Today I Went Shopping In My House for Tomorrow’s Garage Sale

I’m taking a break from getting ready to do another garage sale, this time at my sister-in-law’s house.

I’ve written before about how to have a successful garage sale, so I thought I’d jot down a few notes about what I’m doing today.

I had several things left over from our last sale, so all of those items have already been schlepped over to my sister-in-law’s house. That gives me a good start, but frankly much of that stuff is crapola, so if I got $20 for everything that’s already there I’d be surprised. If that was all I had to sell I wouldn’t bother schlepping.

Now you may be thinking, “But she just had a sale a few weeks ago. How much more crap can she have?”

Oh my. A lot, it turns out.

Over the past few days I’ve gone shopping in my own house. I’ve gone from room to room, selecting things I may like, but am ready to let go of. I went through the junk drawers and got rid of lots of junk, either in the trash or in a box destined for the garage sale. I also found a light bulb for our refrigerator, which was serendipitous because we just had one burn out a few days ago. I have no memory of the bulb burning out before this week, but it must have since I found a 2-pack with one missing. Good thing I looked, otherwise Husband would have made a trip to Home Depot tomorrow and I’d have two 2-packs with one missing from each.

Even though we just went through our drawers and closets a few weeks ago, we’ve done it again. I don’t know about you all, but I often am willing to let go of things on a second or third pass that I wasn’t willing to let go of on a prior pass. Ergo another pile of clothing sits ready to make the crosstown trek very, very early tomorrow.

Husband was supposed to go to my father-in-law’s airplane hanger, where we’d stored the last garage sale’s leftovers, and take them to his sister’s. Since I was already in the area I went and did that, while he went and took everything out of the closet we have under the stairs.

I hate that closet. While it’s great to have the extra storage in our closet-deprived home, Son and our dog are the only ones who can walk upright through the door or stand on anything but one’s knees. As a result it gets cleaned out only once every few years. One of the things that’s stored in there is my old PC – the one I bought less than a year before Husband moved in and declared us a MAC only household (well, at least until I got my laptop). It’s now eight years old, and though we were thinking of saving it and putting it in Son’s room when we move, at this point I think it’s time to just let it go. Sure, I didn’t get my money’s worth out of it, but you have to know when to cut your losses. Now it’s a frugal blunder AND clutter. Bub-bye!

Also going from under the stairs is a huge box of candles we’ve not opened in six years, some baskets, photo frames from my old office and crafts I’ll never do. I also cleaned out some junk boxes (methinks I have two many areas in my home whose first name is “junk”), and culled the rolls of gift wrap (which I keep in a kitchen-size garbage pail). Lots of recycling, lots of garage sale treasures. Do we know how to have fun or what?

Next I went through the drawers in all of the nightstands in the house. Heck, we may as well call them junk drawers, too. I have lots of half-used boxes of stationery, a few old hand-held games and piles of miscellaneous crap. More for the garage sale, more for the garbage.

Ahhh, I’m feeling good.

I almost forgot to look under the beds. Husband’s old drafting table lives under one, my grandmother’s antique headboard and footboard under the other. Which one do you think is going?

While I clean out my makeup and toiletry drawer (don’t we all get those great gift bags with a to-die-for eyeshadow but lipstick in such an awful color we wouldn’t even use it to write “flick me” on a sleeping drunk at a party?) I ask Husband to go through his desk. I come away with a box of treasures, he comes away with a pencil.

Sigh.

Things are well in hand. Then I take another walk through the house, my goal being to take ten more items from every room to sell at the garage sale. Our Eiffel Tower clock has chimed it’s last minuit. The kitchen was easy – I just opened the utensil drawer and removed everything I’d not touched in the last three years. Except the Mickey Mouse egg forms. Son will love them. But at least now I remember that I have them.

I have Son’s toys to go through and then I’ll call it a night. Tomorrow morning I’ll get up before the crack of dawn, go through the house and find five more things to sell and head on over. We always have such great fun, and I’ll be exhausted at the end of it. I’ve limited myself to one box coming back into the house, as I always throw a few things in the box with the disclaimer, “if I get the price I want I’ll sell, otherwise back it comes”. One box. That’s it. The rest will go to Women in Distress.

And on Sunday I’ll start collecting things for the next garage sale. We’re going to be doing a two-weekend sale at my Dad’s after he decides what he’s taking to the new condo. Whoppee!

Advertisement