A (Three) Estate Sale Friday

Part of the red-flocked wallpaper room.

Yesterday morning, Duane, Linda, and I hit a trifecta with three separate estate sales.  The first and main one was in the south part of town and was being held in a house where the fixtures were also being sold off because the house is to be demolished and a new house built on the lot.  The house was a one story rambling sort of style built in the '50's.  However, it was one of the strangest ones we've ever been through.  It was as if time stood still from some point in the 1970's.  There was red flocked wallpaper on the walls of a room that contained a curved bar that made me think of Hugh Hefner. 

Funky '70's furniture.

When I mentioned that the house was a 'rambling' style, I meant that quite literally.  The floor plan made no sense at all.  If someone has taken the roof off and looked down, we probably looked like rats in a maze.  Duane said it made her think of a labyrinth.  Many of the rooms had no windows and with low ceilings it seemed a little claustrophobic.  Besides the severely dated wallpaper there was a lot of thick sculptured wall-to-wall carpeting.  Statues of various types and made of different materials were everywhere.  Besides the main kitchen there was also another really tiny kitchen and bath adjacent to one of the bedrooms.  Maybe a mother-in-law suite?  This was not a huge house but I couldn't tell anyone how many bedrooms or how many rooms it had because it was so confusing.  Lots of what was popular in the '60's and '70's of furniture I remember being called 'French Provincial.'

Plastic buffet?

Almost every wall in the house was covered with old wallpaper, too.  The highlight was the red flocked paper but there was a lot of textured paper used throughout.  Quite a bit of the furniture appeared to be made of some type of plastic but was also kind of formal -- if that makes sense.   The coup de grace was what we assumed was the master bathroom.  Duane motioned for me to come in.  It was very long and wide with no windows, sculptured carpet (ick!) and a big round raised bathtub with statues around it.  The toilet was kind of sitting on one of the long walls looking kind of lonesome by itself.  I was speechless.  I've honestly never been in a house quite like this one.   It hadn't been very well-cared for so I could see why it was going to be demolished.  Plus, I can't imagine trying to remove all the wallpaper and carpet and reconfiguring the floor plan to make some kind of sense.  Amongst all of the oddities, Linda found several movies and I came across a bag of yarn so we didn't leave empty-handed -- just scratching our heads.

Shall I draw your bath?

It would have been hard to top that house so it was nice that the next two were normal estate sales.  We didn't find anything at the second one but they did have a lot of nice furniture -- just not what any of us were in the market to buy.  The third sale was in the west part of town.  The lady who had lived there was really into crafts and we lucked out with a big box of very nice yarn.  After the three of us pick out what we'll use, I'm sending the rest of the yarn to The Humble Stitch.

We were ready for a treat so we stopped by my sister Carol's shop, Sweet Ava's and stocked up on cookies.  Then we headed for the Starbucks near Duane's house and had our various forms of caffeine while we relaxed and had a long chat.  We still couldn't quite get over that first house...

Our finds.