A Friday Estate Sale and a Womans Club Flea Market

Wedgwood jasper ware.

Linda's mom, Jessie, is visiting from Michigan.  We're always  pleased to see Jessie and she accompanied Linda, Duane, and me on our estate sale excursion yesterday.   We began at an estate sale in the neighboring little town of Lutz.  It was in a retirement community of condos.  Lots of beautiful Wedgwood and some antique furniture along with nice women's clothing and accessories. I own several pieces of Wedgwood blue jasper ware, that I acquired over the years, along with a complete set of the white/cream flowers on blue version of the Queensware china.

More items.

The prices were very fair and I would have been tempted if I didn't already have quite a bit of it.  Jessie purchased a really pretty dish with the queen's initials "ER" made by Wedgwood.  Linda and I had both looked at the same dish so I'm glad that it went home with one of us!  Linda and Jessie were also both lucky in the ladies wear dept.  Jessie bought a shirt and Linda bought a new pair of red leather flats/loafers that were still in the original box and looked like they had never been worn.

Old Lutz School.

After this sale, we headed to the Lutz Womans Club Annual Flea Market held at the historic old Lutz school.  The school house is listed on the register of historic sites and was built in 1927.  It's always fun to attend the Womans Club's flea market -- held inside and on the grounds of the old school.  The flea market began at 8am and we didn't get there until around 11am so we missed a lot but there were still plenty of treasures to be found.  The ladies had the rooms inside the school divided into ladies fashion, housewares and (my favorite room) trinkets & treasures.

 

The trinkets and treasures room.

None of us left this sale empty-handed.  I found a beautiful matte white ceramic bird.  No markings of any kind but I just fell in love with it.  It reminds me of some of the expensive birds available from Design Within Reach (one of my favorite sites!).  I also found several books.  Jessie purchased a beautiful enamel box and a couple of pairs of earrings.  Duane lucked out in her quest for more Delft ware and found an adorable spoon rack.  She may use it to hang some of her necklaces.  She hasn't decided yet.  She also bought some books.  Linda found books and some VHS movies.

After the flea market, we were all ready for a treat so we headed to Panera's and had drinks and goodies and a really nice gabfest.  We'll miss Jessie when she heads back to Michigan on Monday but we're glad she's not going back empty-handed! 

Our finds.

        

An excellent Friday estate sale

Colorful dishware.

Friday morning, bright and early, Duane, Linda and I hit an estate sale in a community in town called Cheval.  This is a planned development similar to the one I live in but it's pretty close to where Linda lives.   There don't seem to be as many estate sales near where Linda lives or in my area so we decided we had to check this one out.  Apparently, the woman who lived there was an event planner so, along with furniture and decor of her own, there were lots of items she had used for her work.

Judaica items.

The company giving the sale was a good one -- we've been to their sales before and they always price items to sell.  It was a sprawling house so a couple of times I wasn't sure I had been in a particular room yet until I checked it out to be sure.  I really liked a great deal of the art work.  Most were either originals or signed prints.  I couldn't pass up a vintage signed print that looks like it might be a color block (?) of the statue of David.  I'm planning to reframe it in a smaller more modern frame -- haven't decided about matting.  I love it.  It has a kitschy sort of look but it's not over the top.

Jewelry, anyone?

I also found three light up heart pens for the three little girls in my life (my nieces) that I know they'll love.  Mint in the packages.  In addition, there were items as diverse as men and women wallets mint in the box.  I purchased a man's Claiborne for Men leather wallet that I'll probably use as a gift for someone's birthday or Christmas.

Duane found a colorful spoonrest that she scooped up for her kitchen along with a pair of mugs that are Delft.  Anyone who follows this blog knows that Duane collects Delft but these were so whimsical and colorful that she was surprised when she turned them over and saw the maker name.

Nice items for men.

The art was going fast and Linda and I had both eyed an original French watercolor.  Someone else did purchase it while we were there.  We always figure that those losses simply weren't meant to be.  Linda, though sorely tempted, was the only one who left this sale empty-handed.  

Afterwards, we headed for our usual refreshments and gabbing at the nearest coffee shop.  It was a good day to be inside since the low actually dipped into the low 30s the night before.  However, I still like my coffee iced no matter what the weather is like.  I guess that's just the way I roll!

Our purchases.

     

A Friday Estate Sale and A Recording Update

Friday morning Duane, Linda and I set out for the first estate sale we've hit since before the holidays.  This one was held in an older home in a part of town called Old Carrollwood.  It's a nice area that's centrally located in Tampa. 

The house was a pretty one and there was plenty of furniture and small items. 

Nice table.

