…and babe won’t it be fine!
Modern Marthas is going to be taking a little hiatus and I wanted to give you a heads up.
I am so excited about the future. I’ve got some AWESOME projects in the works, more thrifty finds, a new venture to share, AND soon your eyes will be gracing a new and improved blog.
So stay tuned… I will relaunch when the new site is in place!
🙂 Jen
An estate sale. The holy grail of yard sales and the easiest way to get quality items at awesome deals. I visited one last weekend that literally may have been the best thrifty find outing EVER.
Ever been to one? Much like a yard sale, home owners are trying to get rid of their stuff. However, estate sales usually offer more of a fire sale situation. The home owners need to get ALL of their stuff out of the house in one foul swoop. Sometimes professional estate sale representatives from a management company are hired to oversee the sale. They call the shots in this case, not the homeowner.
So what was scored this time? So much my friends, so much for so little.
Check out this really cool old mustard yellow side table that was a mere $17.
Look familiar? It’s the same mid-century modern style as the stereo console! Black legs and all. Such luck. We still needed something to hold our record player so it was PERFECT. Except… well, I tested it out in my studio as a sewing machine table:
It’s got storage and everything.
I’m not sure if it’s going to make its way into the living room now 😉
What else? Some photography equipment! As it turns out, I happened to be raiding the house of a retiring professional photographer. Check this stuff out:
Clearly, there’s not enough room for it all in my little studio nook. Haha.
Did you happen to see the computer in the room? Well, that was the photographer dude’s desktop CPU as well. I am here to tell you, the photography equipment AND the computer only cost $50 total. Granted, the computer needed some work, but it was wayyy worth it.
TIPS
Pay special attention to estate sales in older neighborhoods. The homeowners tend to have vintage furniture and/or accessories there. Sometimes you can find stuff right under your nose that would sell for 5 times as much at an antique store!
Attend estate sales twice in one day. Once in the first couple of hours it is open to check it out. Is it worth your time? THEN come back in the last hour of the event and expect the prices to be super discounted. Disclaimer: of course you risk losing something you saw in the beginning, so get the must-haves in the first visit of the day. But trust me on this, the 2nd time I visited this most recent estate sale, they were yelling “half off everything” at me as I walked in the door.
Happy estate sale shopping 🙂
Share your finds with me! I’d love your comments and experiences.
Remember how I mentioned while on vacay last week we did a little yard sale stalking and thrift shopping?
Well, the hubs’ obsession with LPs has come to full fruition.
Check out the newest addition, courtesy of a yard sale, in its new place on top of the china cabinet:
It’s pretty rugged (and by rugged I mean dirty and rusty…), see?
But I love the pop of color and the unlikely item as decor. Functional yet funky.
And did I mention that my favorite color is red?!
Break (v): To interrupt or cease an activity; an interruption or a disruption in continuity or regularity: an escape.
And quite an escape was had. I took 5 days off of work as we celebrated our anniversary last week. Two years ago, these kids got hitched.
Two years … I can’t believe it! The recessional song we chose at our wedding was “The Best is Yet to Come” by the dear Frank Sinatra, and so true that phrase is.
The first part of our week we stayed local, relaxed and did some fun activities like thrift shopping and hitting up yard sales…and sleeping in. Then we took off on a spontaneous getaway.
We went to Naples & Marco Island on our honeymoon and absolutely fell in love with it, so we decided to revisit that special place.
Frankie even came too, it was a family affair!
This was the view from our resort hotel room balcony:
We stayed at Naples Bay Resort and it was fabulous. Did I mention that we got a couples massage and rented a cabana by the luxurious pool & lazy river? Yup.
Well, I’m back to the ol’ grind after a nice week off and I’ve got some new posts comin’ your way.
Here’s to vacations. Take one sometime soon, you’ll thank me. Everybody needs one 🙂
This is definitely my fave thrift store furntiture project to date.
The hubs and I got this sweet vintage stereo console at our favorite thirft store, Nettie’s Thrift and Consignment in WPB:
Look how cool this thing is. Original radio & turn table in tact. Honestly, it could have been left well alone and it would be awesome in it’s original essence, but I decided to repurpose it to work perfectly with our space.
The console would be used to store our DVD player, cable box, PS3, record player, etc. under the TV. We were using this set up before, another thrifty find, but it just didn’t hold that all we needed it to and we ended up stacking stuff on and around it:
See? No bueno. I like things neat and organized!
So, first things first with this baby.
I wanted to make sure to preserve and enhance the vintage feel, so I went with a weathered crackle style finish. To achieve this, all you need to do is buy the crackle glaze, a basecoat paint (optional), and a topcoat paint. I didn’t get a basecoat paint because we wanted to wood to show through instead of another color.
Brush the glaze on AFTER your base color has dried. Or, if you’re just using the original surface as the base like this, you can put it directly on there. Do it pretty quickly, it dries fast.
The insides of the console were removed, with the exception of saving the “telefunken” radio logo. DUH! So cool. That thing is going right back on there.
Some paint colors we tested too. Remember to always get samples FIRST before you commit.
The light robin’s egg/Tiffany blue shade is the color of the season AND it matches our beloved dining table set. Score.
Brush the paint on and as it dries, watch the crackles appear before your very eyes. 
It may not crackle evenly, but to me, a little inconsistency is part of the charm. It also looks pretty cool if some paint streaking or pooling occurs.
Check it out:
When the paint dried, the edges were sanded for an extra weathered touch. The legs were also spray painted black, it added some depth
I looove repurposing stuff, and this distressed finish look is pretty simple to achieve. Give it a try with your next thrift shop piece! 🙂
modernmarthas.wordpress.com 