Garage sale grief

Last Thursday through Saturday, I  had a garage sale.  It's a lot more fun going to them then it is having them.

First of all, in Kansas you never know when to have a sale. Is it going to be freezing in in May?  Or will you roast in September?

I, it turns out, roasted on Thursday, endured torrential rain on Friday, and then had a pretty day Saturday. I must say I'm pretty proud of myself for setting up and running the sale while my hubby was out of town. 

I did encounter some odd ducks during the sale though. There was the man that made me hold his one-eyed chihuahua while he shopped; there was the guy who I'm pretty sure was buying my mom's clothes for himself; there was a woman who had been shopping for 4 or 5 minutes and turned to speak to me and smoke came out her nostrils even though she wasn't smoking; and of course all of the people who let their kids run completely wild in my garage.

Garage sale money is that hardest money you will ever make.
 
Last g-sale I had, a woman bought a ton of my daughter's clothes. It took me awhile to total her up but I went over the numbers 3 times and my husband went over it twice also to make sure it was right. I even let the woman look at it and she seemed satisfied. She left with tons of stuff she got for a steal.

Three hours later she came back and said we over charged her by $15. How would she know this since we removed the tags as we totaled her up?

Anyway, we took out the sheet we totaled her up with and tried to show her. She then got right in my face and literally screamed "I AM NOT A LIAR!!!".

What the heck is her deal? Who does that? Now I have had a lot of garage sales throughout the years, but never have I had anyone scream in my face.  Then she turned and ran to her car. Wow.

So fast forward to this sale, and guess who my first customer was? Just guess? Yep, the insane screaming woman. So naturally I'm really nervous when she walks up to my house. She starts shopping, and I'm bracing myself to duck and looking around for something to use as a weapon if it came down to it.

She acted sweet as could be though, like she never saw me before, like she had never scared the bejeebies out of me. I held my breath the whole time. Then she left and I counted my blessings. Why would she come back to my house after she thought we had screwed her over before? Or does she do this type of thing so often she just didn't remember. 

Now I know there are a lot of nutty people anywhere you go, but I feel like I met more than my share the last three days. I did get rid of a bunch of stuff and made some decent money in the process. It did, slow me down on my furniture projects though.

Tomorrow I have a TV console to distress and glaze, a side table to glaze, and two end tables to finish painting. I will get you some new photos on those ASAP.

I found this two tiered table from the 60's laying on the curb for trash pick up.  Super excited,  I loaded it up in the back of my car (my daughter would die if she knew I did that!)

I roughed it up a bit, used a really bright turquoise on it, distressed, glazed and waxed it. Good as new, actually better!

I took this table that was somebody's trash and turned into a nice lady's treasure (who probably has never once screamed at a garage sale hostess).
  

A good night's sleep

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A couple of months ago we purchased a giant, super comfy sectional for our basement. It is seriously comfortable. One of my daughter's friends comes over just to sit on this couch.

My husband and I have a queen size-bed. Stay with me here...this will all come together I promise.  In this bed sleeps the two of us,

Charlie,

Gracie, 

Lulu,

and sometimes Kitten (we will discuss the reason for Kitten's name another day).

That is too many bodies! My hubby and I sleep in little balls at the edge of the bed so not to disturb the pack. Throughout the night, we roll over to have a tiny little face staring back at us on out pillow. We have paws pushing into our ribs, and the occasional brawl at two in the morning when a fight breaks out over a bone.

During the summer my daughter and I would stay up late watching old movies. One night we decided we were so tired we were going to sleep on the sectional. My daughter, myself, Charlie, Gracie, and Lulu all slept down there with plenty of extra room. Guess what? I slept great! The next morning, I went upstairs to talk to my husband and he slept great too. Feeling rested, what a concept! We weren't in pain from contorting our bodies to make room for dogs, I didn't have to threaten him with bodily harm if he didn't stop snoring, and we genuinely felt a little more human.

So now that's how we sleep now -- unless my daughter has a sleepover, and then I'm back with the pack in the bed and nobody is excited about that. Is it sad that my hubby and I have to have a few getaway weekends a year just to get a little snuggle time?

