Apron Thrift Girl

a few new finds

I'll admit it, I'm starting to get sick of my house. I'm growing tired of waking each day with another room to work on or boxes to sort. Which is why on Saturday when I spotted an estate sale, I knew I had to go. I arrived at 7:30 for an 8:00am start. Luckily the other shopper and I were let in early. It took me only a couple seconds to spot this juicer for $15.00

I had one of these in Virginia but gave it away to a friend after she showed interest in it. I had an Acme juicer and didn't think I really needed two. But of course ever since I gave it away I have been missing it. I am keen to make my own nut butters as well as a lovely Kale & Lime juice drink that can really only be made in a Champion Juicer. And how rare these days to find one in muddy brown?

I also bought a henckels knife set. I didn't spot it right away until the sellers started talking about knives. I looked over and they were talking about some swiss army knives but then I noticed on the counter a set of henckels for $2.00. Having been watching videos like "how to break down a chicken" on this blog I had just been wishing for some sharper knives. This photo includes 6 of the new knives mixed in with my own collection.

I've been a very happy cook this last week, chopping and slicing with my new set.

My last item needs no introduction or reasoning.

But I have to add that they were in the free pile, are signed and marked USSR.

Not only did I get out of the house and do my favorite thing in the world, but I got to take a needed break which I'm feeling is a bit overdue. Our last weekend to work on the house is coming up on Saturday. I just need the inspiration to get through the next week and a half.

houston we have a problem

Every second of my energy is being poured into my office at the moment. A couple years ago when I moved from my tiny office to this very large space I had planned for my chaotic days of my office to be a thing of the past. But as I imagine most of you thrifters know, the more space you have, the more you can fill it up with. Hence my big, honkin', messy problem of an office. I'll show you these photos and then go away and hide in embarrassment.

The thrifted piano and the thrifted shelves that hold my inventory. I've sold the shelves on Craigslist last weekend and the books are now in the basement. The office is in worse condition than normal because I'm clearing out the rest of the house and bringing things into this room. Plus the fact that I haven't probably worked a full day since the end of February.

My spiritual, self-help & waldorf book shelf, my packing area and misc boxes of things I'm keeping to sell at a future flea market. The packing table is actually a sewing table that is going to be in my yard sale as well as the funky and somewhat ugly dresser. The table was a gift, the dresser was a hand me down, the large book case was $20 at a yard sale and the small bookcase behind all the junk was $10.00. They are both coming with us.

Ug...what an awful photo. The ugly pink sheet was waiting for me to make a proper curtain. This is a weird room above our apartment. It is attached to another bedroom through an opening which makes it a little chilly in the winter hence the nasty, pink sheet hanging up unattractively. This is certainly no cute, Posy gets Cozy studio. Of course I always dreamed it would be that way......eventually. The clothes on the rack are to sell, boxes of books to go through etc...

The worst of the mess. Except for the bike (thrifted for $100...retail value $1800) nearly everything here is worth something and was supposed to go on eBay or in my bookshop. I have resisted getting back into ebay for at least the last 12 months. I just can't force myself to sit down and do all of that work. Bookselling is so less time consuming which is why I love it. Finally today, I sent 6 boxes away to a woman who is going to sell the items for me and give me 50% of the selling price. I've been working 5 days on this room and 75% of this stuff is gone now. Although I am now officially tired and ready to stop working on the house.

At least the desks are not too terribly bad. Well maybe kind of bad. The filing cabinet, the table and desk on the right are all thrifted or were free. The chair was new but on sale.

It's funny, now that this room is heading towards un-cluttered I feel that desire to work more. Why do we settle to live in such clutter? I know the answer but I guess out of frustration I have to ask it again.  So there you go....my office in it's true entirety.

I'm am so excited to share with you that my friend has organized 30 people from her church (including teens) to come over tomorrow for 2 hours to help on our house. We totally don't deserve the help and they want absolutely nothing in return which somehow feels wrong. They are even bringing their own food and tools. Needless to say I feel very humbled by this beautiful community that wants to reach out and  help us.

