summer fun

summer fun...
.buying from the yardsalers...i love it when a good yardsaler brings me stuff...like today a nice pile of giant gilt frames from the 1800s......we started that way....but now no time..it was so much fun....he yardsales in chicago and i cant wait to see what he brings next time.... its yardsale time for us now....and we are naturally hot and sweaty and working like dogs..trying to get ready for our big event.....we got the half price part mostly put out today....lots of christmas and fall and spring....its kind of discombobulating...
the half price part starts friday..
the forecast for sunday sounds perfect 95 degrees..we will have plenty of lemonade and water...

getting ready for the yardsale

we are getting ready for the big day

...next sunday....at 9

its kind of a party....

today i packed up lots and lots

including;; graniteware, advertizing, primitives of all kinds, bottles, jewelry,all kinds of christmas stuff...tools, fans

lots of dishes,, and pottery

several big boxes of antique linens for the 50c row, plus lots of christmas florasl and spring florals for the half price part....

i think this year will be a good one, with lots and lots of stuff....

we have a little building packed full, we will be getting it out all this week...

if anyone is into altered art or rehabbing i think they will like our selections....we have so many parts and pieces....

and this is our cheapest day of the year..

.plus all the rough room furniture will be out in the sun!!

there is a nice big field just south of us....you can park there easy....and in the field behind the building....we will have plenty of help...

looking at these pictures from last year is actually kind of scary,..we kind of move a big portion of the store around..... but we always seem to get it mostly done.....we do have a lot of help....

...im hoping for that wonderful customer who bought 300$ worth of 50c items one year....she is our yardsale star!!!

the yardsale part is in jons yard...

incoming....junk

this week has been fun, lots of incoming junk. and parts...several people rehabbing houses have brought us doors and windows and even more porch posts...which we really need!! that stuff kind of looks like junk to some but there is a good market here at our store...and im gladtheparts...people like that its real wood and saved from the landfill... they are so creative....

also jon has gotten a nice big pile of antique furniture parts, old fancy bed and dresser parts ,with carving ., more corbels, more legs, lots of spindles,and a nice pile of old doorknobs...some antique tin...all available wholesale....

jons loads might look like junk to some...but here it looks pretty good...for me , checking out the good old furniture he finds is kind of like hog heaven or christmas...

how i trained jon::::we gave him the checkbook, and said go buy...he just learned that way on his own....when you buy something you naturally notice if it sells, if the customers like it or hate it....hes good...cheap and careful...

now im adding, watch what the decorators are buying...thats what i need... so hes in there at the auctions fighting over the frenchy stuff and the fabulously foo foo...

we are a team , with dh doing all the hard parts...like the checkbook,insurance, bills, truck and building upkeep.... the boring stuff...its kind of a sanford and son with a dh in the background looking like, remember that lady neighbor!! poor dh does have to keep up with 3 different checkbooks and all the bills... ; ..

my garden

i really dont have the time to keep this up....its so huge and this year the growth has been just out of control... especially the weeds....and the very naughty deer, aka rats on hooves, have eaten off my whole row of daylilies..
.....but in spring things seem so possible....when we built our house 10 yrs ago, i put this in ...its about 100 ft long and pretty wide too...
the birdbath is in the middle....
the grandkids are the main visitors...
.i love it, weeding and puttering and planning and plotting and composting..
..gardening is kind of like antiques to me, it stays interesting, and i never get to the bottom......

most hectic week of the year

the yardsale is about a week away.....this week
will be probably the most hectic of the year...
we did get our postcards out..

modern country style ....store fixtures

lots of country stores come here for their
store fixtures and big fun props
and even their counters.
the stores like our big open styles

our styles work well in all kinds of country....

primitive

or elegant country

or romantic cottage,

or totally foo foo, foo foo country?

or pottery barn farmhouse...

or serious classic country

.they are easy to fit into different store styles....

especially eclectic

.the rehabbed stuff with old elements fits

our kind of customer really well....

they like big things that can hold lots of merchandise....the businesses who come here are like our retail customers,, they want something different and interesting.... they dont want to have a bunch of junky factory made displays in their stores..

this cottage style is a big part of our wholesale

..just being a store owner they are usually brave and creative...they can take a big wierd peice and make it work in a wonderful way..
..i love going out and seeing what the other stores do with our stuff..

our big porchpost cupboards are sitting in stores all over the country....and lots of the stores heard about us from our customers...which is so nice!!!

usually a new store cant even tell me exactly who sent them to us

but we sure appreciate it...

our cupboards have been in books and magazines, picked up from
other peoples houses or stores..

one of our yardlongs was in romantic homes this month....

so far, we havent been credited, but our customers know...

and we have sold these cottage shabby cupboards and parts and accessories wholesale to stores and show people all over the east coast and midwest...

