Linda, Duane, and I have been to estate sales at lots of different venues. The usual is someone's home on a street with other homes or in a subdivision. The one we hit yesterday was on a 1,000 acre ranch in a small town called Wesley Chapel not too far from Tampa. Apparently, this ranch has belonged to a particular family for over 100 years but the current heirs aren't interested in ranching. Judging by the sign we saw that advertised the homes that will be built on the property, we're guessing that a developer paid handsomely for the land. It appears to be or was a cattle ranch although we saw some horses, too.
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Our approach from the main road. |
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Dirt road. Proceed with caution. |
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A tooth-jarring experience to get to the actual house. |
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Am I for sale, too? |
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The house. We made it! |
This was what I think of as a real 'ranch' house. The inside was almost all completely covered in wood. The walls, ceilings and a lot of the floors were wood. If you're a Seinfeld fan, Kramer would have loved this place. (Remember the episode where he covered the walls of his apartment with contact paper that looked like wood because 'chicks' supposedly loved it?) There was a fair amount of brick in the house, too, for fireplaces. They had a lot of furniture for sale and some of it was tempting but none of us were in the market for all wood country style furniture. I'm sure it was well-made, though. The owners also seemed to be collectors of lots of vintage items like signs, bottles, and more unusual things like a barber chair and what looked to me like an old dental patient's chair.
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Lots and lots of wood. |
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Wood and brick. |
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Some of the bottles, etc., in the kitchen window. |
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Surprisingly, we only made two small purchases. Linda found a darling celadon teapot with a wrapped handle and I picked up a midcentury modern tile ashtray. This one appealed to me because the tiny tiles aren't square or round like you usually see, they're shaped like subway tiles.
This was an interesting sale even though none of us made a big haul. It was kind of neat to see what was a working ranch and ranch house that looked like the owner had built it. After we left to head back to Tampa, we stopped for our usual snack, beverage and talk time. Then I remembered that a small gift shop had just opened in my neighborhood. (We left from my house to get to the ranch.) The gift shop turned out to be really cute. Nice items beautifully displayed with prices that were quite reasonable. Duane bought a pair of earrings so each of us made a purchase for the day. The Gift Box Boutique is definitely a place that we'll be visiting again. Great ideas for gifts and things for yourself, too. We loved their cute costume jewelry selection. Check out their site
here.
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The Gift Box Boutique. Lots of cute things! |
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Our purchases for the day. |
I drove as slowly as I could down that road but it was still really bumpy. But it was a very nice outing.
ReplyDeleteI keep forgetting to give a thumbs up to George's photo!
No way NOT to use that road! You did a great job. I can't believe you didn't buy that cow... :)
DeleteI'll let George know about the photo.
Sounds like a wonderful adventure! Thanks for sharing it with us. It makes me want to go to an estate sale soon. :) Thanks too, for stopping by my blog today. It's great to meet you!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, Karen! Yes, they can be a great deal of fun.
DeleteNice meeting you, too. I enjoyed your blog post. :)
Lee Ann