Yard Sale Adventures: A day of discovery

I have something wonderful to tell you!

It is a revolution in yardsale strategy! This handy tool has been under our noses all along and we failed to notice it. You see, our primary resource for yardsale research is bnd.com, the website of the Belleville News-Democrat. They have a handy search function with which I can select the town and the day of the sale and get a list of all sales meeting those criteria. They are displayed as a list with a corresponding illustration displaying each sale as a point on a map. Prior to yesterday, I would analyze their map and plot my own course based on principles of efficiency and geography.

But wait!!

If you click the sales you are interested in, enter your starting address, and click "get route", the program lists the sales in order of geographic efficiency for you! This changes everything! My big map/white board system from the June 18 post is no more. Now I have a simgle piece of paper directing my travels in the most efficient order possible. I keep my yellow street map close at hand in case I am directed to a street I am not familiar with. Thank you, bnd.com. You are genius.

Despite my cracker-jack list, the first sale of the day was a skiv. We were on Main and had to pull over for this beautiful display of 1960s decor:

This is some sort of walnut pineapple lazy susan thing. Spectacular. I think I have to go back for it.

Beautiful Danish Modern daybed.

Really excellent Brady Bunch chairs.

But this was the Find of the day. It is an exquisite 1960s sectional, small in scale for my tiny little front room. It is covered in what seems to be some kind of burlap... did people enjoy burlap sofas in the 1960s? It is very scratchy. It smells of oldness. It has a few stains. I will surely need to have it reupholstered. The owner was asking $150. That's steep! But I had, in my back left pocket, a check for $100 sent to me by my mother-in-law for my birthday! After a brief period of negotiation, the sofa's owner agreed to take $100. Bam! (I don't know why the heck this whole paragraph is underlined. Stupid Blogger.)

Our next stop offered a bucket of Nerf weaponry. As you will recall, this is the number one reason that the boys yardsale with me... the hope of finding cheap and violent toys. We were choosy this time. Rather than buying the whole tub for $15, we each selected a few choice guns.

You recall my bottlecap collection? (Refer to June 4 post.) Check out this belt:

It is studded with bottlecaps and fastens with a seatbelt. Seriously, this is the kind of random, funny crap that makes all the early morning wake-ups worth it.

And this. This is a complete set of In Sync marionettes. No, I didn't buy it. You think I'm crazy or something?

(I'm just ignoring the underlining now, OK? Let's all agree that it's just not happening.)

We stopped at QT, of course. I was starving for some taquitos, but first I made a bee-line for the rest rooms. Look at this sign on the men's room:

One of three things has happened:

A. My bathroom debaucle of three weeks ago did permanent damage to the plumbing in the men's room.

B. The men's plumbing is ornery and my experience with it was not unique.

C. The QT employees were expecting me and placed this bogus sign on the men's room door just to keep me out.

I made another key discovery this weekend. In addition to the delicious taquitos, QT offers a cheeseburger-dog. It is a burger shaped to fit the hot dog bun! Brilliant!

Now take a gander at this gem... it is a 150 year old chair, sans upholstery. Apparently, its most recent owner aborted his project midway through. He pointed out to me that the chair is padded with horse hair over straw. That's how they used to do it before down-wrapped-foam cushions were discovered. Sort of gives me cooties just thinking about it.

I splurged on something pricey and beautiful. It is a set of large, metal leaves. They range in size from 12 to 20 inches. They are verdi gris and brownish. Each leaf has feet so it can rest levelly on a table, but their previous owner had hung them on the wall so they each have a plate hanger attached. $25 for the set, but ooooh how I love them!

Take a moment to look back at the post of May 29. Remember the guy with all the outdoor fabrics in his garage? One dollar per yard? On Saturday I went by his house and slipped a note on his car saying I had decided on a project and was interested in buying some fabric. He called me back promptly. We now have a new BFF, Everett-the-Fabric-Guy. I have his phone number and his permission to give it out to those of you who need outdoor fabric! Call me, comment on the blog, whatever. I'll hook you up.