.
our shabby cottage cupboards are designed by jon and i and made right here in fulton county indiana....and with good indiana wood, not pine....they are from elm, maple, poplar, beech...they are all new construction

the fun rehabbed fantasy furniture is designed by us and built locally also...like the big door cupboards and window things..

style;;; the country girls

country is where we started in antiques...back in the 80s when country living magazine showed whole rooms covered in antiques....kitchen walls covered in utensils..... when the country discovered primitives and the wonderful stuff our rural ancestors lived with and worked with... ....and we are in the country surrounded by the ghosts of a farming community..so many people around us have farm relics from their parents or grandparents .....these girls love trash to treasure..they have a natural feeling for the old stuff, they remember it...they arent afraid to put a manure spreader in the yard, an old chair in the garden, and an old cupboard with holes in the living room.....and they are the ones who started trash to treasure decorating really....bringing home all kinds of huge things from auctions and making them work in the house...

i love this style....and at home have several cupboards and a wonderful piesafe....

these buyers like real wood not painted....i get them cupboards in all conditions....from really worn out relics for under 50$ to the nicest big 2 piece cupboards that cost way more....they love kitchen cabinets, like the hoosiers,

in the store where we sell new stuff, the country girls might poo poo the foo foo room and like the country room, i try and make that room room full of everything for them...from placemats to big pieces of furniture and sticheries, signs ,flowers,candles,pictures,....i try to get the right colors in there and the right look.....

in old they like crocks, wood, boxes, farm tables, funky farm stuff....and they love our awning...just full of cheap old junk, just waiting to be repurposed!!

i think this style will always be good here in the cornbelt....like dylan says it fits us like a glove....

here is a good place to see lots of primitive gals and businesses .

http://forums.delphiforums.com/primitive2/messages

style at the store...the white parts

this style is so popular here at the store... retail and wholesale...
..i dont have a name for it....
elagant rustic ? european country?
fancy cottage?
vintage shabby chic?
i love this style...and some very creative and adventurous buyers use this style......
its a lot
trash to treasure and
rehabbed....and at least partly antique..
a lot of this goes into stores as store display or store fixtures....
we sold a matching mirror to this big white
one
to a wedding shop , she set it up on a platform for the bride to try on dresses..
so many of our buffets are holding plasma tvs or being used as vanities in bathrooms.... which i hate to think about...
we have a few darling little vanities ring now, with the 3 part mirrors.... usually they go to lucky little girls....my grandmother had one...
the big mirror is probably 1890s
the buffet probably 1920s
and the big potting bench we just made ths summer...

i have to have classic antique lines in most of the things we make....its a modern look maybe but deep roots...

sometimes i look at an old fancy clock or building and see the framework for a cupboard....or see a cupboard and realize...it looks like the supreme court building.... its kind of wierd....how long spindles and crown molding have been around...

if you like the whimsicle side of this style...look here.... i love her site...

http://www.ullam.typepad.com/

a lot in this style goes to garden shops and big fancy shops...they can make very large dramatic displays...they are all around our store , usually loaded down

what ive learned about silver

ive been buying and selling in the junk/antique world for about 30 yrs...hard to believe....and i know a LITTLE about a lot of things.....most learned the hard way....and often if i had known just a little more it would have been a whole lot better...
anyway..i would love to put some of ths fun useful stuff here on the blog...starting with silver...
here is what i have learned about buying and selling silver...its more poppular with southern people than midwestern....... sterling is what the buyers want.

IF ITS STERLING ITS MARKED STERLING....this is almost always true...exceptions...european, and mexican which is marked with numbers, like 800 825 etc....and coin silver which is from the early 1800s and i dont know but i can just tell...lol....and english...which is marked with hallmarks...which all mean something...but american sterling silver will almost always say sterling.......not always tho...

BAD WORDS... these little tricky words mean its not sterling,;;;; german silver, alpaca, alaska silver
GOOD WORDS. tiffany and george jensen or georg jensen ...these are very good words!!!
SILVERPLATE....most of the stuff out there is silverplate....most very unsaleable.... plate will say all kinds of stuff...silverplate, rogers, a1,tripleplate,sheffieldplate, community plate....but it wont say sterling........plate means ther is a thn coat of silver on base metal....you cant take it off, ...if you are out there buying most people think their good silver is sterling and really its plate..

..the difference? at our store a sterling spoon might be 15$ a plate spoon in the 1$ bucket....
i love old victorian silver plate...especially with the engraving...

yardsale mode

we are in yardsale mode now..about 10 days away...

