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You are here: Home / Decor / Collecting / My Final Yard Sale

My Final Yard Sale

September 28, 2011 by Jane F 8 Comments

yard sale - set of birdseye maple chairs and oriental rugs at my yard sale - AtticmagLike many collectors, I love my “stuff.” It was tough to decide what to put in the yard sale.

Over the past three months, since the big move from the city to our house, I’ve been preparing for my yard sale — unpacking, sorting, labeling contents of the 80 plus boxes and slowly clearing the garage, where they were stored. This was the first step of the process of settling in with My House in Turnaround. My goal was to prepare everything I no longer needed for a blowout yard sale scheduled for Labor Day weekend at Helen’s house — my friend Marybeth’s mother. While it meant me boxing everything to take over there, a two-family sale seemed like a better draw. In these parts, house sales are well attended summer weekend rituals.

Then Hurricane Irene hit and left us Home without Power. I had to push the sale back a week since due to epic flooding, many roads were closed. I also needed time to get our generator repaired and garage door opener replaced. What a mess Irene left.

But fate gave us a gloriously sunny, balmy summer Saturday for the sale. In preparation, we set up tables in Helen’s garage on Friday, and moved them out onto her perfect yard-sale driveway early Saturday morning [top]. Due to changes in our dining room, I decided to sell my set of four French birdseye maple caned chairs and three of my rugs so I put them out front.

boxes of my yard sale items in Helen's garage, ready to be displayed - Atticmag

During the weeks of sorting, I decided to be ruthless about unloading duplicates plus things like linens that I’d been holding onto for years because I had the space to store them. Back they went into the moving boxes. The big blue bag contained the king size quilt Mr. AM’s decorator made for the apartment bedroom and the white box with the green box  (on the bottom, left) was filled with a dozen or more redundant kitchen knives.

yard sale - table of table and bed linens ready for the house sale - AtticmagHaving pared down our apartment in order to stage it for sale, I discovered that I loved the feeling of simplified, unstuffed closets with fewer, but more-often-used possessions. As I cut the tape on box after box, I realized I was ready to let things like my treasured vintage table linens go. Still, it wasn’t easy. Mainly, I was focused on my dishes, glassware, kitchen equipment, plus what turned out to be an entire table of phones, clocks and other bits and pieces like leftover wallpaper, contact paper, and home office effluvia. Like the ad says “So much glitter!”

yard sale - table of kitchenwares at my house sale - Atticmag

There was no shortage of wicker baskets and kitchenware — the metal bar with the hooks on the front of the table is my favorite, super heavy-duty Taylor & Ng pot rack which also has a wooden shelf that fits on top.  I used to store my fish poachers (now long gone) up there. The man who bought it ($15) seemed delighted and I was glad to see it find a good home.

rack of 80s vintage clothes at my yard sale - AtticmagMy rolling coat rack came in handy for putting clothing that was in good shape but no longer in style. I even was able to empty out a plastic container filled with things from the 80s. The house salers snapped up the coats, sweaters and tops.

yard sale table of glassware and specialty china at my house sale - Atticmag

One table was dedicated to glassware including wine glasses, goblets, cordial glasses and glass bowls. There was a set of French hors d’oeuvres plates as well. A friend bought most of the white and red wine glasses ($1 each) early on, but the big wine goblets ($4 each) were last to go even though they were very high quality crystal from Gump’s. They do require hand washing.

vintage mahal rug on display at my yard sale - AtticmagThere’s nothing like a cherry red rug to attract a house sale buyer! This was an eBay find that I resold for only $20 less than I paid!
tables at the end of the dayAbout half an hour before the end of the sale the tables were picked over and the steady stream of buyers trickled out. I started to pack up leftovers — including the well-used Brabantia ironing board (in the plastic bag, leaning against the table. I had that at $25 and yesterday saw the very same one new for $179 in a Williams-Sonoma “favorites” email. One bargain missed.
Mr. AM and our friend Rob enjoying themselves at our yard sale - AtticmagMr. AM, and our friend and co-host Rob (a mad Yankees fan) hung out all day, brought us lunch and gave me a hand at the end with boxes of leftovers destined for the Salvation Army.

post-yard sale, the unsold goods fit into only six boxes - AtticmagI really didn’t expect every single thing to sell but I was hoping there wouldn’t be much left to cart off — and there wasn’t. Since the sale, I’ve been asked whether it was worth all the weeks of work it took to sort, tag, price, pack, unpack and pack up the remnants again. Financially, the answer is not really. Emotionally, it was great. And, best of all, I never need do it again! I hope.

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Filed Under: Collecting Tagged With: Atticmag, garage sale, tag sale, yard sale

Comments

  1. laxsupermom says

    September 28, 2011 at 7:28 am

    Glad it was a successful sale. I felt the same after our yard sale this summer. It wasn’t a huge amount of money, but it was so nice to be free of that stuff. Thanks for sharing.

    Reply
  2. aneyefordetail says

    September 28, 2011 at 10:01 am

    I’m with you all the way! Yes, it feels so good to unload all that stuff…and you do realize that you don’t need it all.
    Congratulations Jane!

    Reply
  3. Pam says

    September 28, 2011 at 10:27 am

    I’m so with you! I love getting rid of stuff, but sometimes selling it can be a pain. I’m glad your sale was so successful!

    Pam

    Reply
  4. tina says

    September 28, 2011 at 11:05 am

    We did a yard sale or two – both during moving times and I said I’d never do it again. LOL Luckily, there is a GW shed at our local recycle center and Habitat will come pick up items.

    Glad you got rid of your stuff. Those are some nice chairs!

    tina

    Reply
  5. Beth says

    September 28, 2011 at 2:26 pm

    I love going to yard sales, but it is much harder to have one of your own. Great job!

    Reply
  6. Tina says

    September 28, 2011 at 5:45 pm

    Glad you are finally through with the sorting and big sale. Sounds like it was a success and shoppers found some neat stuff. Congrats!

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Country Auction Highlights | Atticmag | Kitchens, Bathrooms, Interior Design says:
    May 12, 2014 at 8:22 am

    […] As I detailed in previous posts, combining two houses was a huge task that required a massive house sale which I vowed would be my last. But since I also sold all our modern art two years ago my walls are […]

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  2. Kitchen Picture Wall says:
    May 13, 2015 at 11:06 am

    […] over things more than once to decide what stays and what goes. I began that process last Fall with My Final Yard sale. Then I tackled a new kitchen picture wall to display the art I’m keeping. What I planned to hand […]

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