Anatomy of a Garage Sale

PHEW.

What a day it has been.

Today, we held the first day of our two-day yard sale extravaganza. We had been spending weeks sorting through housewares, art supplies, furniture both large and small and tons of construction supplies. Our remodeling section included lighting fixtures, wiring, plumbing connections, sinks, metal thingies and a stack of fine, vintage wood (Douglas fir and redwood), that came from our old roof and our old framing.

I did not know what to expect about the demand for all of the remodeling goodies -- would we get enough interest in all of it to sell any of it? During the day, we met our new best friend, Ralph, who lives nearby and is building an in-law unit for his 90-year-old mother. Ralph visited us four times today, twice with his Mini Cooper (gaaah!) and twice with his very long panel truck (yaaaaay!) and bought piles and piles of remodeling what-nots. At one point, I said to Bill, "I definitely love you very much, but right now, Ralph is the man of my dreams!" With Ralph's help, we were able to clear out and get this stuff to be re-used rather than scrapped or sent to the dump. Yay, Ralph!

Many, many thanks to our friends Soni, Stephanie, and the two Davids for their invaluable help!

Here is a time lapse captured by our Ring doorbell video.

Contain yourself, the boxes are here!

Hank completes his quality inspection of the cabinet boxes.

I worked at home today and was on a few back-to-back calls in the afternoon. Hank came running up to me at one point, and with his trademark whimper/whine, he said, "My favorite person in the whole world won't let me help him with whatever he's doing." This all means that Hank is yet again suffering from a tragic case of separation anxiety with his fav human, Bill.

Throughout my meetings, my phone was buzzing on and off but I did my best to ignore it so that I could focus on my work calls. Then, I finished and realized that what Hank really wanted to communicate was, "Bill won't let me help him and Dan bring in the new kitchen cabinet boxes and that's not right..."

Yes, some of our new lower cabinet boxes arrived this afternoon! Exciting stuff. But then, every phase in our remodel has been exciting. That's just how we roll.

Our Ring doorbell captured some of the action as the boxes were brought in.

The magic relief of "Garage Sale 2"

As we continue to prepare for our giant garage sale, we are sifting through boxes and paring down what no longer fits with us and our lives. But the process is sometimes not entirely clear. For example, when we pulled out a childhood coat that my mother made for me, made from a beautiful red wool with a lovely pleat down the back, lined by hand. She was an amazing tailor and seamstress who always had a project going to make her business suits, dresses for us, and ties for my father. Unfortunately, she also made underwear and bathing suits, which promptly were relegated to the back of the drawer, never to be seen again. So, what to do with such precious items? We know that we cannot hold on to all of these possessions, but will need to take a bit more time to make a decision.

So, we have created a new category of items, and say, "That will be for Garage Sale 2," meaning that we need more time to make a decision about where it will go. This relieves the potential stress of making some decisions too quickly and letting ourselves postpone culling too quickly.

In the case of that cute red coat, it will probably go to a little girl we know who loves vintage style which feels more right than our other choices. But what to do with the dress that I made for my college graduation? Oy.

Storage Strata, Part 4

We have been unwrapping framed photos and looking at each one as we decide which photos to separate from their frames so that we can cull the styles that no longer fit us. There was a moment tonight when we were each unwrapping framed photos and reviewing them. I unwrapped the one above, and here's how it went:

Me: [silently reviewing it to see if this is a relative about which I have forgotten...] "Um...."

Bill: [looking at it quizzically...] "Let's see now, who is that?"

Me: [dumfounded...] "I got nothing. I don't recognize this person. It's an interesting frame, though."

Bill: "What is that tag hanging off it?"

Me: "It says $2.00."

Bill" "We bought that at a garage sale for the frame. We don't know that person."

Silly laughing ensued.

Storage Strata, Part 3

We are fortunate to be having some help from sweet friends tomorrow with moving some of our stuff out of storage so that we can sort through all of it. We did more pre-sorting tonight and found some wonderfully nostalgic items in our boxes and it reminded us of past fun we have had and what fun we continue to have.

Some of the nostalgia goes way, way back to middle school and maybe before for me.

This box of pastels was part of the art supplies we had growing up. Most likely used more by my older siblings, but such a great bunch of colors and such a wonderfully stylish box.

Yes, yes, yes. My middle school crayons. I think that I wrote in all caps to mimic my father who I don't think ever wrote using mixed case.

For some reason, this survived from my early years in San Francisco when I created lots of paper crafts and illustrated regularly.

For many years, Bill played music with friends and they called themselves The Song Dogs. Someone in the band gave these sterling pieces to everyone, and this one has been hanging out in the pocket of an old music bag. Can you hear him howling?

Not just a pencil. Not just a non-photo blue pencil. So much more. Like an instant memory machine reminding me of Reg and Lora Kittrelle plus Debbie Macdonald and our adventures together.

From the year 2000. An Internet boom and bust experience, but I somehow missed the bust part. This writing pad reminds me of Lucia Soares and Christine Kiedaisch Hubbard and that impactful, slightly wacky year.

Storage Strata, part 2

After all these years of having stuff in storage, we often joked about this particular box, and here it is again. When we packed up our last house, we sorted through every single item and pared down to the bare minimum of possessions. The only thing that I remember putting in this box is our lemon zester. The rest of it is a mystery, and we are not yet ready to crack it open.

I am very grateful for the humor and silliness that we feed into our lives nearly every day. And, soon we will have a kitchen that is big enough for second-string kitchen doo-dads to help feed us in another way.