The Art of Garage Sales

             One man’s trash is another’s treasure and that simple fact makes yard sales so popular.  It’s a wonderful way of getting rid of the excess that has accumulated over the years.  It’s also an effective way to downsize.  When the children have all left home and established themselves, there is no need to hang on to the 101 trinkets just in case they might be of use to them in decorating their own space.  Chances are, their taste is far different from yours anyway.

             Less seems to be more in today’s decorating climate.  Gone are the days of 101 figurines decorating one room after the other.  Gone are frills, flowers and frivolous items like silver tea services or anything that requires upkeep.  Keep it plain and simple – nothing to dust or polish.   So what do you do with a lifetime’s collection of items that have lost their luster, their interest?   Have a yard sale or two.

             While it’s been a few years since I’ve had one, the time has come to wipe the dust from the boxes of items stored in the garage and display everything in the hopes that by the end of the day there will be nothing left but the bare table the items were sitting on.   Of course that is everyone’s dream – no one wants to trudge unsold items back into storage or go through the motions of organizing another garage sale.  That’s why negotiating a selling price becomes so much fun.  You have to weigh how much you want to get rid of the item against where you are going to store it if it doesn’t sell.  Yard sales are really a buyer’s market.

             One of the worst things you can do is have a sale with your friends.  It makes for a fun filled day socializing, but can be so hard on your pocket book – especially when you either trade items with your friends or purchase some of their ‘junk’ as you desperately try to get rid of your own.

             HIM is a collector of anything and everything.  What I wouldn’t give to just open the garage door and tell the general public – make me an offer on anything and everything – I need to empty the garage.  Ah I can dream can’t I?  In order to do this, I’d have to send HIM on a fishing expedition that would see him gone for about a month – and then I’d have to use some of the proceeds from the yard sale to buy the fastest pair of sneakers in Dodge – because it’s for sure I’d have to get out of town in a hurry if I got rid of even one item in his trash trove. 

             Of course if anyone in the family needs a thingamabob, chances are HE has one and knows right where it is in the middle of all that disorganized clutter.  A neighbor, who loved to tease about the strange world of Collier’s Garage, needed a whatchamacallit for his aluminum door and because he was right in the middle of something and he was desperate, approached you know who.  No problem – HE gladly supplied the much-needed part all the while reminding one and all that his junk is all useful junk.