And yet this is how my ideal society would be. I have been wanting to start a barn-raising group at our waldorf school but somehow haven't felt the motivation to take it past the idea stage. It wouldn't be to actually build barns but it could. Or maybe a shed, or help to paint a house in a week instead of the three years it has taken us.

This is the beauty of a true community, to come together to help others. Especially at a time like this with our economy. I wish this would happen more. What if 10 friends came together to weed your garden to prepare it for spring. Or in the summer have a Weed & Wine group as my friend Melissa once organized. She supplied the wine and every one came over with gloves and weeding tools. What community building ideas do you have and what might you implement in your community of friends?

the deceitful clock

I realize I'm a day late in posting. I blog on my laptop where my photos are stored but I spend most of my computer time on my mac. Some days I don't feel like turning on the laptop because something about it always leaves me with a neck and head ache. And nothing can make it go away except for some terribly strong blue pills. I'm one who avoids nearly all medicine but when my head hurts I need the pain to go away. Quickly.

Part of the reason I didn't post yesterday is that time got away from me. Or maybe I got away with time. I finished my bedroom and started on the last and most difficult room in the main house: my office. It's cluttered, large, messy and full of thrifted items waiting to be researched, sold, currently for sale or to be disposed of in any way possible. I feel frustrated sitting her in this chaos and am trying to figure out where I went wrong. I think it all comes down to time. I'd say as a scanner, time is one of the most deceitful things there is to this type of personality. Not only do we want to do everything and anything, but we somehow get it into our minds that we can. In a way, we are the ones that deceive ourselves.

I was just going through a box of books that I never got around to listing. I found a book on making your own natural cosmetics and beauty products. My first thought was to save the book so that when I get to California, I can start using it. I also kept a book out called "Putting foods by" which is about canning and preserving. Yet, If my time is full here, how in the world will I access more time once I move?

Dave thinks that our life will change a lot in our next home because I am giving so much of our stuff away. We literally send van loads to Goodwill every week, other items go to friends and some goes on Freecycle. I sell what I can but at the moment with the timing of everything my time to sell things is slim. I also love the idea of paying it forward. I gave my friend Rhonda all my castoffs from my craft room yesterday. She took away fabric, bark cloth (some for you Jill), yarn, cotton batting, and vintage quilt toppers. I'm at the point where I would rather make a friend happy than try to get a few dollars for something. I will still have lots to sell at my yard sale but I can only store so much of that too.

With less in our lives, Dave is hoping that there will be less to clean and less to move around from room to room. I think that is part of my motivation to give so much away. I want our life back. I want to be able to look at a weekend with endless possibilities rather than thinking that we have to clean the house or sort out the basement (again).

I've also been asking myself what I want to do with my life. Do I want to live with a scattered rush feeling as I do now? I usually work all day which starts with spending around 2 hours writing here, another three hours listing books or selling other items and then an hour or so shipping orders. Next I'm off to pick up the kids from school and I spend time with them until Dave is off of work at 4pm. He takes over parenting and I go back to sorting through junk. We'll throw together a dinner, do the dishes, do laundry, bring in firewood, play a couple games of chess with the children and finally get them to bed. We spend an hour or two watching our favorite shows (dollhouse tonight)and eating snacks before falling into bed exhausted.

What we are lacking, are those moments of relaxation here and there. Do they exist? Do you ever find yourselves sitting down on the couch with a newspaper or magazine? When we stayed in our home exchange home last summer in Santa Rosa, CA for 9 days it felt like we were living in a dream. We spent time out on the patio watching the sunset and reading their newspaper. Okay so we did feel like something out of a 50's tv show but all the tension of our home in Washington dissipated. We were at peace, even if it only lasted 9 days. I remember thinking that I wanted that home and lifestyle. I think it was also the motivation to get me to clear out the house.

Now on the brink of moving, I want to have that feeling again. I don't want to feel cheated by time. Yesterday I looked at my large Mary Engelbreit Home Companion magazine collection. I must have 60 or so? I bought them on eBay, yard sales and on Craigslist. I wanted every one. Yet, I haven't ever looked at a single back issue. So I'm sitting there in my craft room asking myself why I expect to have more time to look at them once I move. Or if I ever do want to look at them again. Sure they are very inspirational but at what expense to pack them up in a box and leave them in storage for a year or so while we find a house to buy. I have to make the decision about whether to sell the set or not. And each time I have a choice like that to make, I am again reminded at how deceitful time is in my mind.

