While the men were hunting this weekend...the women were definitely gathering! We themed the November occasional, "Gatherings", and we sure did have a big gathering of customers this weekend! Thanks for making it a successful and very fun couple of days! All those groups of friends having fun together and inspiring each other was like a big slumber party! One group of ladies even had fleece scarves that were camouflage and bright orange!
Our husbands thought we had gone over the top with how full the store was in preparation for the weekend, but seriously...it looks quite empty now! We are getting right back to work reordering some of your favorites (Divine Twine and Mrs. Meyers) and making sure the store will be in full holiday spirit by the Friday after Thanksgiving!
Keeping in the spirit of "girls just want to have fun" and hunting and gathering, I thought I'd share some of Cheryl and my adventures, while treasure hunting this fall. People always ask us, "Where do you find all this stuff?" and "Are you going to garage sales all the time?" Well, we used to go to garage sales more often, but now that we have the store, we need VOLUME!! We still love church sales and estate sales, and people call us up when they are cleaning out, but our best adventures come when we can hit the neighborhood streets for municipal clean-up days. So here's what we did together for 3 Fridays in a row in September, at an undisclosed location. Nine hours each day! And that didn't include Cheryl's hour drive back and forth!
Two minivans and 2 trailers for hauling. We park one and ride around together in the other. We usually are armed with plenty of caffine:
Cheryl's drug of choice is Mountain Dew, mine is a turtle mocha or a raspberry white chocolate. We usually have some cheez-its and pretzel crisps along too.
Tools of the junking trade are gloves, screwdriver, wrench, bungee cords, and ratcheting tie down straps (we've gotten quite good at them, having had repeated lessons from our husbands). Sorry, didn't get them in the photo. Flashlights come in handy, and you never know when you may need duct tape, a scissors or a wire cutter. Better to be prepared out on the open road!
As for what we find...anything and everything! Including the kitchen sink!
We giggle and laugh the entire time! After years of perfecting our junking skills and plenty of deliberation, we have learned what are diamonds in the rough, and what to pass up. The items we picked up, have of course been scrubbed, painted, cannibalized, etc. and are either in the store or waiting in our garages (that's a whole other blog post). But thought you'd appreciate what we passed up (so you can giggle along with us)!
Sofas in horrible fabric never enter our trailers, but this orange, button tufted chair may have future possibilities in my house, once it gets cleaned and gets some new fabric. Seriously, upholstered furniture is too much of a gamble, so we like to stick to items that can be scrubbed and thrown in the laundry machine!
Are you scared yet?? Yes, we both have dogs, but this one was not coming home with us! Sometimes the frames have possibilities, but it just wasn't happenin' for me.
"There's a story, of a man named Brady...who was bringing up 3 very..." Can you say The Brady Bunch? Honestly, I thought the faux paneling was kind of hip in a retro way, but I agreed with Cheryl that it would take up a lot of space in the trailer! We left it to the scrappers. Which brings up a good point. We are competing for vintage metal items with the scrap metal hunters. They are out in throngs and are picking up the very crib bedsprings, metal toolboxes, lockers, lawn chairs, and wire baskets that we love! Many of the metal items we found we were taking out of the homeowners hands! A nice conversation always ensues..."are you girls the picker sisters?", "finding good stuff today?", "do you girls have a store somewhere?" Homeowners are very friendly, and sometimes go into their garages and bring us more treasures! We get a kick out of some of the homeowners communication, regarding their garbage...
Our most unusual find of the season was big and heavy and fully functioning. The homeowner was apologizing for putting such a beautiful piece out, but just couldn't have it taking up space, and couldn't bear to see it get wrecked in her porch:
Don't know when you will see it in the store, but can almost guarantee that it won't be in it's original condition!
Three Fridays, 27 hours, 6 trailer and van loads later, and we have a stockpile to pick from for these long winter months. Here's to good friendship, good junk, and not wanting regular jobs!
