Do you ever wish you could buy a huge house just to have a blank slate for decorating with junk from garage sales and “stuff” from antique malls? I’m not talking to live in it, but as a project to have somewhere (because your own house and garage and basement and barn are all bulging at the seams) to put all the TREASURES ! ! ! Always had the dream to buy a very small town square…more like a strip…and decorate each store front and inside with the way I view life…COLOR ! ! It overwhelms me when I come across magnificent pieces at garage sales that scream out “paint me…I will be so beautiful in a soft yellow…” And I want to and oft times I do, then where to put it?
The closest I came to fulfilling that dream was last year when daughter #1, Connie, and I drove to Pensacola to see daughter 2 too, Billie, and fiancé, Robert. We three girls are all garage sale junkies, thrift store nuts and antique mall floozies. So I sez to Billie Girl, as her upcoming wedding gift, we would go shopping and re-do their spacious home….all of it, down to the littlest detail. Seven days of hard core shopping, experiencing 6 lanes of heavy traffic each direction…there’s no such thing as turning left among those crazy drivers….hauling carloads and truckloads of junk home, getting on each other’s nerves till only a glass of nazdrowie could calm us down (that’s what Polish girls call their wine). We shopped till we dropped. We were totally out of control but did we get some bargain! And everywhere we bought, we made offers and paid unheard of prices.
Their wedding gift was a rug, several lamps, wooden trunk, oak desk and chair and lamp, other easy wicker chairs # 1 sis bought, leather wrapped side table, approximately 15 vases, table runner, numerous knik knax, wall hangings, hanging flowers, round glass side table (Robert’s favorite) and another glass table AND spray paint for both metal bases, and I can’t remember if anything else…..We took a room at a time, moved everything into the right groupings, making sure the colors flowed….cleaned out and rearranged 2 bookcases and showcased them with proper balance. We had a ball! Time to head back home to Missouri!
The pictures above are to show you what can be bought sometimes for $24, maybe $55 maybe $125…..but always ASK for a discount. If the tag is not marked “sale” or “firm”, normally at an antique mall they will give you another 10% off. And if it’s at the end of the month and the dealer has not met their rent amount…make an OFFER even if it sez firm…they might NEED to take it. We went at the end of the month that week and EVERYTHING was reduced because I ASKED and then SHUT UP waiting….
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