Estate Sale Finds Feb. 4, 2015

I was excited to find a couple of Estate sales this past weekend.  I haven't been to any in awhile and sometimes I just need to paw through someone else's junk.  It's the thrill of the hunt - you just never know what you might find, right.

We went to 2 sales where we didn't buy a thing and I was getting discouraged.  I hate it when I go to estate sales and the prices are practically retail and the sellers don't want to haggle.  Hello, it's an estate sale - price this junk to move!!

The 3rd house was a little better.  Not a ton of stuff but we managed to pick up a few things.  I was digging through a closet and found an old Levi Strauss Jean jacket that was in really nice condition.  It was well worn and soft, with no rips or tears.  It was just really dirty, but nothing that a good soak and run through the washer wouldn't take care of.

Here it is all cleaned up.  I had plans to re-sell it until Chablis tried it on and darn it, but it fit her perfectly.  It's now hanging in her closet....  How rude is that???

After finding the jean jacket we headed down to the basement.  Louie was digging through a pile of outside Christmas decorations and found a leather bomber jacket laying under some strings of lights.   He motioned me over and I took one look at it and wrinkled my nose.  It was filthy!  It looked horrible.  I shook my head no, tossed it onto a table, and turned my attention to a box of wooden ornaments.   There was a lot of crappy ornaments but I managed to pick out a few nice wooden ones which I am selling....

Isn't this one great?  He was my favorite.  I was tempted to keep him but I'm going to list him for sale...

I get very irritated at some people at estate sales.  While I was going through the box of ornaments another woman came up next to me and kept trying to get her hands into the box.  Really?  She couldn't wait until I was finished?  I grabbed the box and moved away from her.  Idiot.

A little porcelain Santa bell....

This elf stole my heart but he's also headed to my Etsy shop...

I don't know why I bought this plastic rocking chair because it's in pretty rough shape but if someone wanted to paint it and remove the hanging string, it would look cute in a doll house...

Once I finished with the ornaments I turned around and took a second look at that leather Bomber jacket.  It had no rips or tears and I noticed that it was a Wilson Leather jacket, which is a pretty nice brand.  I added it to my arm with the Jean jacket and decided to see what the seller wanted for both of them.

I also found a Silk Tabasco tie to add to my pile....

The seller at this house was way more interested in eating his box of chocolate chip cookies than taking money.  Now that's my kind of seller.  We did a little haggling and came up with a lump price for everything. I went home and removed the lining from the Leather jacket and ran it through the washing machine.  Then I got some leather cleaner out and went to work on the bomber jacket.  Holy crap - this thing cleaned up  nice!!  It's now up for sale in my EBAY shop.  I have to say that Louie's eye is definitely improving on things to look for at estate sales.  **  UPDATE - this leather jacket already sold!

After we got home I was back online and noticed an estate sale in Chicago that I had missed earlier.  We decided to get  up early the next morning and head into Chicago to check it out.  Since it was the last day of the sale everything was marked down by 50%.  Don't you just love that???

We picked up a couple of things.  Chablis found this strawberry treat tin and a Chicago milk bottle.....

The graphics and green color on this tin are awesome and Chablis added it and this whiskey jug to her collection.  Photos were taken before she cleaned everything up.  I'm totally bummed out that she got her hands on that tin first....

I also picked up a Chicago milk jug for my collection and this green potato ricer...

The green on this is fabulous and the masher is heavy duty and in really good shape.  It's headed to my shop as well.

The Chicago estate sale was in a fabulous house.  It had 3 floors crammed with stuff and the people who lived there obviously had money.  The walls inside were inlaid with gorgeous stained glass that stretched from floor to ceiling.  They also must have been hunters because one room had over 25 stuffed big game animals in it - some of them full size  - bears, buffalo, lions, elk, deer, caribou.   It was amazing.  One whole room was an indoor swimming pool with skylights overhead and plants growing all around.  The back of the house had a huge greenhouse.  A lot of the rooms had giant elaborate wood cabinets with hundreds of drawers that were crammed full of crocheted doileys and candles in every size, shape and color that you could think of.   And there were hundreds of dolls everywhere you looked.  It was fun to walk though the house and just look at everything.  Unfortunately, even at 50% off, most of the stuff was out of my price range.  But it still made for a fun morning.