Estate Sale SENSORY OVERLOAD

Good morning!

Well, this weekend was a productive one for estate sale-ing. I saw this humdinger listed on Estatesales.net, and while there were a lot of winners in the sale-pool this weekend, this was the only one I found myself crowing to interested co-workers about. "Jamie, you HAVE TO SEE THIS SALE THIS WEEKEND, OH MY GOD," I told one of the women who works in circulation as she came up to switch out the holds carts from behind the nonfiction desk, and she, Evelyn the security guard, and I all gathered around the monitor to take a gander at THIS, people:

It's mid-seventies' Vegas all up in this piece! I was just flabbergasted by the wild-and-out, Elvis-at-Graceland like affinity for crush gold velvet in interior design. I mean, wouldn't you be?! Gold shag carpeting. Gold brocade drapes. This photo is like what the inside of my mind looks like.

So I corralled Sus into going with me, picked her up at 7:10 the next morning, and we drove down to Bellevue....to find out the sale began at 8:00. Rats. One of the listings said 7:30! So we waited thirty minutes in line, as if at an AC/DC concert, to gain entrance to the sale. Most of the other people in line were professional pickers, and Sus and I chatted amiably through the cold and the muckiness of Friday morning until they opened the doors. One guy behind me overheard us talking about Don Rickles guest-hosting The Tonight Show and the clip where Carson comes back and realized Rickles has broken his cigarette box-- tv  MAGIC. The guy in line recommended that we watch comedian Foster Brooks's drunk act on some of the old Dean Martin Roasts (turns out, he's very funny!). We eventually made it to go-time and ran in with the rest of the rabble that morning.

I grabbed these straight from the website, and here are some of the things that I saw:

Oversized, extremely old steamer trunk. I've gotten jealous about these things and thought about getting one ever since another of my coworkers, Doug, mentioned that his ex-wife Patty has an old turn of the century steamer trunk covered in ten's, twenties', and thirties' era destination stamps from all over Europe and the United States. Why, you may ask? What glamorous jet-setter might have once packed her best duds in such a trunk? Oh, just RUTH ETTING. She lived in the same hotel they did in California for awhile in the mid to late seventies' and Doug and his wife became friends of hers. WHY. WHY WAS I BORN IN THE EIGHTIES'. This trunk didn't belong to America's Sweetheart of Song, but it's a real pip of a case nonetheless!

A chair among chairs! This buddy had raised gold and green, tapestry-like print all over the upholstery, and is wider in the seat and taller in the back than it has any right to be. All the furniture in the house is completely CUCKOO, in case you wondering, and this is a pretty prime example.

Another piece that tugs at my heartstrings even now? This 1864 square piano:

Ugh! SO. GORGEOUS. Square pianos are my favorite shape that they come in, and don't you know that is a crying shame because the height of their popularity was about 150 years ago. Meaning...you're not going to find one of these just sitting on the street corner, friends! This was priced at $2,000, but it makes me want to take a loan and get it nonetheless. Look at the legs, for goodness sake!!

I would have bought this bullfighter and senorita painting set in a heartbeat, but they were $75 apiece. They're real oil paintings, not the flat cardboard print kind you used to be able to get at department stores!

You should have seen Sus and I leaping through the house looking for these, and our sincere, sadsack little faces as we realized they were beyond out means. Still! What glamour! What drama! They looked even better in real life!

Another crazy painting. There was not a blank wall in the entire house-- if it wasn't covered in flocked wallpaper, it was hung with pictures and commemorative dishes and knick-knacks. I'm just now seeing that horseshoe under the peacock on the left! Dang. I have peacocks like these painted in white and pink hanging in the pink tile bathroom at my house. That sofa you can see peeking out from the edge of the photo frame was $50, btw. WHY CAN'T I BUY ALL THE SOFAS.

These lamps were sold by the time I got to them (I know I don't need one, but I was impressed at its sale-ability in the first five minutes of the doors being open!), there was another just like this one to complete the pair. Look at the gorgeous base and matching shade!

Kitsch little wall plaques. Does anyone know what these are called? I'm a sucker for the raised plastic style pictures like this. And I love that it's not a set so much as it's just two of the same one.

The bedroom had this K-I-L-L-E-R suite of furniture, all French Provincial-as-done-by-Liberace. See the curio cabinet in the corner? The purple rose bedspread? The gold brocade half-curtains? IF I COULD ONLY HAVE HALF THE CURTAINS IN THIS HOUSE.

We saw not one but TWO chaise longues, in different rooms, but obviously the same models in different colors. Such a wealth of crazy furniture! Neither one looked so dusty in real life, I think the pictures make them look a little shabbier than they were in person. Check out the shag carpeting in either photo.

There were also some for-real antiques mixed in with the kitsch classics. Here's a baby bed that one of the women in line kept talking about before we got into the sale-- it's always weird when you see that another collector in line has a TOTALLY different set of priorities for the sale than you do. It's almost kind of a relief-- "Yay! She doesn't care about the Liberace stuff! I am so raking up!"

Please note the red shag carpet in pristine condition, and the yellow flocked wallpaper. TO DIE. FOR.

So! There's all the news that's fit to print about that Bellevue sale. Sus and I did get some stuff, but I'll have to post about it tomorrow! Some of the things we got are even picture here! ((dramatic music cue))

What do you think we got from this sale? Which items would you have lined up for if you had the chance? Did you hit any completely crazy sales this weekend? Let's talk!

That's all for today, I'll see you kids back here tomorrow. Til then!