Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Twelve Posts In Twenty-One Days: Episode Two - Pocketbooks, Christmas And A Guinea Hen

We're moving forward on our plan to catch up on our blog posts within three weeks of July 11th. This is the second "episode" and it is for the second week in May.

Unlike the previous week, we had no party to throw. We did have a limit on how long we could be out on Saturday. Monica's car was in the shop for some repairs and we had to return to the mechanic to pick up the car before the shop closed. We had a list of seven sales that interested us and they were, geographically, very spread out. There was one sale that seemed to stand out more than the others and it was only twenty minutes away. We decided to get an early start and make this sale our first. We would play the rest by ear. 


So we arrived to the first sale and found a familiar site...a line...just like last week. This sale was run by one of our favorite tag sales companies and was advertised as "entire contents" and "old stuff". We were anxious to see what was here. It only took us thirty minutes on the line to find out.


There were lots of rooms to walk through and we never skip the kitchen. Well, we never skip any room! This little oven, built into the wall, was so tiny! 


The basement was huge and there was plenty to look through down there. We did not get back to the main level without adding things to our "want list". 


This old table sat there in the basement. It wasn't in perfect condition but it was cool to see! It wasn't the only cool thing to see. We saw lots of cool things and they were going to come home with us. When we left this house, it was with a great pair of vintage pocketbooks for Monica, several Christmas things, cookbooks and a record. It was a good first stop!


When we left the house, we encountered this young lady roaming around the lawn next door. We really wasn't sure what she was. We never saw anything like here but we did learn, very quickly, was that she was loud every time we got close to her. REAL loud! We found out later that she was a guinea hen. It was the first time we ever met one! 

After stopping for breakfast, we crossed two of the potential stops off our list. Both were far away and only looked mildly promising. We still had to get back to see the mechanic and the first sale put us a little behind schedule. We chose to go to the one that was closest to where we were and see how the day progressed.


Sale #2 was a very quietly advertised sale that had no pictures but listed "entire contents". In googling the address, we saw an older house in an area where we planned to be and hoped that would be the occasional great quiet sale that we stumble upon occasionally. It was.


The backyard had this very charming old shed with a home built brick barbecue and drawings of barbecue chefs on the wall. It was really cool! 


The sale was being run by the children of the deceased. We enjoyed this house and this was our favorite part of it. The downstairs consisted of an old finished basement with knotty pine walls and an old stone fireplace.  


It also had this storage area where Rob found some old Christmas stuff! 

We were enjoying the search through this house and, upon running across this mounted pencil sharpener in the basement (always a good sign), we knew we were destined to find even more treasures!

The basement had a bar to search behind too. Yes, Monica came home with the hat she is wearing.

The kitchen had these great old wooden kitchen cabinets with great handles. We are not fans of press board cabinets at all! 

Some of the walls in the kitchen were painted some darker pink color that we suspect was the original color that the original owners chose. It was unusual but nice.

We had a great time in this house and it was, as hoped, a really fun house with lots of treasures. We spent a long time here and, when we left, it was with some old Christmas stuff, some very old vintage greeting cards from the 1930's and early 1940's (many still in their original envelopes), an old leopard coat for Monica, a hat for Monica, cookbooks and more! 

As we drove away from the sale, this sign was on their neighbor's front lawn. Tim Taylor? The Tool Man? 

Sale #3 was only about fifteen minutes away. It was described as "entire contents" and "everything must go". There were no pictures in the ad but, when we googled the address, we saw a house with vintage potential. 

We were right. The bathroom was its original pink color...

...and this really cool bar was downstairs! 

We even saw a mounted pencil sharpener in the basement which always seems to be a great sign! We didn't stay all that long but we did find a few things to take home. A couple of old Christmas things, a honeycomb Easter decoration and one book would come back to our house at the end of the day.

Sale #4 was just five minutes away from the previous sale. With the day moving along, we decided to make this stop our last sale of the day. We still had to pick up Monica's car before the mechanic closed his shop for the day and the other sale on our list was still 35 minutes away. It was a sale run by a tag sale company that rarely runs any sales and it was our first time at one of their sales. The pictures in the ad showed some vintage furniture and, although this was the second day of the sale, we were hoping to find something here for us.

This hutch was really cool and had starburst handles! 

This dresser was really cool, too!

This piece was really great, too, but we are not in the market for furniture. It was a great house for looking at cool furniture but there wasn't much else. We did find one old Christmas book so we did not leave empty-handed.

It was time to head home and go to the mechanic where we picked up Monica's car and then relaxed most of the rest of the day. We did take time to look at what we brought home. Here is what we saw:

Cookbooks

More cookbooks

Other books

A vintage sweater for Monica

A hat for Monica. She will be creative and make this look different...and fun!

A vintage leopard jacket for Monica

Two vintage pocketbooks for Monica. The one on the left is lucite. The straw one is from the 1960's

Sewing kits (made in Japan), a vintage "watch your weight" dial from the 1940 New York World's Fair, two old St. Patrick's Day cake toppers, an old package of birthday candles and an old recipe dial.


A pair of ceramic soap/sponge holders (made in Japan), an old stuffed monkey and a honeycomb Easter decoration


A vintage Valentine's Day card

A vintage anniversary card

A vintage Father's Day card

Vintage birthday cards

More vintage birthday cards

Vintage Christmas cards

More vintage Christmas cards

Some old Christmas things: a Christmas stocking, a small bottlebrush wreath, two Christmas wall decorations, two old snowmen, a Rudolph reindeer, some white reindeer and a Christmas angel. 

Some more old Christmas things: a plug-in plastic angel, a Christmas record, a glass ornament (with a duck on it), a starburst ornament, two creepy Santas, a package of Christmas ornament hangers, two small plastic Santas, a bottlebrush tree and a Christmas book from 1958

It was a great day of saling and a great weekend spent together. Although we did not host a party this week, time together is always reason to celebrate.

On another note: this was our second post since our goal of twelve posts in twenty-one days. Now, we have ten more posts in the next eighteen days. We know we can do it! 

8 comments:

  1. I love that light made out of an old coffee can, hanging in that bar. Such ingenuity! Why is that lost on today's world? I can't help but think if we set our minds to it, we could easily create/invent so many things out of what we currently discard. But of course retailers don't want us to do that, because they would not profit! But it would be so much better for the environment, and our pocketbooks. Can you tell I grew up with folks who came out of the Great Depression? :-)

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    1. We're with you 100%, Mod Betty! We love the idea of recycling the old to make something useful (and fun)! (Rob)

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  2. Love the furniture (not bought) and the cards. I have probably only bought 4 here in El Paso

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    1. Hi Liz! Yes, wasn't that furniture cool? You said you only bought four in El Paso? Cards? (Rob)

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    2. Yes, cards. I never find any.

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    3. Oh! We found some two weeks in a row but we could go more than six months without finding any more! It's always a surprise when we find them. We hope you find lots of them soon! (Rob)

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  3. You brought lots of good stuff home and left lots of good stuff behind. You guys really know how to line up all the best sales.

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    1. We try our best, Granny Annie! We have to try and be reasonable about what we can bring home! I mean, seriously, where would we have kept that guinea hen? (Rob)

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