November 2010 – Bless Your Heart

Saturday I had a yard sale. Our new house is a little smaller than our old house. We’re losing our eat in kitchen and our bonus room. Funny though, the new house feels so much bigger and the space seems better planned. Anyway, we had to do some serious paring down.

I tell ya, yard sales are hard work. But it really does pay off. CSP & I got up at the crrrrack of dawn to put everything out on the driveway. We had for sale our red sofa, armchair, ottoman, coffee table, tv stand, farm dining room table, tv armoire, dresser with mirror, clothes/tv armoire, and 4 tables full of various other household items. I made a few signs and put an ad on Craigslist. Let me tell you how I saved money on my signs. After an election all the signs are supposed to be taken down within a certain amount of time. So I went around Tuesday night after the election and helped 5 of the candidates with their signs. I wrote all the information on neon poster board then stapled my posters to the election signs. Those things are great! No worrying about if the tape you use will stick to the stop sign all night. Zoe rode around with me when I placed my signs out late Friday night.

Saturday morning people started arriving EARLY. Far too early for my tastes. Gigi arrived to help me with the sale. We had a lot of fun and were both really pleased with the results. We got rid of everything that I wanted to and were only left with 2 boxes of things that I’ll donate.

Yard sale customers crack me up! Here are some of the funny things that happened at my sale:

Gigi brought hot chocolate. $1 a cup. 3 different people tried to make off with her paper cups! People would happily hand over $1 for a cup of hot chocolate but fight me before paying $1 for a book or candle holder.
I spent hours pricing each item yet every single person would pick up an item with a price tag on it and say “How much do you want for this?”
Once the sun started rising it became painfully obvious that our sofa, chair, and ottoman had seen MUCH better days. So I made FREE signs and posted them on each piece. Zoe had done most of her teething on the armchair and tv armoire so I only asked $25 for the armoire. We paid over $200 for it at IKEA. People would open the doors of the armoire and comment about how it didn’t have a back wall. Of course not! It was made for big TVs so there was no back. If tv armoires came with backs and you tried to put an old CRT tube tv in it you’d have to remove the back. But no one seemed to understand that so I ended up giving away the armoire for free.
I forgot to bring out an extension cord so people could test out electric appliances. People would hold up or point to an appliance ( I sold a toaster, microwave, espresso maker, electric skillet, etc.) and ask “Does this work?” I’d say yes and that was the end of it. money would be exchanged. Trusting people. They’re lucky I’m honest. I’m sure some people will sell broken things.
People will buy ANYTHING. I sold a paint chip fan I got for free from Sherwin Williams for $3. I sold empty cardboard boxes. EMPTY CARDBOARD BOXES.
Gigi about got into a fight with a couple of Russian women who wanted to pay just $10 for the chandelier that had been hanging in our dining room. It worked perfectly. It was priced at $25 which was a bargain. The ladies would talk to each other in Russian then turn to us and say “Ten dollars”. Gigi would say “Twenty dollars”. Russian, Russian, Russian. Then “NO, TEN dollars”. They went back and forth for a while until I thought Gigi would rather run over the chandelier with her car before selling it to them. We ended up selling it for $20.
One of the neighborhood boys came by with a bunch of his friends. They were all on skateboards. Is this chair really free? Yep. Free like no money? Yep. Then they ran away. They came back a little later and asked if they could have the chair. I said yes and they conferred. DUDE, I can get that chair for free then I can sell it for $10 and get that game I want! And the ottoman has storage! They were so excited! I said “You make sure your mama is ok with this because she was over here earlier and didn’t mention wanting this chair”. L assured me that things were ok. The boys loaded up the chair and ottoman (with storage!) on their skateboards and rolled the furniture across the street, much to the amusement of all the yard sale shoppers. It was SO cute!
At 10 am I marked everything half price. At noon I tweeted and declared that if you could get to the house by 1am then they could have anything they wanted free. People started showing up in droves. One woman from the neighborhood came by and asked us to hold 2 furniture pieces for her while she went to get her husband. He showed up first with their SUV so Gigi & I jumped on the opportunity and started loading the SUV up with all sorts of stuff, just to get rid of it. The dude’s eyes were huge! So funny!
Another lady showed up wanting the sofa and tv stand. She went to get her husband and they showed up on foot. I told them they could back a truck up into the driveway. They said they didn’t have a truck and that they just lived a few houses down the street. So they showed up with a hand truck, turned the sofa on its end, strapped it to the dolly and wheeled it down the middle of the street! Such a sight!

I am so pleased with how the sale went. Some people are anti-yard sale but let me tell you, moving is expensive and it’s great to have some extra cash. And it’s a great way to meet your neighbors. One lady walked up eating a plate of cheese grits and eggs!