Last Saturday I had plans to get up early and hit a couple of estate sales. But as so often happens with me, I chose to sleep in instead. (If only they held estate sales at night…I could make a midnight start time much easier than an 8am one.) Still, once I was up I…
Secondhand Finds
French Chair Makeover
I’m a procrastinator of the worst kind. Sometimes that gets me into trouble, and sometimes it works out okay. This was one of the okay times. Months ago I bought three yards of this buffalo check fabric to recover my dining room chairs and then never got around to doing it. When I found these…
Estate Sale Linens and Some Weekend Links
A while back I mentioned that I had fallen in love with hemstitch linens. Now that they’re on my radar, I notice them everywhere. Pottery Barn carries them. So does Restoration Hardware, Ballard Designs, and even Nieman Marcus. But hemstitch linens are a classic, which means I often see them at estate sales too. Yesterday I made a quick…
Secondhand Prints for the Master Bedroom
Master bedrooms get ignored. That’s been my experience anyway. I tend to focus on the more public parts of the house. And then the kids’ bedrooms come next. But I’m trying to give our bedroom a little more attention. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised when these four framed prints that I found at an…
Vintage Dairy Jars
Aren’t the simplest things always the best? It started with an impulse purchase of three vintage dairy jars near the checkout of an estate sale. They weren’t the kind of thing I would usually buy, but I loved the look and feel of them. They seemed like a connection to the days of a milkman…
Snow Days and French Chairs
On Tuesday we got slammed with snow. A foot of it. Grant was out of school from Tuesday until Thursday. Lindsey and her roommates got a couple of snowdays at KU. And even Tom came home early to work from home on the day the snow hit. It’s almost unheard of for Tom to alter…
Estate Sale Finds: Procrastination Edition
It’s already a month into the new year and my to-do list is as long as my arm: do our taxes, shampoo the carpets, clean out my office, and on it goes… So of course I’ve been estate sale shopping instead. And rather than just bring my little finds home and get down to work, I’ve…
Secondhand Finds: Florida Edition
I said I had learned my lesson about buying heavy things while traveling. But the week after Christmas we visited my parents in Florida and my mom took me to an antique mall near where they live. When I spotted this lamp I knew I couldn’t leave it behind. I fell hard for the colors and the…
Little Thrifted Picture Frames
There’s something special about little picture frames. I used to have wallet-sized hospital pictures of my babies in tiny silver frames in my bedroom. They weren’t real silver, they were Kmart’s version of silver, but they made me really happy when I caught sight of them. The frames aren’t there anymore because my then 4th…
Naperville, Pretty Houses and Resale Shop Plates
From October, 2011: Last week I attended the Financial Blogger Conference in Chicago (or Schaumburg to be more specific). After it was over, I gave myself the gift of an extra day and a half in the Windy City, because I love that place. On Sunday afternoon, I hit up IKEA and then took a…
