Thursday, October 25, 2012

A (Monday!) Estate Sale

Well, this was a first for us.  My friends and I have never been to an estate sale held on a Monday.  When I saw the ad for this sale I knew right away that it was near where Duane lives.  The time for the sale (which was actually held Monday-Wednesday) was 3pm-6pm each day.  This was too good to pass up.  It wasn't convenient for Linda to take time from work so Duane and I headed over to the address and got there a little early.  Very few people showed up due to the odd time -- which is not a bad thing.  The house was an old one.  Built in 1919 and surrounded by a white picket fence on a corner. 

The woman having the sale was a little emotional because this was the house she grew up in.  Now, with both parents gone, she had to sell off what she and her sister chose not to keep and then sell the house itself.  The only problem we had was that almost everything we pointed to or asked about wasn't for sale.  This was on our Monday visit and this poor woman was tired from packing plus she had flown in from out of town to take care of this.  I did pick up a cool old camera for George.  He's always telling me to look for cameras and photo equipment so I took a chance on this old Kodak.  Well, I did something right because his father had the identical model and George had wanted it but was never able to find it after his dad died.  So he was a happy camper.

There was a small painting that I asked about but the seller became teary again and said that her mother's best friend had given it to her mother.  By the way, there were oil paintings on the walls downstairs and upstairs in the house painted by this lady's father.  Many of them were quite nice-looking (he had won awards for some of his art) but, understandably, the seller and her sister were keeping all of those.

Duane and I told her that we'd come back on Wednesday.  The seller admitted that she might be singing a different tune by then once she was less emotional and just wanted to get stuff out of the house.  She was right.  When we returned on Wednesday afternoon, she was definitely ready to let more of the items go.  I asked again about the little painting and made her an offer.  She accepted it and now I have something else I plan to put on the wall of our guest room when I begin my 're-do' (beginning with repainting the entire room first).  Duane also came across a very pretty Christmas angel that looked like glass but turned out to be a type of resin.  She bought it for her sister who collects angels.  At that point, we thanked the seller and wished her luck on the sale of her parent's house.  She was in much better spirits and seemed happy that she had a little more cash and that these items will have a good home.

OK, officially, now the only day of the week that we have NOT attended an estate sale is Tuesday.  Who knows what next week will bring... 

5 comments:

  1. What an interesting estate sale it must have been. You both got cool stuff. That camera is really something, no wonder George likes it. Hope I can go next time.

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  2. Cool picture by George!

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  3. We really missed you!

    That's one of what I call George's 'urban blight' photos. :)

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  4. I am jealous of that camera! Those old cameras are so neat!

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  5. George was pretty excited when I brought it home! He's going to clean it up and try it out. :)

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