Now, I know a lot of people would just say to kick the dogs out. When it's all said and done, we (I) love having our babies close to us. God knows our biological baby wants us far, far away (unless she needs money or a ride). Does anyone else let their pooch sleep with  them?

Speaking of bedrooms, I got this cute table at a garage sale for $10. Can you believe it? I remembered to take a before picture! Yay me!

It had great bones but was a bit scratched up. Just how I like them. So I stepped out of the box and painted it an extremely bright lime. I did decide to glaze it brown just to tone down the color a bit. A friend at the salon I go to bought it to go beside her bed. Hope you're enjoying it Megan!

 

Creating a bedroom

This little table intrigued me with it's unusual shape, so I picked it up at a little country yard sale.  It was an ugly brown and terribly scratched up.

I mixed up a little chalk paint using Sherwin Williams Dishy Coral, distressed it and glazed it. Super cute!

The lady that bought my blue desk purchased this for her daughter's bedroom night stand. She brought over her quilt to see if it matched:  it had the turquoise that matched the desk perfectly and the coral table was a perfect match also.

She was also the one I did the cream "dresser from hell" for. She picked up the dresser yesterday and is going to send me pictures of the room once it's all completed.

I can't wait to see! I'm so excited that this cutie patootie's little bedroom is going to be made up with some of my pieces.  (Monica, if your reading this let me know if it's alright for me to post the pictures on here too.)

Oops I did it again!

Add caption

I love having before and after pictures of all of my projects. Some of them are really challenging and I felt like giving up in the middle of it. Once it's finished I like to look back at how crudy it looked before and I feel like it was worth it.

Here's my problem...I can never remember to take the before picture! I get excited about starting something new and once I have slapped a coat of paint on it, I remember that I forgot the before picture.

Look what my husband put on my studio wall to help me remember. You would think that would be enough to help me remember right? Nope. I have still forgot at least 4 times since he put that on the wall.

I need to focus. With a teenage daughter, all her friends, a cat and three dogs running around here sometimes it's hard.


This table is another great garage sale find for $4. It is a pretty, three tiered, really old table. I painted this one a hundred times. The original stain kept bleeding through. I have found that on some extremely old pieces that will happen. Sometimes they have had some water damage and that makes them bleed.

I painted it a really pretty aqua, distressed it and when I glazed it, it made the paint start peeling off for some reason. Uh Oh! I was half way through glazing so I couldn't stop then. The longer the glaze sat on it the more the paint peeled off.

So I decided the only thing I could do was move fast. It was the fastest I ever glazed before. Once I was finished it still looked really good. Yes, it was maybe a little more distressed than I thought it was going to be due to the paint peeling off, but it turned out to be a really sweet little table.

In the beginning, when I started a project, I would have a vision of what it would look like in the end and I would freak out if things went wrong. I am starting to learn that things happen. Paint doesn't always look the way it did in the can. Glaze can turn your paint pink. Paint can glob up and you have to start over. I've learned you just have to roll with it, and sometimes (most of the time) the project turns out better than I thought.

Leave well enough alone

I got this cute little round vintage table at a garage sale for a song. It was an ugly, orangey (is that a word?) brown.

I mixed a up a pretty turquoise paint, did several coats, distressed it and it looked pretty good. Then I thought maybe I should distress a spot right on the top in the middle. I rubbed and not much happened so I rubbed a bit more.

A HUGE chunk just peeled off. Ugh!!

So here's my pretty little table with the ugly orangey brown showing right through the top. So I tried to cover it up with some paint. No luck, how about a little more paint? You could still see it. So I had to redo the entire top of it all over again.

Like I said, every project that I do has some element of disaster to it. Some are large and some are small. I have so many projects where the piece looks great, but I think I need to tweak it here or there and that's when things go awry.

I need to just leave things alone.

Anyway, the table turned out really cute, and a nice lady bought it. I forgot to take a before picture (again!). So here's the after.

Little twin tables

The next two pieces came from garage sales. One was $2 and one was $4. I painted them both with chalk paint, distressed them, and they looked boring. I decided to use a dark wax on these and it was exactly what they needed.