What do I want to spend my time on? I guess it would be part time ReSelling, gardening, cooking, self-sufficiency, family time, decorating our house and enjoying each moment that I do these things.  I think moving and packing up my life is helping me realize that my belongings consume and take over. I let them do this and it has left me raw.  In a way I could literally grab my photos, a few books, my computer and close the door behind me and not look back. This is my chance to start over in a new house and choose very carefully what I want in this new home.

I used to walk around antique stores wondering how the dealers could ever part with all of their beautiful items they have for sale. I've now reached an understanding with that concept. They love the joy of buying and finding something for cheap but they don't necessarily have to own it to take pleasure in the item. They can turn it around quickly and sell it. I am hoping to have a booth at a local flea market in California. Maybe once a month if that is allowed so that I can still take in the satisfaction of thrifing without the need to fill my home beyond capacity and start hoarding again.

I don't feel that my hoarding is totally unjustified. It again comes down to time. I must have had 5 pieces of small furniture that I picked up in free piles at yardsales. They all needed either a paint job or some small repair. When I picked them up I didn't do it so that I can shove them in my basement and forget about them. I had all intentions of fixing them and using them in the future. Of course the future is endless and huge. Yet at the end of the day the only time we ever truly have is in this very single moment. I honestly want a better..... no, realistic relationship with time. I want to go to a yard sale and look at an item and decide if I actually want to spend the four hours needed to do this project. If not, I hope that I can put the item back down and move on without regret.

After I've dealing with time, the house and thrift consumption, I'll start to work on my inbox which has thousands and thousands of email that I saved with every intention of replying. Sound familiar?

The winner for last weeks 300th post giveaway is Rachel of Just Wondering. Thanks again for all the very warm and kind comments. It was just what I needed to carry me through the week with all this work on the house.

the hallway

I keep forgetting to take "before" photos. These are sort of half way through emptying the area.

I think the hallway may be the dullest room in the house. Because the door in the photo leads to our 1000 square foot basement, the hallway becomes this holding area for stuff to go down the stairs. We started painting the hallways last year but never gave the walls the 2nd coat. When we moved in, there was a stained and somewhat smelly carpet over some 70's linoleum, which was over roofing paper and finally the original fir flooring. We removed the carpet the first week we moved in. The tiles were removed next leaving this hard to remove roofing-like-paper. Dave painstakingly removed each bit on his knees with a scraper in hand. We finally removed the last bit in the fall and were able to sand and coat the floor with an eco-friendly oil. It's expensive but we'd rather have healthy indoor air to breath than going with the cheaper polyurethane.

Worn railings to be painted.

Holes to be filled, baby (puppy) gate to be removed.

I didn't take any upstairs photos of "before" but it needed cleaning, a wall painted and a window painted.
We have a basket drawer unit in the right hand corner which had junk on the top of it. On the left hand side we have a wooden wall unit for mail and keys but is usually overflowing. We planned to:

-declutter
-fill in holes
-2nd coat of wall paint
-touch up trim
-paint stair railing
-paint upstairs hall wall
-paint window and surround
-deep clean
-pull any nails or screws in walls
-deep clean

The sun is shining today so I should be able to get some "after" photos. We spent both Sat & Sun working on the hallways. We are now at 18 days until our open house. Time seems to be speeding up while our work seems to be traveling at a snails pace. I miss thrifting but it's kind of silly to bring more things in when we are trying to get rid of so much.

a tidy and somewhat empty kitchen

First of all thank you for all those warm and wonderful well wishes for my 300th post. I appreciated each and every comment. My replies and visits to your blogs this month are going to be a bit slim. I seem to wake up, get the kids off to school, write blog post, waste time on Facebook and then it's back to work on the house. I take breaks here and there but usually end the day at around 7pm.

