Another week, another bit of snow. Now it’s snowing on the tulips! In Colorado the weather just progressively snows on different flowers. That’s how you know it’s spring! Our only complaint about the whole thing is when it puts a kink in our garage sale styling. We had a fun time last week, but it’s still supposed to be chilly for Friday this week, so we will have to resort to estate sales and thrift stores. Luckily, we need very little make us happy. Some old used junk and we are as giddy as schoolgirls. I am going to prove that to you with this post. Almost everything in this post came from one sale that was about as nutty as you can get, and yet, we still had a good time!
The owner of the home was a doctor in town, but we still could not figure out what this chair was for:
If you turned the seat it was adjustable, rather like an old-fashioned piano stool, and there was a piano in the background, but as a piano player myself, I can tell you that arms just get in the way. Perhaps it was a dining chair for the village dwarf? I am hoping it is something benign and not some weirded-out medical thing. If you have a clue, please drop us a comment, as everyone is probably going to want to know. [Deb here. My theory is that it’s medically related. You could raise and lower the seat to put a patient at the correct height. The doctor involved was an ophthalmologist, so he needed to look at eyes, young and old.]
We rather liked this little baby dish:
It was sweet, and any parent knows how long it takes to get a child fed. Keeping the food warm while you are doing it is a boon. That way when they throw it at your face, it is at least warm wet goo, instead of cold clammy goo. We were tickled that they still had the box!
Good ol’ GE Still bringing “Good things to life” Wow, wonder what commercial-ridden dark corner of the mind that came from!
On the other hand, what is up with this?
Normally these huge old deep frames are saved for those slightly creepy hair wreaths, but no, let’s not have something macabre like that, no, let’s have a wreath made of goofy pom-poms. Look close:
I am going to give them an A+ for execution, as the quality of workmanship on this was amazing, but it still raises the question “Why?” At least the hair wreaths had a good reason, and if you read the article, you will find they were not really morbid at all, just a Victorian remembrance thing. Pom-poms, we would just like to forget.
Here we have another nifty appliance:
If you can’t tell, and it took us a bit, so I don’t blame you, it’s a humidifier. Living in CO you get used to a humidity level of about 3%. OK, sometimes it’s a bit higher, like when it is actually snowing, but all winter long you could probably power about three light bulbs at any one time due to the static shocks that course through your body on a regular basis. Even back in the glory days of small appliances, you needed a bit of moisture, and this would have filled the bill.
You also need to keep warm in the winter, and I suppose that is what these were for:
We were just not sure about the added decoration,
I don’t care how many flowers you embroider back there, it is not going to make it smell any sweeter! And pity poor Mom who might have gotten these as a gift and had to wear them!
In the same room with the long johns, we found a good portion of the pig collection:
That’s not to say there were not pigs all over the rest of the house. Heck, next to the pictures of Jesus, porcine portraits were the order of the day. Now I like pigs in small doses, but it never occurred to me to try and paper my wall with pictures of them. This must have been one odd kid. There should have been pictures of David Cassidy or Farrah Fawcett, or something else teenaged normal!
The house had had very little done to it. Example A, take a peek down these stairs:
It was like descending into the pit of the ’70s hell. That orange shag carpet needed a good raking (Remember having to do that?), and if that wallpaper didn’t ruin your eyeballs, nothing would, and you would be tough enough to be a marine!
If the basement didn’t ruin you, take exhibit B, the upstairs bath:
No one should have to face wallpaper like that first thing in the morning. The man of the house probably left his glasses off on purpose, or he would have slit his throat while shaving just in self defense. On top of that, they paired the wallpaper with this floor:
Between the two of them we were feeling a bit dizzy, and lest we forget, check out the pink toilet, tub and sink. All in all it made a bathroom that NO ONE would want to spend too much time in. Seeing as how they seemed to have had several kids, maybe this was on purpose! Saves banging on the door and demanding your turn in the bath. Make it somewhere they WANT to leave.
Not all pink is bad; we did like this vase:
It was absolutely covered in dirt, so they never had it out. Here is a pic of the bottom:
All hand blown, and probably Italian—the nicest piece of glass in the whole house.
Almost everything else was as cheap as possible. They never threw anything out, either. You should have seen how much paper was in there, and not a bit of it worth dragging home. We kept thinking that a big old bonfire might have been the best solution to the whole estate. They tried for three days, and considering the prices they quoted us on the couple of things we did find, we are pretty sure they had most of the stuff on the last day too.
We still had a good time making fun of it all. See, we are easy! We did hit one other estate sale that day and found this:
My dad services fire extinguishers, so these tickle my funny bone, but I had already bought him a brass one last year, so didn’t need it. Who knew there would be more than one style of these? He has it in his shop, and it catches folks off guard all the time, as they look at it thinking it’s a real extinguisher! I guess we are lucky he doesn’t keep it full of martinis.
Wish us luck on both the garage sale front and the snow front. No matter what we will have a good time and report back as usual!
Second Hand Roses 
