Three Sales...Three Busts

With the first week of February upon us, we're hoping that we're heading towards an end to the winter and a warming trend. December was extremely and mild and January started out the same way. And then, all at once, in the middle of January, winter decided to arrive. We hope it's late arrival doesn't mean that it will be staying late too! The groundhog didn't think it would. All of the groundhogs seemed to agree that winter would end early. Let's hope that they are right! 

On the Friday before the first weekend of February, we were hit with more snow. In the beginning of the week, it looked like it would be insignificant but, as the week went on, the snowfall forecast kept increasing and we were a little worried that we could have another weekend of saling cancelled.

The view of the snow from next door to Rob's job at 7am. It was very early into the storm but it was accumulating quickly.

By midday, the snow ended and everything began melting quickly. The roads were fine after the plows came through. We got about ten inches but the sun made things better.

A few more pictures taken on Rob's drive home from work

Our mailbox at home. It wasn't the dusting that was predicted in the beginning of the week.

With the storm in the past, we were ready for Saturday sales and, although our list was short, we were hoping for the best. And so, when Saturday morning arrived, off we went!

Our first sale was run by one of our favorite tag sale companies. It was the most promising of the three sales and we hoped that the "entire contents", "digger" and "1960's/1970's" were accurate descriptions of the house we were about to enter...after waiting on line.

Our first look inside the house was of this turtle shell. It was nice but we were not in the market for a turtle shell.

The basement had lots of records to look through and we looked through all of them but only found a few of interest to us.

There was clutter throughout the house but it did not quite fit our definition of a "digger". 

The last place we had to look wqs in the garage which did fit the "digger" category but most of what was in it was ruined by mold and by a raccoon that we knew had lived in there by the smell. Our tag sale company host, Ron, did not even look at what was in the back of this garage. He met the raccoon went they were taking pictures of this sale for their ad. It was nice seeing Ron and his crew but we did not find much of interest here. We left with a few records and a few other things.

Sale #2 was an indoor estate sale run by the new owner of the house who just wanted to clear the house of all that was inside. 

The house was in pretty bad shape and the new owner's intent was to completely remodel the house. We are sure this old bathroom will become a casualty of the remodeling effort.

It's a shame that the sink can't be salvaged. It had boomerang counter top.

Our visit within this house was pretty quick. There really wasn't much here. We found one Halloween item to take home. 

Our third, and final stop, was at an estate sale run by a tag sale company and we weren't sure what we would find here. The pictures in the ad showed an older house but there was nothing in the description or the pictures that told us that we would find anything we would like. There wasn't else going on and it was a convenient stop based upon where our other stops were located. 

Many people have tried and failed but we succeeded against all odds...we found the long lost portal to the early 1970's!

There was an old pantry in the basement and a closer look at the counter top revealed that...

...it was boomerang! 

If we were in need of an over door head traction set, we were at the right sale. We passed on this and just about everything else at this sale. We left with one record.

Here are the things we came home with this weekend:

Some records

An old road map and a 1970's Halloween decoration.

Some Old Crow decanter tops for our future bar.

It was a pretty disappointing week for finds which was not surprising. There was not a single mounted pencil sharpener in sight!

We spent Sunday finishing our Christmas undecorating which, admittedly, we started very late this year. We shared some of our Christmas decorations on our January 1, 2016 post. Here are a few more things that we can proudly say are finally packed away:

Everything on the downstairs shadow box

All of these Japanese Christmas things

Santa head pitchers, decanters, etc. We didn't out many of our Santa head mugs this year.

Last year, we tried to put them all out and they were three deep

The contents of our living room shadow box

Lots of Santas

Everything in these small wooden shadow boxes

The small Christmas tree and all that surrounds it

The contents of these shadow boxes

Everything on this corner shelf unit

Our stockings and all that sat upon the fake fireplace

All of our Christmas stockings. We didn't put them all out this year.

All of our Christmas mail bags

Everything that sat upon our bedroom shadow box

Our Mica houses

The Christmas plastic that sat upon Monica's vanity

All of the Christmas ducks (the crocheted Octopus toilet paper roll holder stayed but his Christmas hat was put away. The Manchester United duck stayed too)

Our house was finally de-Christmased and just in time for Valentine's Day...but that is a story for the next post!