Yard Sale Haul!

My favorite yard sale in the world happened this weekend.  It’s at a little church down the street from my house. I went to nursery school there when I was little and my daughter went there, too.  So, I already love it for the nostalgia of it and the fact that some of the money I spend goes to the school.

But, what I really love about it is that there are always a few gems in the furniture section!  I’m not joking AT all when I say I look forward to this every year.  As soon as the leaves start to sprout on the trees, I start my vigil for the giant Yard Sale sign they put up a week before.  When the sign goes up, I do a little victory dance in my car.  It’s super cool.

Here’s what I nabbed this weekend:

mirrorgraybefore

 

This was my first purchase of the day.  I saw it and thought that’s a huge mirror from the ’80’s.  I want it now.  The lovely yard sale volunteer lady said $15 and I said, SOLD!  Master of negotiation.  Then my eyes fell upon this:

coffeetabl

Holy mid century, Batman!  Practically before I finished saying SOLD about the mirror, I asked how much for the coffee table.  $10.  Here’s what I said, “That’s perfect, that’s exactly how much money I have!”  Then I looked at my two kids and said, “Don’t worry, guys, I’ll take out some more money and we’ll come back and get you some stuff”.  The lady looked at me and said, “Why don’t we say $5 for the coffee table?”  Yes, that’s right, the yard sale lady negotiated the price down for me.  So, I got the table and the mirror for $20!  Score!  So happy!

I ended up having to leave to get a bigger car to haul the stuff home, so I got some more money anyway.  Thank God.  Because when I came back to get the kids their goodies, I found these:

lamp

Two lamps for $10!  They are a little not cute right now, but even if I just spray paint them white, they will be a nice base for the shades I bought on clearance at Target months ago for my bedroom.

So, what do you do with these crazy finds?  The coffee table is in great shape, two tiny nicks and I love the tone of the wood, so it doesn’t need much.  I gave it a good cleaning (and I have a secret ingredient for getting the wood back to a nice lustre and I bet you have it in your pantry!):

coffeetabletext

Step 1:  Clean the wood.  I used Murphy’s Oil Soap because I was hoping it would add a little moisture back to the wood.  It’s hard to tell from the first picture which is pre-cleaning, but the table was a looking a lot dusty and a little dried out.  The Murphy’s Oil Soap did a great job cleaning the wood.  There were layers of what I am pretty sure was mid century modern cigarette smoke that needed to be removed.  It was clean, but still looking a little parched.

Step 2: Drizzle a little olive oil on the wood.  No, I haven’t copy and pasted a line from a recipe inadvertently.  I splashed a little bit of olive oil on the top of the table and buffed it in with some cheese cloth.  It left the table with a beautiful sheen.  I wouldn’t do this on furniture that has a thick top coat of poly, but I think this table only has a stain on it, so it absorbed the oil.  It really made a huge difference and it looks gorgeous.  I want to add a rug under it so bad!

oliveoil

As for the mirror, I’ve started a little project inspired by a decoupaged mirror on My Clever Nest.  Here’s a sneak peek:

mirrorsneakpeak

I want to tell you it will be done tomorrow, but I’m not really a deadline person, so when it’s done, you’ll be the first to know!

Linking up to:

The DIYer’s Link Party

 

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