It's the sorting out of junk that does my head in. For example, I have a two dollar bill from the 1963 with red ink. It's not worth more than face value because it was in circulation and has a tear (from someone superstitious). I've held on to it for at least a year and it just moves from room to room. Each time I find something like this I just look at it and ponder what in the hay dickens to do with it. And I must admit this annoys me. Or maybe I find it energy draining. I went to the kitchen last night and asked Dave what to do with it. He said to spend it and move on. I love his thinking or more like, I need his thinking. I still have boxes and boxes to sort through and don't have the time to contemplate every last item.

20 days to go....

Here are the delayed photos of the kitchen. The light is far too wintry than I would like which leaves a rather dark photo.

I removed the vintage pie safe, took down the aprons (sniff, sniff), removed the faux vintage ice-cream sign (tossed in yard sale box), took out the worn red diner chairs and left the intact brown chairs and vintage stool. The stool was originally at the tiny bit of wall facing the camera. I used to have a market basket there. I tried to remove anything that looked cluttered. I want people to feel the size of the room and not the amount of clutter. The brown lump near the door is Sydney my tortie. And for those considering coming to my yard sale later this spring, the red table and chairs will be included.  It's going to be a fantastic sale as I honestly want to take little with us on our journey to California.

Here's the previous hidden little open cabinet. My father who has built a couple houses in his past and kind of a jack of all trades, finished the shelf off with molding. We painted it and cleaned the shelves properly. I took out some of the jars and packed away my Everyday Food magazines.

We added a shelf in the dreaded corner unit after this photo but overall this is our light and empty kitchen. I stored away the vita-mixer, moved the toaster and we did the dishes. We use the rice cooker every week so this is something that can't easily be hidden away. I took out an old peach crate that housed Elffin's food. That is the gap next to the dishwasher which is meant for a garbage compactor. Our radiator is there for now but will be removed on March 28th.

The cabinets and drawers are mostly bare plywood. Some of it has old red check shelf paper but it is either quite worn or partially removed. I didn't want to replace it because I think the smell of that product is quite strong and my head couldn't put up with the off gassing. Instead I bought some blue grip product to cover the shelves. It still gives off a small smell, but it can be removed easily by the next owners if they are keen for a purely eco-friendly house.

Potential buyers tend to look everywhere. Not only that but they make comments too about any hidden mess. We used to watch a show in England called The House Doctor. The house doctor would go to homes that weren't selling and share her advice on how to get the house sold. They would put up hidden cameras and show the reactions of the buyers to the sellers. Boy were they brutal sometimes about the mess, the state of the house and the decor. Some of the things were silly. Why complain about an ugly table when you're not buying the contents. Buyers do tend to open drawers and doors so my decluttering doesn't stop on the outside of the cabinets. I cleaned out every drawer and cabinet in the room.

Of course being a thrifter, none of my silverware matches, nor my glasses or dishes. This used to be twice as full but was pared down for the house staging.

We only have 4 1/2 drawers in the kitchen. Two drawers hold the kitchen gadgets which means lots of clutter. Most of these are thrifted and used only a couple times a year. I moved the ones that I do intend to use a couple times a year to the basement. The ones I don't ever seem to use I either put in a yard sale box or a goodwill bag.

The blue lining was $9.99 at Costco and I was able to do all the drawers, the bottom part of the pantry cabinets, a few shelves in the upper cabinets and extra to do the base of the open corner cabinet. I thought it was an attractive and affordable fix to my problem.

We worked all weekend on the hallway, stairway and upper-real-strange-and-funky-hallway. Photos tomorrow.

300 today

When I began my blog in 2006 I didn't sit and contemplate the idea. I didn't think long and hard about a name. Basically I somehow did a search on thrift through Google, found a couple blogs and decided immediately that I must have what they have. Some people think I'm clever with ideas but I'll admit it here since it's just the two of us that my skill isn't the creation of ideas but the stealing of them. Oh I do tweak them so they appear unique and somewhat original. But really I'm just a thief bearing an apron and a frugal heart. Apron Thrift Girl was decided in about 10 seconds. I knew I wanted to base my blog around thrifting. I probably scanned my office full of thrifted items, set my eyes on an apron and typed in the name before I thought more about it. I never imagined that I would be writing my 300th post nearly three years later.

