thrifting or something, but 9 days in we hadn’t done much but eat and walk on the beach.

When we arrived at our friends house in Lennox Head, NSW, their entire place was a tiki shrine and they told us about some of their scores around the area. They mentioned that usually they don’t get many sales, but if I wanted to get up early and hit some sales they would drive us around.

One thing I did think was cool was their local weekend paper listed all the garage sales, then they created a check list that you could rip out and work out what you wanted to hit.

They don’t have many. All told we hit four sales, including a Masonic Hall rummage sale.

It was all pretty normal, with the exception of this sale where they had wall to wall carpet inside the garage!

I have seen folks slap down some nasty carpet remnants, but professional carpet in the garage… that’s a new one.

I would love to tell you about the bounty, but how do you get stuff home with the new weight restrictions on the plane? Or packing … In the end, all I purchased was a magazine for 50 cents for the plane ride home — seemed like a good saving with most magazines running around $8.

We had plans on Friday to meet up at an estate sale that started at noon, but then at the last minute I couldn’t make it. Around 12:30 Meghan texted me that she and Karl were still waiting outside in the rain, so I didn’t feel that bad about missing out. Just when I was figuring I’d have a quiet afternoon at home instead, Meghan called. She said the estate sale had been pretty good and now they were going to another one up north, on a tip from a friend Karl had run into. Did I want them to swing by and pick me up? YES!

Ten minutes later we were on our way to the cross-streets Karl had been given. I checked craigslist for the actual address, but couldn’t find anything on that street. There didn’t seem to be any signs, either. We were just starting to consider the evil possibility that Karl’s friend was sending us on an April Fool’s wild goose chase, but then we found it. Karl had been warned it was kind of hoarderish, and was it ever — stuff was everywhere, although fairly neat and well-organized. Later we heard that the former owner didn’t even live there — this was a separate house just for all her stuff! That is really taking hoarding to a new level.

The first room I went into was a bathroom. Note how the bathtub is covered up so that things can be stored on top of it – it didn’t seem like something that had just been done for the sale.

There were lots of critters lying around.

Another room was filled with pottery and china of all sorts, spread out across various shelves and pieces of furniture. Here’s one small section (with an intriguing photo randomly nestled within).

I walked into the kitchen, and that’s when things really started to get interesting. Meghan was digging through a box of crazy decals. Sadly, my camera failed me here – my other picture where you could actually see the rest of that crazy stuffed pink baby animal decal didn’t come out at all.

We both agreed that a few years back, we each might have purchased a bunch of these and then they probably would have ended up at our next yard sale once we realized they served no actual purpose in our lives. But $2 apiece for the large sheets was high enough that we easily restrained ourselves (even though later we both sort of wished we’d picked up one or two of them, just for the heck of it).

The prices overall seemed too high. These ancient campaign stickers were cool, but $3 apiece?

I guess they were trying to get as much as they could before having a half-price blowout at the very end. Still, with that much stuff, it seemed crazy not to start it at “make-it-go-away” prices.

The kitchen was loaded with books. They filled up both sides of this sink (and every available bit of counter space).

Most were cookbooks of various sorts. This microwave atrocity seemed familiar …

Meghan remembered that we’d taken a picture of it way back in the early days of our blog!

Then I found this beer cookbook. Kinda cool (but not five bucks’ worth of cool).

I opened it up to a random recipe — wait, scratch that. I don’t think “pour beer over melon balls” qualifies as an actual recipe.

Along with the cookbooks, there were some … oddities.

Books of various sorts had pretty much taken over the next room too. Then we rounded a corner and found ourselves in Magazine Land.

They were pretty well organized by title (or at least genre) and ranged from the fifties up to about 1993.

The magazines were pretty musty, but otherwise seemed to be in pretty good shape. I started digging in and then Meghan came over, asking if I got the text she had just sent me from upstairs. I checked my phone and found this picture.

Okay. Even if you are a hoarder, how do you have four of these? Were four separate people sorry for something they did to you? Or were you stocking up in advance, figuring you might have a lot to apologize for at some point? I know, I am thinking about this way too much. In any case, I never even made it upstairs to see what else was up there (more figurines and a bunch of boring crap, according to Meghan). I got totally sucked into digging through the magazine boxes. There was so much to look at!

Some of the old ads were pretty hilarious …

And then there was the “adult” section: a huge stack of Playboys and multiple copies of a few issues of the very classy publication “Sex to Sexty.”

Crusty as they were, we were sort of charmed by the crazy cover graphics. Then we opened one up to an absurdly smutty cartoon. All I’ll say is that the caption referred to one “Colonel Lingus.” (I am sure some of you will be sad to learn that none of us came home with that gem. )

Eventually we dragged ourselves away from what could have been an endless dig and paid for our items. I spent $8 for a 1950′s beauty book and three magazines (two ’50s/’70s issues of Seattle Magazine, and the 1971 National Lampoon “Women’s Lib” issue). Meghan and Karl each got a few things, but none of us really went crazy. Spending time in the midst of a hoarder’s stash does tend to have a negative effect on how much stuff you really want to bring into your own house!