I'm all thrifty and stuff.

One of my favorite things to do is to flip through the pages of Home Decor magazines and dream. I love this magazine. Everything in it is pretty, pretty, pretty.


I'm also obsessed with reading Home Decor Blogs.
This chick is so gifted it's not even funny. I want a house like hers when I grow up.

Another fun blog to read is Thrifty Decor Chick. Sarah is so funny and - for lack of a better word - thrifty. She seems to have lots of luck finding hidden gems at garage sales and Goodwill and transforming them into something lovely for her home. So, with Sarah and her amazing good luck in mind, I decided to go for it.

I went to Goodwill last week.

I'll be honest with you, it kinda creeped me out.
From the minute I walked in, I felt like my skin was crawling with cooties.

I didn't have any luck finding something cute to paint, repurpose or decoupage. I did, however, find not one, not two, but THREE of these creepy things:

YIKES.

Just remembering it gives me the willies.
Sincerely.

There was also an unexplainable...odor.
Just a random odor.
A Random, freaky odor.

As I forced myself to feign nonchalant perusal, the thought crossed my mind, "Whoa. Glad I'm not pregnant. This could be ugly."

And it almost did when I saw the BRAS for sale.
What the What?!?

I struggled internally with my snobbery for a little bit, but eventually came to the realization that Goodwill just isn't my thing.
If I wasn't sure about it before, I definitely am now.
Definitely.

After my Goodwill...experience... I decided to try another route: Estate Sales.

My friend Maribeth is an Estate Sale veteran. She's been going to Estate Sales since she was a little girl with her thrifty Momma. She introduced me to a website you can go to called www.estatesales.net that lists Estate Sales in your area with pictures.

The pictures are - in my estimation- completely vital.

I've found that Estate Sales can be a little icky too, so looking at the pictures ahead of time helps in determining if a particular one will be a little too icky.

Estate Sales have turned out to be much kinder to me than Goodwill.

Last month I found this:

and this for Avery's room:

I also found this:

and decided to do this:

and hope to make it look like this:

or this:

I also scored a fun Ball jar at an antique store and added some vintage spools of thread that I found at an Estate Sale this month:

And who can resist the sweetest little milk glass lamp for Avery's room? Not me.

My favorite find is this adorable antique rocking chair that I got for $30.
Shut it.

Now I just have to decide to paint or not to paint. What do you think?

My feelings about Estate Sales are mixed. I find them completely fascinating but a little sad as well. It's weird to wander through a stranger's house and dig through their worldly possessions.

You can learn a lot about someone by looking at the stuff they left behind.
I've seen old photographs, wedding dresses, love notes and report cards for sale at Estate Sales.
Personal stuff.
Stuff that once upon a time, someone really cared about.
Stuff that was treasured and saved for years before being sold to strangers for pennies.

I find myself wanting to buy all the old photographs just to rescue them...'cause somebody needs to care about little Suzy's first haircut.

If you're a Christian, it's impossible to go to an Estate Sale and not consider the finality of life. It reminds you that all the stuff you treasure is just...stuff. It's not what really matters and it won't go with you when you leave this earth. One day, someone's going to be haggling over all that stuff that you valued.

And you won't even care.

Just a thought, though: you might want to have somebody trash the medical seats for you before you go, cause evidently, even Goodwill doesn't need any more of those.

Here's the Rundown -
Estate Sales: yes
Garage Sales: maybe
Consignment Sales: sure
Ebay: absolutely
Goodwill: Nope. No way. No how.