...last night dh and i stamped about 1000 postcards....3000 to go....

at the store we are pulling stuff off the shelves this week and pricing for the sale...then it will go in the big truck and wait for the big day....aug 3.....

i kind of know whats going to be in the half price part....

heres my to do list.

...get all the ads figured out and inserted

....find and schedule the workers....

..get everything priced!!!!!! so hard

...make the aisles as big as possible

...fluff up everything as well as possible

....go thru the christmas for the half price part

..lots more....

the rough room will be all outside...there is such neat stuff in there and its kind of a big dark pile and hard to see....but on yardsale day its out there in the sun....or rain!!!

also the whole half price room will be out there in jons yard....lots at .50!!!!

we hope everybody tries hard to come...the yardsale part is a one day deal!!! the store sale goes on for about a week...

and in the middle of it all wade in a tux with lots of goodies for you....

vintage displays

we just got back from the big chicago wholesale gift show.......and i can report seeing a lot of vintage trash to treasure displays, and store fixtures... ....some in some very upscale booths...lots of shutters, lots of old posts, and old doors....a comfy cottage look and some with a rustic romantic european look.

one of the best was a display in a beautiful christmas booth...kd vintage...they used old french windows and porch posts...it was stunning....i got some of their snowmen...but sorry no picture...it was like a fairy land..lots of white and silver tinsel etc etc...

... it was good to see that this fun trash to treasure, outside the box, neat vintage style was in displays and store fixtures all over the merchandise mart.... ...not too different from what my customers here in indiana come up with...

the whole day was kind of surreal... tons of girls and women in wild outfits, really wild!!! and then an amish family in their beards and hair nets and bulky plain dresses....they have big stores and go there to buy...what could they think of the cosmopolitan parade of people there at the mart? they barely show ankles..

im in chicago!!!!

dh and i are in chicago buying for the store....right now, we are on the 21st floor, see picture from the room, , next to the merchandise mart, and can see the river, and all of midtown....
we spent all day yesterday buying, mostly christmas stuff ...
our first buy was wonderful.....lots of great new pictures and containers and crowns and fun frenchy stuff for the fooo foo room....and the best thing , it was from one of our wildest customers.....the one who takes her customers on a field trip to paris and helps them buy whatever they want and get it home....she invited me one year!!! so sweet ...her booth was fabulous..see picture, ..and there was one of our cupboards.... all full of her new wholesale line..... http://www.peacockparkdesign.com/ .. the site is new so you might want to check later..
she has a great antique store in michigan...peacock antiques.... http://www.peacockantiques.com/ you can see what a fun vision she has!!!!
i love going to the shows to see the wonderful displays the companies do....it is always inspiring....

dh has me on a budget!!!! dang!!!!!

fun with cloches

take a look http://lionheartdesign.blogspot.com/2007/01/dnalight-catalog.html

omg...i want to get my cloches out and have some fun...
.we sell the actual cloches and the tall jars...and have mostly birds or in winter snowmen in ours...thee loinheart ones are a whole different level....
also totally cool if you wnat to really explore http://www.ullam.typepad.com/

in the foo foo

we try to be a foo foo destination ...that section is so much fun at the store...lots of customers tell me its their favorite.... we try and make it feel good in there,,,and smell good...

.lana does most of the fluffing in the foo foo....

this summer we have added pink furniture.... the guys kind of gag,,one of the carpenters said...oooh you painted it pink... ,but they dont really count in the foo foo department....

i even like to go in there sometimes to just soak it up.... and im kind of a tomboy who can still unload trucks , get dirty etc etc....but i love flowers and the beautiful old images.....

doors and posts

here are some of the new cabinets coming thru lately..... the big wide one is with old porch posts....its a great size, just under 6 ft tall and nice and wide....weve made several....this one ended up bananaboat with white drybrushed on top.....
i love these old doors, we took the glass out and the panels...so the front is old and the cabinet all new.... we use beadboard in the back...
.i tried to keep a lot of the red in the top one....
the big wide porch post cabinet is great for a store fixture, kind of an outside the box store fixture!!.... lots of space and room on top for something big and dramatic....

they work great in houses of course.... kind of elegant, kind of trash to treasure.. but useful and beautifully repurposed and recycled...

i love gardening but

this week im being attacked by chiggers.....and the dang deer are eating off all my daylily blooms....that i have waited for all summer....they didnt bother them last year.....grrrr...rats on hoofs...
its just totally lush around here....everything ,including the weeds, is growing like mad.....

at the store , i did buy some neat lodge furniture today....and a some mc coy pots....and put quite a bit in the half price room....

