This morning while Jason was still away at his work seminars
I found myself awake at 7:00am. Rather
than wasting the morning away lying in bed, I decided to take advantage of the
only day of the week I can do a little garage sale shopping. I found three that looked interesting in West
Omaha, two garage sales and one estate sale.
Garage sales are tricky…mainly because no two are
alike. It’s hard to know what the seller
is like, and the circumstances that have led to the sale of their items. If you find a motivated seller that just
wants to be rid of the excess items, it’s easy to bargain. But if the seller is an elderly hoarder who
won’t let go of their used croquette set for less than $20, then you are
probably going to pay the price that is listed no matter how much wheeling and
dealing you try to do. Usually I can get
a sense of the seller by listening to the other customers check out at the
garage sale.
The first sale I went to was in a wealthier area of town…I
thought I might run into some high-end or antique items on the cheap. There was an old Kate Spade purse for $20,
but it wasn’t my style. I also spotted
an antique dresser for $50, but the size was not big enough for what I am
looking for. I am still holding out for
a long and low mid-century modern dresser for Jason’s side of the master
bedroom.
After striking out at the first sale, I headed to one
promising a lot of antiques and vintage items.
When I pulled up there was a couple browsing that absolutely oozed “hipster” so I knew this place
must be legit. And it delivered! The only downside was no price labels. When I come across this I think to myself in
my mind “I would pay $__ for such an item”.
I then ask what the price is, and if it comes at or under my price it’s
a deal!
There were a lot of cool wood frames, vinyl albums, crystal
and glassware as well as this awesome typewriter.
I thought to myself…. “I would pay $10 for such a
typewriter”.
“How much for the blue typewriter?”
“Uh…$5”
“I’ll take it!”
It needs a little cleaning, but it appears to be functional
still. I know my mom is thinking, why
did you buy a typewriter? Because Mom…it’s
aqua, it has a few red keys (love the aqua and red combo!), it’s not huge, and
it was $5! I don’t plan on doing much
typing; it’s mainly for décor…kind of like our orange rotary phone. Gotta love the fun, colorful, vintage
statement pieces.
I also had my eye on a few empty wood frames, but the
hipsters got to them first. I still feel
like I won with the aqua typewriter…take that hipsters!
The next stop was an estate sale of an elderly couple. It was actually set up by a company that
helps seniors with downsizing. The
company goes through the house with pricing guns and labels all of the items
for sale. They also have a cash register
set up for check out. I had never seen
this set up before, but it was very neat and organized. The only downside, you can’t bargain with
them since they are not the owners of the items.
Old people’s houses are interesting. It’s an adventure sorting through all of the
junk to find the treasures hidden amongst them.
At this stop I came away with two staplers…one heavy duty staple gun for
$4 that will come in handy for upholstery jobs, and one old Swingline stapler
for $2.
I also found this adorable tea cup and saucer for $4. I couldn’t pass up the Kelly green and gold
combo. It is my dream to someday collect
cute vintage tea cups and saucers, so I’ve officially started my collection (if
one item counts as a collection).
For
now this tea cup will be used for storing jewelry on my dresser.
My last stop of the day was at my favorite local store…TheHumble Home. I would say shopping here
is taking the easy way out when it comes to finding fun antique and vintage
items. Normally I am not very successful
at garage sales, and The Humble Home offers a refuge of presorted and cleaned
items to save you the hassle of trekking all across town for rare garage sale
finds. The greatest part is their prices;
you won’t go into sticker shock here.
Today I came home with two items from The Humble Home. A fabulous retro car mirror that stands on
its own for $14.99…
And this amazing mid-century modern chair for only $49
($54.99 – 10% off for posting previous buys on Facebook).
Recently I have loved the mid-century modern look mixed in
with my modern-eclectic style. This
chair is a similar style to one that I had completely fallen for at an antique
store downtown.
The price for four of the above chairs…$1900. That’s hard to swallow. Yes, they were leather, and a full set of
four, and absolutely perfect (probably vintage Eames), but there was no way I
was about to spend $475 per chair.
I am completely satisfied with our much cheaper alternative,
which also happens to be quite comfortable!
This chair will help bring in the slightly vintage lounge vibe that I
would like to have in our basement. Another plus, Jason approves! I usually shy away from buying furniture
without his input, but the price was cheap enough that I was willing to take
the chance.
So there you have it; the bounty of my morning out. Total cost…$84. Am I satisfied…yes!
