Desperate Measures

So last week, we get done shopping at our usual thrifts, head downtown to our favorite eats, and find out they won’t be open for another 45 minutes due to something or other.  Well, now what?  Luckily, or unluckily, you decide, one of our least favorite thrift stores is around the corner from our chosen restaurant.  We never BUY anything here, as we are waaay too cheap and they are waaay too expensive, but we almost never fail to find a plethora of bad things to take photos of.  You would think this would make it top our list, but if we have no chance of finding a goodie, the store is dead to us!

We will start off with a couple things from our usual haunts, and then head out.  First off, this:

Huh?  I do not get this whole concept.  It’s lumpy, ugly, and has a big old bow on the front.  See:

Even if it were crusted with barnacles and found on the sea floor, the archeologists might throw it back as a bad deal.  It’s a waste of clay and green paint that could have been used for something better, like sewer tile!

We had to laugh at this purse:

It can’t seem to decide if it wants to be a beach bag, or Las Vegas hooker bag.  Whoever thought gold would be a good idea on a nice straw tote, has spent way too much time in LA or someplace equally as silly.  On the bright side (pun intended?), if you get lost at the beach, you can use it to flash out SOS messages to the rest of your group.

This falls under the category of one of everything:

A cupid, a pink swan, a planter, and Venus de Milo.  You get the picture.  Normally, we love little Made in Japan figures, but this one wouldn’t even perk up a pink bathroom.  Too bad when they broke his arm, they didn’t go just a bit further.

OK, on to the next store.  This just had us rolling:

We are thinking these are about the dumbest dogs in history, if they can be that interested in a duck DECOY.  They probably point at the mailman, lick the burglar, and bite the family members.  Either that, or they are getting together to plot something really evil for the stupid schmuck who made them pose that way.  They do look like they might be having a good old gossip session: “Did you hear about Ethel?  She thinks real ducks are made of wood.”

We did get a kick out of this rocking chair, although it started out its life as a regular side chair:

It’s a dead giveaway, when it still has the ball feet.  Take a look at it from the side:

It’s a marriage that has lasted for many years, as this was probably done ages ago, judging from the finish.  Probably would still be better for a peaceful divorce, but the chair is not much anyway.  The small maple rocker you can just glimpse to the left of this one was much better, and priced better too.  Things that make you go Hmmmmm.

In the same store we found where all the ugly lamps in the world go to die:

Here is a another view:

I don’t know where to begin.  The yellow drippy glaze? The big brass weapon of death?  Yet another southwest reject?  Actually, we did have a clear winner:

The fruit basket from hell.  Seriously ugly lamp here.  I am pretty sure some alien disguised himself by painting all the bumps on his body orange and yellow and spent the rest of his life spying on the Earthlings and sending back reports.  This is another case where you better hope the lamp shade has fringe that hangs clear down to the table, or just pray the bulb is always burned out.

We hope the lamp didn’t reside in the same home as this overdone chaise lounge:

Wait, maybe the fringe could hide the lamp?  I know in my house the fringe would be considered a cat toy.  Perhaps some well-placed shredding would be a boon.  If it were only red, it would add some real class to your basic bordello.  I think it would take a brave woman indeed to swoon onto this.  The divan would always outdo the diva in drama.

We did find a hidden gem in this store.  Too bad the price was so crazy, as Deb fell pretty hard for it:

It’s a terrific mid-century modern whatsis.  OK, they had it marked as a credenza, but we are having a discussion of its use over here in our family.  I think it could be nifty as an entertainment center, or great in a hall.  My dad thinks it could be a cool dresser. Whatever it is, we thought it had great lines.  (By the way, the large white thing on the end is NOT part of it, just sitting on top.)  It had this tag:

Do a quick Google search on Renzo Rutili and you will find some amazing furniture.  The price could be about right, although condition was not perfect.  It had a good mark:

And the hardware was awesome:

Overall, we loved it, but you all know how cheap we are, so there it sits.  We hate when we find a goodie that we can’t drag home to brag about.  We can only afford the dreck in this store, so we can only go when we are absolutely desperate.

The moral of the story is: Feed us on time, or we are forced to shop in bad thrift stores!

Don’t forget to enter our leather frame giveaway–the drawing will be tomorrow evening!  It’s open to everyone, so leave a comment here or on our Facebook page.  AND check out our Etsy store if you haven’t already.  The link is up under the ugly bunny on our blog’s home page.