around the store

lots came in this week....i bought a whole boxtruck load of stuff .some really nice antiques and ..lots of neat and cheap goodies for the yardsale.....one of my suppliers had a huge pile he had been saving for me...lots of pottery, old baby shoes, nice glassware, big decorated crocks, garden tools, chicken crates, old tubs, a sundial.... plus boxes of cheap misc ...the shop is a wreck. ........

dumb dumb dumb

dang, its true i cut a rare 2800$ table in half , accidentally...
..it was a sq oak table...a nice big one....but the stretcher was right at the end....so you couldnt even get a chair under it......we do that to tables sometimes to make foyer tables....but usually to depression era tables......we had had the darn thing for over a month....it seemed hopeless.....
a guy saw it after the cut....and told me he saw one sell for 2800!!!!! they are really good and he wondered why anyone would destroy it......i felt bad but i do hear a lot of opinions.......then last nght i was browsing thru a book on the biltmore estate and there it was....my table!!! like a giant parlor table.... in the middle of the room...not meant for seating... i still have them.., maybe someone will buy both and glue it back together...
this business does keep you humble...or give you tough skin.....
. and the more i think of my french thing...actually, i knew the big guy too, hes bought from me before......but no i did it smittys way...buy and sell and just make a little...

fun this week.....CLEM

this innocent looking dog caused a lot of excitement this week.....he came in for a little drink and escaped!!! running wild thru the store, then jons yard, then thru the woods...after a long chase, .somehow jon caught him....and this was the happy reunion....... his name is clementine....
the innocent looking guy is a fun customer that we see once in a while....hes also a great carpenter...

MATH

the antique world is wierd....it kind of makes a joke of money and what value means...things are so relative.........this weeks thing....i bought a very unusual cabinet at auction for 200.....i knew it was really old, not from the 20s.....it was rough..... it had metal edges and lots of great features..... i sold it for 800.....that person knew a higher person on the totem pole of antiques and sold it for a lot more...... the value of it when restored is about 8000 according to the big guy... ..... apparantly all three of us are happy as clams..... im happy for my buyer and shes happy for her buyer....and the big time guy is happy with all of us...
probably someone at the sale thought i was an idiot for paying that much for a big dirty frenchy piece....
i have accepted my place on the totem pole of the antique world...
......bloom where you are planted comes to mind...

my theory is if i had to know everything before making a sale i would be very very cramped and end up resentful........also i made way more money than usual....and have a very happy customer.....a good wholesale customer who might buy more and more..... if they think im crazy for selling something that good that low....well thats good too.....they will both have to stop and see what else i might be dumb about when they are in the area......
it was an 1870s french vitreen.

more favorites

these are a few of my little favorites...most from 1850 to 1880.....
i think im in the perfect business....getting to see so many
wonderful things....i just never get tired of it.and luckily i still find good stuff to bring home...where there is always room for one more!!!



i like seeing others accumulations too....
just getting to an auction or a new place to shop is a thrill to me even after 30 yrs.....you just never know what you might find.... and its so neat to have the store where i can enjoy
something for just a while and
then let it go to someone else...

an auction find...

i got this cute little chicken at a sale.....and added our date....

GETTING READY FOR THE YARDSALE

we are working hard on the yardsale now....its SUNDAY aug 3.....we should be getting the postcards this week..then we design them ....then steve prints them ...and we work at few nights stamping them, all 4000.......

all year we have saved the misc and modern and dregs in a different place for the yardsale...we have a seperate building just full and waiting for the big day...lots of christmas too....

the parts of the sale are...STOREWIDE SALE

..BIG HALF PRICE AREA

. ...jons YARD FULL at 4$ 2$ and .50 so much so cheap...

also we take the whole rough room outside into the sun ...you can see everything!!!

for us its our yearly clearance .....our 30th anniversary sale....

the first one was just a whim ....and it went over pretty well....now it is pretty huge with lots of super bargains...

it starts at 9....and its rain or shine...

my to do list this week...

.pick words for mailer

start scheduling

think about what gets in the half price part...

dig out all the discontinued christmas...

get everything out and fluffed up for the big weekend....

basically anything weve had for a year might be cheap or realllll cheap....

HOPE YOU CAN MAKE IT....

good parts

here is one of my favorites .... the top is from a bed from about 1880....the posts are from an antique porch.... its a great display piece.... this one i took home to the cottage.......i painted this in my driftwood color....its kind of beachy and crabshakky..... jon made this one...

.lots of these end up in other businesses, as props or nice big displays...... it would have been great for a store ..nice and big with deep shelves....and good wood you can nail into... .


bed parts are wonderful and kind of easy to find...since not many want 3/4 beds to sleep in.... ....we usually have lots of good old bed parts for sale....including lots from the late 1800s..