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Treasure Hunting
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Journey to Homemaker
I've been yard saling and going to thrift stores to find some decorative and practical items for my home. This weekend I passed through a small town on the way home from a Walmart trip and saw piles of junk by the curb of many houses. Then I saw trucks going by loaded with some of the good "junk". It was a neighborhood curbside pickup weekend!
Towns often have one day a year that you can set out anything--furniture, appliances, junk, etc.--to be picked up for free. Thrifty-minded people often scavenge most of the good stuff before the truck come. Last night I loaded my car with useful items--two sets of nice looking metal shelving for the garage, some children's riding toys, a couple of cabinets, a lawn seeder, a wooden rocking horse, a four-drawer filing cabinet, a stereo cabinet, a nice tapestry footstool, and much more.
Today I went back and got even more. A nice green wing-back chair (will go well with the footstool), a baby gate, a nice Eddie Bauer infant car seat with matching stroller, a flip-and-fold cushion chair for my son, a white dresser for my daughter, a race car bed for my son, a little tikes picnic table, a little tikes double easel/chalkboard, a razor-type scooter, a little tikes toddler basketball hoop, a nice decorative shelf, and miscellaneous smaller items. It was a great haul!
Most of it I want to keep, but some of it I plan to repaint and repair (only a few things were damaged) and sell at a future yard sale. I happened upon a "vintage home sale" today. Basically a fancy garage sale. The lady had her garage arranged like a little country gift shop. She had white Christmas lights strung up, painted lattice as a back drop, and carefully merchandised furniture pieces. Looking closely at the furniture, I'm sure it was stuff she got at the previous weekend's curbside pickup, which I misssed. Or they were very cheap yard sale finds. She repainted them nice, pastel colors, and arranged nice decorative items in them. She had homemade soaps tied in tulle and ribbon, and most of her stuff was very expensive. If she had priced stuff half of what she was asking, she could have made a good profit and had more traffic. But I got some really good ideas!
One thing she did was to take a waist-high cabinet and place a small bookcase on top, and paint them both a light sage green. I've seen this trick on Decorating Cents on HGTV. Though I think she should have permanently mounted the two together, for safety. It made it look similar to an old china hutch. It looked pretty cute.
I had so much fun this weekend. The only thing better than getting great deals on cool yard sale stuff, is to get a huge haul of good stuff for free! Just recently I had been wanting to wait and do without the furniture we needed til we could afford nice, new furniture. But now I remind myself that by being thrifty and re-doing old furniture inexpensively, I can help keep down my family's expensive, and still make my home look nice. In a way, I'm "earning" money for us. And if I paint and re-sell some furniture, I will really be earning some money for the family.
Of course, I have to remind my husband of this, when he sees our garage so full of stuff, he can't park in it!! But it's just for a few weeks. ;-)
I've been yard saling and going to thrift stores to find some decorative and practical items for my home. This weekend I passed through a small town on the way home from a Walmart trip and saw piles of junk by the curb of many houses. Then I saw trucks going by loaded with some of the good "junk". It was a neighborhood curbside pickup weekend!
Towns often have one day a year that you can set out anything--furniture, appliances, junk, etc.--to be picked up for free. Thrifty-minded people often scavenge most of the good stuff before the truck come. Last night I loaded my car with useful items--two sets of nice looking metal shelving for the garage, some children's riding toys, a couple of cabinets, a lawn seeder, a wooden rocking horse, a four-drawer filing cabinet, a stereo cabinet, a nice tapestry footstool, and much more.
Today I went back and got even more. A nice green wing-back chair (will go well with the footstool), a baby gate, a nice Eddie Bauer infant car seat with matching stroller, a flip-and-fold cushion chair for my son, a white dresser for my daughter, a race car bed for my son, a little tikes picnic table, a little tikes double easel/chalkboard, a razor-type scooter, a little tikes toddler basketball hoop, a nice decorative shelf, and miscellaneous smaller items. It was a great haul!
Most of it I want to keep, but some of it I plan to repaint and repair (only a few things were damaged) and sell at a future yard sale. I happened upon a "vintage home sale" today. Basically a fancy garage sale. The lady had her garage arranged like a little country gift shop. She had white Christmas lights strung up, painted lattice as a back drop, and carefully merchandised furniture pieces. Looking closely at the furniture, I'm sure it was stuff she got at the previous weekend's curbside pickup, which I misssed. Or they were very cheap yard sale finds. She repainted them nice, pastel colors, and arranged nice decorative items in them. She had homemade soaps tied in tulle and ribbon, and most of her stuff was very expensive. If she had priced stuff half of what she was asking, she could have made a good profit and had more traffic. But I got some really good ideas!
One thing she did was to take a waist-high cabinet and place a small bookcase on top, and paint them both a light sage green. I've seen this trick on Decorating Cents on HGTV. Though I think she should have permanently mounted the two together, for safety. It made it look similar to an old china hutch. It looked pretty cute.
I had so much fun this weekend. The only thing better than getting great deals on cool yard sale stuff, is to get a huge haul of good stuff for free! Just recently I had been wanting to wait and do without the furniture we needed til we could afford nice, new furniture. But now I remind myself that by being thrifty and re-doing old furniture inexpensively, I can help keep down my family's expensive, and still make my home look nice. In a way, I'm "earning" money for us. And if I paint and re-sell some furniture, I will really be earning some money for the family.
Of course, I have to remind my husband of this, when he sees our garage so full of stuff, he can't park in it!! But it's just for a few weeks. ;-)
WOW! You made a haul. We don't have a 'curbside pick-up' here. Only if you make a donation to ARC or Salvation Army and they schedule a pick-up.
There was a town dump day where everyone brought their yard and household garbage, but really it is mostly all true garbage. Adam went early that a.m. and found set to the side 4 matching chairs...and we needed chairs. SO that was a blessing.
Mostly here people donate to thrift stores or have yard/garage sales.
I like the "shabby chic" look of pastels...just not sure if it's to *girlie* for the men in our home.
Anyway...I have a *plethora of projects* your challenge sounds fun...and motivational. :)
Not all pastels are girly. I think of sage green as sort of a pastel, and I think that's very man-friendly. Or a very very pale shade of yellow. It doesn't have to be pink or lavender...although lavender is so lovely. ;-)
I'm planning on painting our kitchen a very pale yellow, painting the dark old cabinets white, and painting the two sideboards (dressers) sage green, as well as the kitchen table and chairs I got for free. I figure that's gender-neutral enough. Then I plan to add in some "girlier" accents. My husband doesn't mind, as long as everything isn't pink with flowers!
There's a lot of shabby chic stuff I'm not really into. I usually don't care for furniture that is purposely all scratched up looking. But some elements of it I do like.
Yep, I had a good haul, and just brought back even more...I got two low, long dressers from a lady on freecycle.org, and she also had some shelves, an ugly table thing made out of a counter (I'll use for the garage after I paint it), and old storage trunk, an upholstered chair with curved wooden legs.
My husband is doubtful about it all, but I know it will look good when I'm done with it.
I hope you do the challenge...you may be a shoe-in for winning, if no one else steps up to the plate!