Hit the Jackpot

Those two up there are the best deals of the weekend…not counting the free stuff.

The place: near our house
The event: garage sale
The price (for both): $11.50

I feel like there should be slot machine winning noises in there! It was the end of a couple’s garage sale and they just wanted things gone. We did what we sometimes do (and no we really aren’t jerks) and listened to the story and apologetic tone for the condition of the dresser (moisture damage from storage) without mentioning much of our skills or intent til the seller said so it’s only $10…big discount from the listed price then they added that the chair was half-price at $1.50. Sold! We never did mention what we do but only because we got into a discussion about how much we love our Subaru. Seriously nice couple.

We then went to an estate sale with a huge workshop full of tools, equipment, some furniture and all kinds of goodies. We spent $75 there. That got us an orbital sander, drywall tools, upholstery stapler, vintage dishes and a big box of various items we can use.

On the way back home, we saw another garage sale so we picked up a few cooking gadgets and a marble slab (something I’ve been looking for) and spent $3.25 for all that awesomeness.

One more church sale Saturday, the day you could fill a grocery bag for $3. I had myself some hard-to-find vintage madeleine cookie molds, a cool tray, never-worn snow boots, heavy duty old diner mugs (been looking for those), a few other bits and this chair.

It was $10 and something my heart truly wasn’t in but then the gentlemen outside kept on us and we caved. Caved for charity. But it’s going to be a good project for upholstery. I plan to eventually learn those skills.

This dresser was given to us by a friend…who had a snake in his garage rafters that sat right above Greg while he sharpened some knives. My eagle eyes spotted the sucker. I made sure to check the piece before plopping it in the car. (That friend also gave us some base cabinets now in the garden shed made into a workbench with a heavy door on top left by the previous owners.) Big thanks to him!

It was such a nice weekend. Greg and I took a break from major surgery on the yard, took it easy. Or so I thought. When I began to think about what I wanted to tell you guys, I mentally jotted down the accomplishments to realize we did quite a bit.

Greg started to make me an adirondack chair out of the blue Sunday and will put the finishing touches-the arms-on tonight. Sweet, sweet man. So “out of the blue” in this case would mean due to my nagging to get some outdoor chairs and his complaints about the budget right now which equated to him suddenly making me one out of leftover lumber and supplies removed from the house. I love the chair!

Our house always has a car in front of it these days so do as it says and ignore that, disregard the shabby landscape in the front of the house and pay no attention to how bad my drawing is. That will all change someday. Except the drawing. It was fun and I got a litte carried away drawing trying to draw so lucky you got the edited version minus my notes, a lot of arrows, thought bubbles from Henry and Madden-like doodles for my own entertainment. The arrows pointing the to the side were notes about how that’s stuff we have to get rid of but it took too much space and I forgot to ditch the arrows.

Three more trees came down-one in the front yard and the other two in the side yard, the giant antennae came off the roof, the workbench was created, my string lights were put up in a temporary place. There was no lighting in the backyard before.

We took Henry for a warm summer night stroll to the college campus across the street where he was stopped often and fussed over. He is incredibly adorable. 60lbs. of adorable with his ability to see being jeopardized by his growing hair over his eyes, the ideal sheepdog look.

He says have a great week, won’t you (imagine whatever accent you wish for his cute self-we constantly change his accent).