Besides finding a caring audience that is actually interested in thrifting, what I have most enjoyed about blogging is the friends that I have made. I love thrifting, I love buying stuff but it is the friendship that makes my life feel complete. So I especially thank all of you who have kept in touch even when my blog posts have not been so frequent and thanks to those quiet lurkers and even to those who comment but never return.

Here's my gift and giveaway. I'm offering one of my Organizer Nest Planners.

The winner can chose one of the Nest Planners from my shop or we can work together to find some paper that matches your style perfectly. The planners include enough forms to keep you organized for a month and I'll email you the publisher files so that you can print off your own forms indefinitely.

I'm also going to offer a free hour of consulting in whatever subject the winner chooses. I can offer advice on pricing items to Resell, organizing (mostly for locals), bookselling consulting and more. You can choose from my services here. The only stipulation about this giveaway is that the consulting will occur in April after our house has been clean, gutted, cleared and ready to sell. At the moment I'm not taking any new clients until the house is ready.

Thank you again for all of your support and friendship during the last 300 posts. Leave a comment and I'll draw a name next Thursday, March 12th.

***Oh and one more thing. I'm in desperate need of a new banner. Something similar to my current one but speaks spring. I'd love to barter for one if anyone is interested. Betts inspired me to change my old one.

National Thrift Store Month

I always look forward to National Garage Sale day every August. What better time to acknowledge and celebrate the art of attending and hosting garage sales. Just last week though I learned that some thrifty women who run this blog are trying to get an entire month dedicated to thrift stores. How can I resist not taking part in something like that. As you know I personally cringe at the mention of Buy Nothing Day on black Friday. I spend most of the year not buying retail so I figure one day a year (relatively speaking) is okay. National Thrift Store Month is a different story and cause that I would frugally and happily embrace. An entire thrift month around Christmas could be, as Barney might say, legendary.

Imagine if people were inspired around the holidays to hit their local thrift stores instead of only heading to the mall? This year I spent more time looking for thrifted gifts and making homemade gifts. It turned our Christmas into something more meaningful than a collection of itune cards or Amazon wishlist gifts that usually sit under our tree.

You can start to help this endeavor by heading to Facebook and joining this group. Next you can spread the word on your own blog. I mean if we have something as strange as Tickling month, there has to be room for National Thrift Store Month. Thank you to the Thrifty Chicks for this brilliant idea.

Speaking of thrift stores, I picked up this piece of art yesterday at Value Village.

Needless to day I don't normally find art at Value Village. This piece was priced at $9.99. Sadly the artist is truly a mystery. I did a detailed research this morning for the artist McCaine (taking out all the McCains that were desperate to show up in my search) and found a few pieces on eBay priced in the few thousands and another at $300. At the end of my search I found about 10 of these online but not any real information that told me who the artist was. Nevertheless, I love the piece and it fits well into my mid century modern decorated living room.

One last thing.....tomorrow is my 300th post. I'm planning for a giveaway and a small celebration. I hope you'll join me.

starting with the kitchen

Whether I am organizing someone's home, cleaning my own or getting ready to move, I always start in the kitchen. Okay, well I did sneak in the bathroom on Thursday last week since we had a snow day but overall the kitchen is where it always begins. Especially in our kitchen which somehow became the front door. We have a proper front door that enters into the living room as most normal old houses have but the way the house is situated on the property, no one ever knocks on our front door. In fact most people don't even ring the doorbell at the kitchen door, they just walk in. I'm thinking the house must have some energy that people feel comfortable about coming in unannounced. We are used to it now and dress appropriately in case anyone literally "pops" into the kitchen. We figure that when we show the house that people will continue to come in through the kitchen. We wanted to start our focus there.

Now the photos I'm about to share with you are authentic. They haven't been staged to look messy. This is what our house looks like after a week of school, a snow day, Saturday lunch and a the beginning stages of emptying the kitchen to prepare it for our overhaul.

The paint on the walls is only the primer color and still needs a second coat. As you can see the kitchen is crowded and full of furniture, appliances and looks very cluttered.

