Monday, April 21, 2008

Trash or Treasure?

For the last two Saturdays, Hubs has kept me busy organizing and pitching stuff. There have been several things that we've held on to for years, but finally pried our grubby little fingers off them. Better said, I. I have a thing for old stuff that looks ratty, but I know has value. I like old stuff. even if my blessed husband isn't into it.

1. A solid wood bookcase that someone had painted, we had partially stripped and has been mocking us from the garage ever since. It was free to us. The person that gave it to us bought it at a garage sale several years ago, always intending to strip. Got tired of the mocking and thus, its arrival in our garage.

2. A huge old stained glass window from our church just after we graduated college. They had added on to the building and removed a wall of windows for the addition. Members could buy the old windows that the church was tired of storing. We did. At the time I lived in an old Victorian farmhouse. I always had hoped we could hang it in one of our windows. (Apparently Hubs thought I meant for him to replace a window with that window, thus the reason he always fought me on it. I just meant to hang it in front of the existing window. Though, frankly, it is probably a better window than the ones we currently have.)

3. An old sewing box I bought at an antique store. Used for years. Have now decided to store my stuff elsewhere. The box has seen better days and I'm just not that attached to it anymore.

And quite a lot of other stuff.

Our youth group had a garage sale this weekend to earn money for camp. They came by for our stuff. They looked at me like I may be crazy. I told them they didn't have to take our stuff, it was their choice. Tidy Town is in a couple weeks and I'd put it on the curb then. They took it. To the right buyer, you might get $10, you know?

I don't know what happened with the bookshelf. Hopefully a refinishing type person got it. But my window, which Hubs and his friend wondered why I thought anyone would buy, sold for $30! I just needed to know that someone loved that window and bought it, and either my friends are lying, or someone loved it and bought it. I'm going to try to not watch antique roadshow for a while so I don't know what she could sell it for.

The sewing box was pitched after the sale. Hubs put it on the curb with a desk topper in case someone driving by might want it. The topper is still on the curb, the sewing box is gone. Love it well, my friend.

I knew I had good junk. Hubs may never agree on the inherent value of old beat up stuff, but someone out there likes it like I do.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Have you seen my basement? Of course not. It's my dirty little secret. Old furniture. Items in various degrees of "refinishing". There's even a shower stall.

When are they having another garage sale?