Old friends, (formerly) unfamiliar faces

My daughter and SIL sold their house, so they moved out the furniture they wanted to keep, and over the weekend we had the big sale of all the pieces they staged the house with, and a very successful sale it was indeed. In fact, they may be out looking for a sofa and a bed as I type this.

Even better than the money they made was running into people who "knew" us...but didn't know they knew us. OK, I'll explain. My daughter and I are pretty talkative, so we would chat up the customers about their love of mid-century design. Time and again, people would say something like, "If you love mid-century as much as we do, you ought to go to this cool shop we found in Dallas." And, yes, every time it turned out that the shop they were talking about was ours. They'd look at my daughter and say, "OMG, you're Joe's wife???" And then they'd look at me and say, "And you're the one who writes the blog???"

In turn, we would say, "Oh, you're the ones who bought the yellow Danish chair?" or "Wow, you got that great credenza, huh?" It was so much fun to meet all those folks and to put their faces with the items they bought. Since my SIL runs the store, my daughter and I miss out on meeting people most of the time.

The sale customers who made my weekend were a delightful couple named Angelica and Guyton. They were absolutely over the moon for a pair of black barkcloth pillows they had bought from the store, and when they realized we were the other two-thirds of Mid2Mod, they were thrilled. They're moving into a new apartment soon, so they were having a ball buying things to decorate with. They fell in love with a little record player that my daughter and SIL had in their rumpus room. They also got a wonderful C. Jere' style metal wall sculpture, a coffee table, a picture and a sofa and chair set. Their new place is going to be spectacular! I loved their enthusiasm for mid-century design, for each other and for life in general. Being able to play a small part in outfitting their new home was a real pleasure.

Here are the pillows that they adore so much. I've promised to look for more of that fabric so I can make a matching round one.

Angelica and Guyton's pillows

Won't they look great on the yellow sofa they bought?

Angelica and Guyton's yellow sofa

Everything you see in this picture is sold and has gone on to new homes. The sale of Jenn and Joe's house will be final on Wednesday, and then it's onward and upward to the next Mid2Mod adventure...because now that they've moved to Dallas, I'll be getting my house ready to put on the market and move there too. Stay tuned for the continuing saga...

Whew...the garage sale is over!

When 5 p.m. came yesterday, we were three pooped garage salers.  Several times over the weekend, I asked myself why we were subjecting ourselves to such a grueling ordeal, but the final money tally answered that question nicely.

I wish someone had filmed us trying to count the money.  We were all so tired that we couldn't think straight, and I bet we each counted the sizeable stack of bills half a dozen times before we finally came up with the same total twice.  It became such a Three Stooges routine that we had to laugh...but not too much, because we didn't have the energy.

This sale was supposed to close the books on our venture as mid-century sellers, but talking to the dealers who came to buy the last of our inventory reminded us how exciting the search for merchandise is, so now my son-in-law wants us to find retail space of our own and get back into the business in a big way...and the crazy thing is that I'm tempted.

Lovin' the bulging bank bag...
but don't ask me to do this again anytime soon.

Garage sale: Day 1

Saturday: Up at 6 a.m., showering, putting on make-up. Everything felt just like it did eight years ago before I retired. Wretched. I’m not at all a morning person, and, after 30+ years of getting up and going to work every day, it's amazing how quickly and completely I was able to forget that there even IS a 6 a.m. I was not loving the reminder. However, my daughter and son-in-law, with precious grandson in tow, rolled up around 7 a.m. with Starbucks coffee and homemade muffins, which improved my mood immediately.

Even though we had clearly stated in our ad that we weren’t going to open till 9, the early birds started lining up at my driveway gate before 8. At 9 on the dot, we let them in, and it was practically non-stop for the rest of the day. The temperature was in the upper 60s, people were enjoying being out on such a glorious fall day, and there was pleasant conversation all around. We made several new mid-century friends and exchanged Facebook and web site information. I even got a November sunburn.

The tally at the end of the Day 1 was over $1000, with quite a few great pieces left and several people promising to come back with bigger vehicles and more money. All in all, the first day of the sale was a good one, and we’re hoping for a repeat today.

I thought this would be a piece that sold immediately,
yet it didn't budge, even though the matching table sold.

This is one of my favorite pieces,  but
it didn't sell either.  Maybe today...

Making room for more

Yesterday I was reading about another MCM blogger’s garage sale. She posted about it after the fact, and her readers were disappointed that they hadn’t had a chance to buy some of her treasures.

My daughter, son-in-law and I closed our mid-century booth in an antique mall a couple of months ago and moved everything into my workshop, leaving the narrowest of paths so I could get in and out. Then, a few days ago we picked up the last of the free MCM furniture my friend gave me after her estate sale. Now there’s not even a path, so we decided that a garage sale is in order. After all, how can we justify buying more if we don't have anywhere to put it?

Here’s a small sampling of what we’ll be selling, in case any of you want to jump in the car and take a road trip to Texas. Hey, we squeezed three adults, a baby and two dogs into a Honda Insight and drove to the Denver Modernism show, so I guess anything’s possible.

Combination lamp and walnut table with tile top

Black upholstered chair with blonde legs

Wrought iron and glass fruit bowl

Clear and gold glass leaf bowl

Herman Miller Eames chair with Eiffel rocker base

Paul McCobb Jackson China restaurantware

Sputnik-shaped lamp with 33" tall shade

Green ceramic ashtray

Thonet stool

Barkcloth pillows

Blonde step table with black legs

Heywood Wakefield Ashcraft step tables