Vintage of the Day - Ever Been to an Estate Sale? Or Pay WAY less for everything

Every Friday, Jim (husband) and I go to estate sales.

An estate sale is a house - full of stuff and the owners have passed away or moved somewhere significantly smaller. The sale is usually 2 or 3 days over a weekend. Basically? It's a fire sale, so stuff is cheap. An estate sale company will price it, advertise and host the sale. People wait in line to get in. The die hard dealers are always first in line. Even if it means spending the night before.

Most estates are dated. Insides are 70's, 80's or 90's in style. Right now, homes with 80's and 90's decor are plentiful. Yesterday's estate was no exception. It's late 80's early 90's decor gives it away.

What can you buy?

Usually everything is for sale. From the furniture to cupboards, cleaning supplies, even toilet paper.

You can see above, everything in this living room was for sale. Tip off to late 1980's or early 90's? LUCITE. It's popular on the secondary market so no surprise the table was already sold. Notice the couch really isn't dated. It's very classic and could still be used today (as long as it's in exceptional condition).

A table of knick knacks, dishes, silver, plates, figurines. Plenty of books. I bought one of my favorite books of all time and it's a first edition. I paid $2 and can get at least $50 on Ebay. . I started reading it again last night.

So perfect for the time. Funky chairs and a frosted lucite table. This table was also SOLD. Pianos are notoriously hard to sell. If the general public understood how many were out there and how many are for sale, no one would ever buy new.

More LUCITE! Notice the tray on the table too. It's a lucite extravaganza!

Lucite hanging pendant lamp!

Tell tale signs of the period. Metallic wallpaper and a sort of decorative wall hanging? Ugggh.

I liked this table. I'm not in the market for furniture and it doesn't match my style but still kind of cool. That's my husband Jim waiting for me. I always take longer to look than him. To the left you will see a shelf. You can put things on it to free your hands up while shopping but use caution. I once had a piece taken from a shelf like that. Dealers can be awful and unnecessarily greedy so if it's something you really want, don't leave it there.

What did I buy? Vintage jewelry, vintage sunglasses, vintage hand towels and a few other odds and ends. There are plenty of secrets to estate or tag sales. Want to know what they are? Follow me and I'll tell you.