We decided to all meet at the sale.  Even though we got there before it began at 9am, there were already cars lining both sides of the street.  Didn't have to wait long before we were allowed in, though.

Plenty of dinnerware and cookware.

There was some nice art but nothing that was really my taste.  I did end up buying a little barbell for my mother.  She goes to a cardiac rehab class three times a week.  In between, she's supposed to do lifts to strengthen her wrists and arms.  The cute little 2 pound green weight I found was perfect for her to use.

Plenty of silver and silver plate items

Linda was the only one who didn't buy anything.  Duane did really well.  The lady who had lived there had nice clothing that was barely worn.  Duane bought three of her blouses/jackets along with a couple of mugs that are the Delft-ware that she collects.  She also bought a tea towel and a box of unopened Christmas cards.  This person had a LOT of Christmas decorations.  One whole room of the sale was filled with boxes and boxes of them.

Of course, there are always things that kind of freak me out at some sales.  Behold the picture below.  All that's missing is that none of them are...  clowns!!!  Dolls and clowns are definitely not my thing.  Shudder. 

All those staring eyes...

After we checked out at the sale, we headed for coffee, treats and a chance to celebrate Duane's illustrations in the new edition of the children's classic The Tale of Chirpy Cricket by Arthur Scott Bailey.  Go, Duane! 

My handweight and Duane's items.

Duane's fashion finds.

On the audiobook front, my narration of The Tale of Chirpy Cricket is currently in post-production for Audible.  When it goes on sale, it will be in the Whispersync program linked to the Kindle book with Duane's illustrations.  I'll post here when that becomes available.  In the mean time, I've just begun production on a historical romance.  It's by Holly Bush and it's called Romancing Olive: Prairie Romance.  I'm really enjoying the story and hope future buyers will, too.

A Cool Friday Estate Sale

We considered today's estate sale that we shopped to be cool for two reasons.  One -- great stuff and two -- cool weather.  The person or people who owned the house had been travelers.  They acquired a beautiful collection of carvings, enamel and art work from around the world but specifically Japan.

The sale began at 8am but we didn't get there until closer to 8:30am.  We missed some really good stuff but none of us left empty-handed.  Some of the items we were interested in were still there, but, alas, had sold signs on them.  The early bird...

This sale was in a small town right next to Tampa called Temple Terrace.  It's actually hard to think of it as being a little town because you cross a road with lots of stores, etc., around and you're no longer in Tampa -- you're in the Temple Terrace city limits.  They have their own mayor, etc.  When my family moved back to Florida after my dad retired from the Air Force, we lived in Temple Terrace for years.  A nice place to call home.  

 
I ended up buying a vintage camera for George.  I have no idea if he'll like it or not or will think it's worth bothering with but it's a German brand and looked really cool.  I also bought an antique children's book, The History of Tom Thumb and Other Stories published in 1905, along with the coolest set of tiny pictorial paper bookmarks from Japan. 

Linda found a beautiful pitcher for her vintage Japanese Noritake collection and Duane bought a dark blue cordial glass.  After we left this fabulous sale, we passed a sign for a yard sale in the same neighborhood.  Everything was priced at .50.  Duane bought a couple of vintage postcards and 2 DVDs. 

After that it was time to head for coffee and treats and our usual catching up on everyone's week. 

Next Friday we plan to head to Dunedin again to do some last minute Christmas shopping and have lunch with our friend, Danny, who now lives there.  Looking forward to that!

Our purchases.

Friday Estate Sale of a 20th Century Fox Executive Director

Well, that's how the estate sale Duane and I visited yesterday was advertised.  We don't know what this person directed or when he died but he left a lot of nice stuff.  Linda was out of town visiting her mom (Hi, Jessie!) so it was just Duane and I making the trip to the south side of town.  There had been over 450 pictures listed with this estate sale so we had a very good idea of what to expect.  Unfortunately, we arrived a 1/2 hour after it had started which was completely my fault.  I headed to Duane's house at the usual time I leave for these sales but the traffic was especially bad for some reason.  I'm going to have to allow more time for my commute for some of these Friday sales.

Even with being a half hour late, this was definitely worth the trip.  Lots of art, small ceramics and silver.  If you were looking for quality furniture, the house was loaded with Ethan Allen pieces.

I noticed that the owner seemed to like more of a midcentury look when it came to dinnerware.  Also lots of nice Asian ceramics.  We've been to other sales held by this estate sale company and they're really nice people.  They price items reasonably and are also willing to haggle.

I would have loved a chance at that small red and white ceramic piece sitting on the cabinet in the pic above but it was gone.  Too bad for me -- you snooze, you lose.

