Friday, May 16, 2014

Estate Sales and an update on Duane's home office

Duane, Linda, and I hit the road early this morning to get to three estate sales that were being held in the south part of town.  The first sale was a small house that had belonged to a 93 year old lady.  She had nice things but I was the only one who bought anything.  She had been a knitter and I bought a parcel of a mixture of vintage knitting needles and stitch holders.  I love knitting with plastic and bakelite needles so I'm keeping most of those and I'll be sending the extra needles to The Humble Stitch Project for other volunteers to use. 

Our second stop.
The next house was a pretty Spanish style one with lots of nice things.  We got there later since all three sales started at 8am and we couldn't be three places at one time.  This person had wonderful items.  Nice art and furniture and some Jonathan Adler ceramics!  Linda and I each bought an Adler vase.  They were the last two -- all of the other Adler items had been sold.  I've been collecting his pieces for years including just before he became really popular.  (I have one couture piece that he made himself and signed.  I don't think I could afford it now!)  I bought a green vase and Linda bought a goldish/brown one in the abacus pattern.  The prices were fantastic.  Really sorry we missed out on all of the white and lime green pieces.  The owner of this house also had beautiful box framed specimens of insects and butterflies, too.

House no.2 -- nice art.
By the time we got to the third house, which was actually a townhouse, the pickings were pretty slim.  However we felt pretty lucky with our finds from sale number 2.  Our only complaint was that the same company was handling the sales for houses 2 and 3.  This meant a LONG line to check out with only one person doing the work at the second house.  Not a good idea to stretch yourselves that thin, guys.  Lots of grumbling in the line.  Good thing the stuff was nice!




Our buys.

After we hit the third sale, we headed to the Starbucks near Duane for our usual refreshment and gabfest.  Then when we drove back to Duane's house, she showed us what she had purchased during the week from one of our favorite antique/vintage shops, D & D  Antiques.  Duane has been slowly but surely getting her home office/art studio into shape (see blog post here).  She found two shabby chic style chairs at D & D and they look great in her office.  She had also purchased an upholstered chair a few weeks ago from a local thrift store that she's using for a desk chair.  Now she's just looking for a rug to finish off the office.  She still has a lot of sorting and organizing to do in the art studio section but her office is now ready for the three of us to get together and knit, snack, and gab.  Some of the things we do best.

Duane's office desk chair.

Shabby chic chairs on opposite sides of the room.

2 comments:

  1. A good friend of mine conducts estate sales, and at the last one she held, there were bags and bags and bags of yarn and knitting needles. Ditto quilting fabric. The crafty ladies from miles around flocked there for the great buys. I bet you would have had fun there.

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    1. We've been lucky enough to come across sales like that, Dana! We usually choose some skeins to keep and the rest we ship to The Humble Stitch for volunteers to use to make items for the homeless. I agree that estate sales are a great place to find craft items!

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