Personally, I'm a self proclaimed bargain hunter. My friends know as me as shrewd negotiator, always on the hunt for a deal, and never wavering in my desire to achieve big budget looks at bottom dollar pricing. I understand that there may be a time and place to pay full price, but that time and place usually isn't one where I'll be found! 

Over the last several years, as we've been establishing our decor style and preferred aesthetic in our Foursquare on the water, I've been deal hunting and stock piling. Whether we're talking antiques, light fixtures, textiles, art work, or accessories, I have a mental plan for our home and I'm always looking for items that would fill the gaps in this style.

In a nutshell, we're going for a "coastal farmhouse with antique accents" vibe, primarily because our home is an historic coastal farmhouse (go figure, embracing both the age and style of the house in its decor). As I've found decor items that fit with this style, and they happen to be a good price, either by happenstance or shrewd negotiating will, I pick them up for later use. 

This tactic is precisely how we've ended up with several hanging fixtures for our home, all occupying space in their boxes in the attic. The themes of each are consistent with the others. Lots of light browns with natural wood, some with a gray weathered appearance, textured fabric like burlap, glass globes or domes with plenty of imperfections, and rough traditionally nautical rope accents. Here are just a few examples of my hoard.

Once such instance in which a lonely low cost but beachingly charming light fixture looking for a good home found me was on a trip to the Restoration Hardware Outlet in Leesburg, Virginia. It's actually in the box at the bottom of this photo. Yes, that says "BASURA" on the box, but I could see this fixture was far from trash!

Within the box was an apparently perfect looking Cruz Burlap Pendant fixture from RH Teen. Not only is it a burlap covered drum shade, the black metal accents and the large twisted nautical style rope was perfect for our house. While the regular price, still available on the website today, is $249, the outlet price for this light, an amazing $45!! It would have been a tragedy to NOT buy it!

So I purchased it, tucked it away in the attic, and began planning for the day we'd be able to install it as our dining room chandelier, even though our dining room renovation was still a ways off. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that this new light bumped the large glass light from the earlier photo in this post. This is a case where deals give you options.

Fast forward a little over one year, our dining room renovation began in late 2017 and has progressed to the point where the plaster is restored, everything is painted, and we're ready to install our light fixture. We excitedly pulled the box marked Basura from the attic and began the glorious unboxing process. We knew the rope that supported the fixture was a bit too long and would need to be reduced in length, but that didn't seem like that big of a deal.

We figured we'd pop the box open, adjust the length, and then install the light. Much to our chagrin, when we broke this light out and looked over the assembly, there wasn't an obvious option to adjust the length of the rope. The shade itself is 14", the rope comes standard at 36", and when you include all of the mounting hardware you're looking at a total fixture height of about 56". When you have a normal height ceiling, say 9' like in our home, that puts the mounting height of this fixture at a solid 4' off the ground. 

We hunted around the RH website and eventually determined that the length of this rope, and the light fixture as a whole, was intentionally not adjustable. How dumb is that? You basically needed to have a vaulted ceiling or something similar that offers about 13'-14' ceiling height. No wonder it was so cheap at the outlet (but doesn't explain why it's still for sale full price on the website).

As we dug into our options we decided the only acceptable path forward for our needs was to alter the light's rope length. Alex was confident we'd be able to figure it out, so we started doing one of the things we know best, taking it apart.

The rope assembly is pretty simple. It consists of about a dozen or so small cotton strings twisted into three pairs of thicker ropes, that are then twisted together around a central black plastic wire. The wire is essentially what holds the weight of the fixture, and the rope is more decorative than anything. As you can see in the above photo, the wire is pinched in place by a set screw within the mounting hardware. But once the set screw was loosened, we couldn't remove the rope from the metal housing. Undeterred, we started hacking at it, cutting the rope but being careful not to cut the wire.

Once we'd begun freeing the rope from the housing we slowly started to see how it was put together.

The interior of the metal housing has three screws mounted towards the center that act as a sort of cleat around the rope. There's also a metal wire that wraps around the top of the rope that holds onto the metal screws and keeps the rope in place. 

While we tried to figure out how to handle reassembly we wrapped some duct tape around the top of the rope to make sure the twist stayed in place. I certainly didn't want the whole thing falling apart while we were fooling around with a plan, and this twisted rope tends to want to unravel when nothing is holding it.

At first glance, it seemed like this should be easy. The housing and hook at the top are obviously two pieces, one that threads into the other. Alex took his tools to the mounting loop and tried to loosen up the two pieces. If we could get them apart, we'd just need to trim to length, slide the housing over the end of the rope, wrap the end of the rope in a new piece of wire, and thread it all back together again. But things are rarely that easy. It seemed like there was a bunch of super glue adhesive on the two pieces that essentially cemented them together within the threads. At the very least, we had ourselves a broken disassembled light fixture. 

Alex tried to soften the adhesive by allowing it to sit in a cup of mineral spirits for a while. Unfortunately, that did nothing.

After we made several valiant attempts at separating the two pieces we decided to go back to the drawing board. Since we couldn't get the pieces apart, I suggested shortening the whole thing and then trying to fit the rope back into the housing. Alex noted that the whole fixture is actually supported by the wire more than it is the rope, so this might be able to work if we could get the wire past the three screws.

Before we could shorten things we needed to figure out the correct height based on our table. Without shortening anything the light was practically on the table.

Obviously, this wouldn't work. The ideal height of a chandelier above your dining table is supposed to be 30"-34" for an 8' ceiling, with an additional 3" per one foot of ceiling height. So that means 33"-37" for our table.