Nice rugs of various styles but all of good quality were available.  Also a number of newer Tiffany lamps.

Much of the art consisted of museum shop pieces that were the 'brushstroke' type and nicely framed.  Not my thing but great for someone wanting a copy of a masterpiece.

Of  course, we didn't leave empty-handed.  There were a LOT of DVDs.  Perks of the jobs, maybe?  I bought three along with a little Dansk vase that caught my eye.  It's signed by the designer Kathleen Wills.  Duane bought a very nice silk knitted sweater and a paper cutter.

Our purchases.

We headed for coffee and a treat afterwards and discussed what we missed by being late.  Heh, heh, heh.

Made it to a Friday Estate Sale!

Duane, Linda, and I hadn't been to an estate sale in several weeks.  We had been doing other things together but nothing had popped up on the estate front until this one today in South Tampa.  It was in an older home which was in beautiful condition.  It's always nice to see the original homes as opposed to the McMansions that people put up after razing houses with so much charm.

This sale didn't begin until 10am.  Sigh.  I love when I get to sleep a little longer!  We arrived promptly at 10 and there were already tons of cars lining the streets for this one.  People had already been allowed into the house and it was a frenzy.

Lots of lovely furniture and art.  We all agreed that it just figured that we would run into such good buys on nice furniture when none of us were currently in the market for it.  However, that doesn't mean we left empty-handed.

I found a boxed set of the books commonly called The Forsyte Saga (the 3 original books and the follow-ups) by John Galsworthy.  This edition had been reissued when the original  series aired in the late '60's.  Beautiful condition.

Linda purchased a lovely signed print of a water color.  I was tempted by some of the art but, boy, you had to be fast.  People were stripping it from the walls as quickly as they entered the rooms.   The owner had quite a bit of original art along with nicely framed prints -- some signed by the artists.

Duane eyed a piece of blue and white Delft but it was a much larger piece than she usually collects so she passed.  We hit the coffee shop afterwards for a long gabfest with treats and considered this one of the nicest sales we had attended lately.

My purchase and Linda's purchase.

A Friday Ranch Estate Sale and a New Gift Shop

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. 

Our approach from the main road.

Dirt road.  Proceed with caution. 

A tooth-jarring experience to get to the actual house.

Am I for sale, too?

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.  

Lots and lots of wood.

Wood and brick.

Some of the bottles, etc., in the kitchen window.

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.  

The Gift Box Boutique.  Lots of cute things!

 

Our purchases for the day.

A Rainy Estate Sale Day

We've been getting a lot of rain here this summer.  Not just rain but tremendous thunderstorms.  Yesterday morning was no different when Duane, Linda and I arranged to meet at an estate sale in a small town adjacent to Tampa called Lutz.  Linda actually lives in Lutz but not close to where the sale was being held.  She arrived first, followed by me, and then Duane.  Duane had passed the street and had to turn around and double back.  When you have rush hour traffic on your back bumper in the pouring rain it's not so easy to make a sudden turn.

The sale was so worth it although we discovered that most of the items had been sold the previous day.  Apparently, the sale began on Thursday and the woman having it had done really well the first day.  She said there was a long line of people waiting to get in when she opened the door.  This lady had collected tons of antique furniture and vintage and antique items over the years and furnished her lovely home with them.  She just purchased a condominium and kept what she absolutely loved.   She had already moved so everything in the house and garage was up for grabs.

Here are some pics from what she had just in the way of small items.  (If only we had gotten there on Thursday!)

These pictures are from the ad she ran before the sale.  Needless to say, it didn't look like this when we arrived on Friday morning.  She still had a lot of nice items, though.  Particularly nice porcelain serving bowls and plates and some furniture.  Duane found some blue and white Delft pieces for her collection along with a couple of large biscuit tins from Scotland to use to sort items in her workshop.  Linda bought a pretty tea serving tray and I ended up with two really cool vintage children's books.  Actually they're both close to 100 years old.  When I mentioned that we were 'library refugees' -- the lady wouldn't let us pay for the books.  That was really sweet of her.  I plan to record these and then pass them on to Linda to admire.

It would have been hard to top this sale although we did stop at one small yard sale.  Poor guy was getting rained on when he was trying to put stuff out.  We went on to Panera's where we got treats and drinks.  Mmm...  iced coffee, a chocolate pastry (my order) and good friends.  Hard to beat that.  BTW, sorry that my pic of our finds looks so hazy.  I didn't realize that the fog on my sunglasses when we arranged the items in my trunk was also on the lens of my camera.  Mea culpa!

Our purchases.

 

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.