Estate Sales - Green Onion Vintage

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It’s always bittersweet entering an estate sale.
It’s a little like making a quilt, cutting up a collection that in the best cases has been carefully and selectively put together over time by an individual, a couple.

It’s their history, their cohesiveness, their choices, the building blocks of their fort.
And the better the job of it, the better the stuff.

So, we enter with care, and we marvel at what they built, and what they no longer need because circumstances have changed.

Largely, going through someone’s effects like this is interesting. So interesting–multi-layers of their lives as the family evolves. Now, I don’t have a museum in my basement, too many have called it home and kept it current. But to many, the underground bunker becomes a collection of their past, the furniture outgrown, the inheritance they couldn’t wait to get rid of, the sixties, the forties, the twenties.

I love the basements. Even the half-filled paint cans and the greasy tools on that workbench that would make an unbelievable kitchen island. There are almost always chairs, trunks, holiday decor, craft supplies, toys, and in the case of my most recent find, a jelly cabinet sitting imprisoned like the daughter of the king in that low-ceilinged, gray painted cubicle, waiting, just waiting through the generations for liberation. How my friends did struggle to bring her to light!

I remember one home in a nice neighborhood which had evidently belonged to a doomsday prepper. Once we got past the surveillance cameras (I bought a great pair of binoculars), the basement looked like a grocery-salvage store. There was enough packaged food to last through a zombie apocalypse. Or two. The hours he must have spent to stock those basement shelves. And the sad point–not lived long enough to need any of it.

The saddest thing, and what I dislike the most, and love the most is when the surviving spouse is at the sale watching it all go away. One gentleman told me, “That can is what they used to deliver my wife’s cocoa in. She made the best chocolate cake.” I was holding the can like a puppy about to be adopted. We both stared at it. “I’ll take good care of it,” I said. I still think of him. He was brave.

The most haunting memory–as I paid for some pieces of blue and white china I felt eyes on me. There she was, Grandma in the corner. I hadn’t noticed her before now. She watched me buy the china–her china, as if I was taking something steeped in memories, something precious. I smiled at her and she looked away and my heart wrenched a little. I made up scenarios in my mind of her husband bringing it home in his duffel bag to surprise her after WWII, or I? That good-bye look on her sweet face. All the memories tied up in that barn sale–everything a bookmark in her life.

Re-purposing. Re-cycling. Re-selling. It’s fair game. Bringing it home, like a quilt square, added to the pattern, to the quilt I am making, the folded corners of the pages of my life, the little stories attached to each thing, buoys in the journey, the trek through this life, temporary. And telling. The roots we put down, and those who put them down with the greatest intention, those are the sales we never forget–and my sale will be unforgettable.

Green Onion Vintage

If you appreciate rustic decor or have a love for vintage finds, this video is a perfect match for you. It’s not often that I find a collection of some of my favorite antique and vintage items to thrift, but this one had it all!

Here are 3 things I am always on the lookout for when estate sale shopping:

Rustic Wood Pieces:
- Wood antique table leaves, tossed-away wooden cutting boards with dings and scratches, old handmade boxes, weathered rolling pins, busted drawers, unique frames, wobbly stools and step ladders. These pieces are my favorite items to turn from trash to treasure. Sometimes I embellish them with a wreath, other times I add paint or oil and an Iron Orchid Design transfer or stencil. My favorite combination is old wood with black script and I love turning an old busted window into a chalkboard.
Antique Crocks, Pottery, Ironstone:
- There’s nothing more charming to me than a chunky antique crock. I have several of all sizes and I range from seeking out brand name collectibles and unmarked pieces with little value. While some people will turn away at any ding or crack, I love those pieces all the more. Pair a crock or handmade mug with a simple greenery sprig and you’ve given new life to a piece full of character. I always have an eye out for Ironstone pitchers and platters, though the asking prices will typically determine whether I purchase or not.
Rusty Crusty Kitchen Scales:
- I have a small but growing collection of kitchen scales and they are some of my favorite pieces in my home. I felt extremely luck to snag the 2 scales that I purchased in the video above. I plan on keeping the green scale and selling the larger hanging scale—I simply can’t keep everything! What is it that I love about them? Possibly the combination of colors: the black and white dial with a pop of color on the body of the scale. The scales residing in my kitchen are a rusted green, a perfectly distressed red, and a chippy black.