This is the other side of the kitchen looking into the dining room. The china cabinet in the background was emptied earlier that morning and most things either packed away or priced for our upcoming yard sale. The key to staging a home for sale is emptying it of clutter. The table in the center of the kitchen is a yard sale find that kind of created a kitchen island in a relatively small kitchen. While a bit compact it made cooking much easier to have the added space.

The corner cabinet is a mess and yes, that is a gaping hole there where a cabinet door should be. It wasn't working one day and so I ripped it out. I tend to do that always figuring I'll live in the house for years. We plan on adding a shelf and hanging a curtain on the front. Notice the ipod player, music is always a huge part of working on the house for us. Betts, suggested some techno music when I asked for suggestions on facebook, but I can't think of a single techno music artist. Betts, I need more detail. In the end I started listening to The Pierces station on Pandora which worked.

When you clear out a room, everything has to be stored somewhere else in the house. In our case we moved nearly everything into the dining room. Be prepared to sort of camp out when you empty your kitchen. We did manage to make pancakes and eat them on the table that used to be the kitchen island on Sunday morning.

Here is our empty space ready to be painted. On our list was touching up the cabinets. Honestly they could either be ripped out and replaced or fully painted. The insides are still bare plywood. I think they were added in the late 70's. We are not planning to spend that much money at this time. While the kitchen is one of the most important rooms in the house to a buyer, in this economy it wouldn't pay for us to redo the entire kitchen. Therefore we are going to make it look as nice as we can. Dave tried to take a dime size chip of paint to the hardware store but they couldn't color match it. He brought home some color samples and by good luck we hit the exact color. Our tasks in the kitchen included:
-2nd coat of paint
-Paint Baseboard
-touch up cabinets
-deep clean every thing
-clean windows
-paint inside of wall shelves (where the shelves are to the left of this photo there used to be a large cabinet. I discovered the shelves one day and decided to take the cabinet out. The shelves still have flowery paper that is probably 40 years old.)
-bring back in 1/4 of the items that we took out

I hope to finish the kitchen today after a much needed run to costco for food.

the list

27 days to go

A week ago my mother and I walked through the house with a clipboard, paper and pen in hand. We went through every room in the house, basement and apartment and listed what we needed to do to make this house shine.

When we purchased the home nearly four years ago she needed a lot of work. In a way, she needed too much work for us to do with two small children in tow. At times the house drained us of every last bit of energy and what was left were two people passed out at the end of the day on the couch. We have spent much of our time devoted to this home whether it was fixing it up, moving junk around or trying to clean up around the junk. And it was during the last four years that I went from being a hoarder to a non-hoarder.

One day I was hauling van loads of junk into the house from yard sales and the next week I found myself asking myself "what have I done?" Now I'm left with a house full of stuff that I don't want any more but it isn't as easy as handing someone the keys and telling them to get rid of everything like Wayne Dyer once did in Florida. I agree with him though that if your stuff owns you, rather you owning your stuff, than it's time to break from that and get rid of it. It's harder to do than it looks. But overall, each time I have something in my hand that I'm ready to let go of, I feel a part of me release and that is very freeing. If not needed.

Dave took the list and loaded it into an excel file, followed by adding a 1 (high priority) 2, (medium priority) or 3 (low priority) next to each item. The list doesn't really include the deep cleaning and decluttering since that is a given. And Christine will be relieved to know that "remove owl picture above fireplace" is on page two.

Our main goal is to sell the house, keep our costs very low, and keep our profit high. We need every last cent for our move. We love our house and are proud of it and don't want to put up a facade of it being beautiful while cutting corners. We want it to be beautiful but will do so frugally.

When people come to see our house it needs to be clean and it needs to be decorated simple enough that anyone can imagine living here. I've already started packing and putting away bits and pieces of me that potential buys don't want to see. Some strange part of me enjoys packing. I love the neatness of it, the challenge of filling a box perfectly and also the anticipation of opening the box months later and forgetting that I had even owned the item that I carefully packed away. I don't enjoy the physical part of moving but I love the packing and unpacking.

We started the kitchen on Saturday, continued on Sunday and I'm heading there now as soon as I post this. I should have some photos tomorrow of our progress.