After we broke out the tape measure, Alex held the fixture at the desired height while I viewed things from the table to make sure it looked good while seated and while standing in the next room.

Once we had what we felt was an ideal height we quickly marked the cut line with some painters tape, then with some sharpie.

Before we actually made the cut we started to unravel the rope. With nothing holding it together the rope was almost trying to unravel itself.

When we got close to the cut mark, but before cutting, we placed a few pieces of duct tape on the pieces of rope just above and below the cutline to hold things together, then Alex cut each section of rope individually.

After removing the necessary length of rope and setting it aside, Alex trimmed the wire's length to also work better with the new height. He left the wire about 12" longer than the end of the rope to give enough length into the electrical box.

Reassembly was actually pretty simple. We made sure to wrap the rope tightly around the central wire, then ran the wire up through the center of the upper housing.

Now the somewhat tricky part, getting the rope back into the housing. Alex took the length of wire and wrapped it tightly around the top of the rope. We also left the duct tape on the very top of the rope twists just to keep everything together. The second ring of duct tape was just holding everything in place and was positioned to be removed after the rope was firmly in the housing.

Inserting the rope into the housing was a matter of twisting the housing onto the rope in a counter clockwise manner. While Alex twisted, the metal wire was able to move over the screws and then securely seat within the housing. 

Once fully seated Alex pulled the remainder of the wire through the collar and then secured the set screw to hold everything in place.

Following a bit of nervousness where we worried we possibly wouldn't get it back together, we were in business and ready to mount the chandelier in the dining room. We test fit by hanging it in place and admired our handy work. We'd conquered the "fixed length" chandelier rope, take that RH Teen!

Everything was looking good so we went ahead and hooked up the wiring. My bargain find of only $45 did end up taking us about two extra hours to install due to the need to hack it apart a little. Ultimately we both feel like this should have been an adjustable height fixture. It wouldn't have been difficult to make changes if RH hadn't glued the threads on the housing. For whatever reason, they did, which meant we needed to do a little adjusting. The end result is exactly the look we were hoping for, and for pretty much exactly the amount of money I was interested in paying.

Seriously, $45, you can't beat that bargain! I feel like I've been getting pretty good at finding deals, especially on lighting and rugs. From HomeGoods to true outlet shopping and antique shops, there are many deals to be found out there. What do you think? Do you have a few places in mind that are your absolute go to locations for scoring great decor deals? Have any secrets you want to share? We'd love to hear!

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Before you read any further, please realize that I'm being the typical moron male in this situation, and I'm well aware of my shortcomings and significant personality flaws that come along with simply having a Y chromosome. That being said, I'm not freaking out, I'm feeling good, and I feel like we just need to take on one project at a time. (Wendy is rolling her eyes at me.)

As it currently stands, we have essentially eight days to complete our sun porch renovation and miscellaneous to do list of the problem areas in the house that we've been ignoring for years. Eight days from now our house will transform into a Christmas pumpkin and we need to then turn our attention and focus from working on completing our projects to decorating our house for Christmas. Throw in a full week of work, and celebrating Thanksgiving, and we really don't even have the full eight days.

In hopes of checking off several items from our sun porch to do list, last night Wendy and I mustered the energy after a long day at work to set out on an accessory hunt. We were determined to find a new lamp for the Asian table as well as some frames for art on the wall.

Our first stop for the night, a whole 40 minutes prior to their closing time was HomeGoods!

That's Wendy sprinting ahead of me. She knew there was no time to waste.

We were initially distracted by the Christmas end cap, featuring great bargains on Spode Christmas dish ware and ornaments. We had to fight the urge and stick to our game plan. Focus!

We stopped in the lamp section and began looking over their selection.

Wendy found a possible contendor and we gave it a once over to see if it was a viable option.

Though we were initially drawn to it, sadly, the odds were not ever in this lamp's favor, as there was a spot on the shade and a chip/imperfection or two in its base. As we were debating the style of the lamp Wendy said, "You know, I like this lamp and think it's cool right now, but it's a little trendy, and I think it might go out of style rather quickly. I'm going to pass."

Is it just me, or does that sound like the words of a rational thinking person? Perhaps HomeGoods is enough of a happy place for Wendy that this trip actually started to calm her nerves, much like music soothing the savage beast?

We continued our trip without a lamp, but we soon found some great mercury glass items that we couldn't pass up.

One of us...ahem, me...absolutely loved this large mercury glass owl, and though I placed it in our cart, it mysteriously vanished before we got to checkout. I'm not quite sure what happened. Perhaps we'll have to review the store's security tapes to see who the perpetrator was. But I had no time to investigate the theft, we had more stores to hit.

After our quick trip through HomeGoods, we dashed over to Michaels with just about 10 minutes to spare before store closing.

They obviously wouldn't have any viable lamp candidates, but we needed some supplies for the tour, like small frames, adhesive hooks, and this plaid ribbon.

As we closed down the Michaels ('cause we're hardcore like that), we headed off to our next and final destination for the evening, Target. As you can see from the lack of checkout lines, we were in a rather small and elite group of Target shoppers. I guess that's what you get when you're accessory shopping around 9:30 pm on a Thursday evening.

Let me tell you one thing for sure, if the college Alex and Wendy had any idea what would be in store a short 13 years later, they'd shake their heads in disgust. I'm talking about the two young kids who would be using their Thursday night as a springboard for the weekend, starting the evening by heading out to the bars at roughly the same time we were pushing a cart through the home accessories aisles of Target and absolutely running on fumes, wanting nothing more than to be getting ready for bed. Like a good 1980's parent, I don't think they'd be particularly "mad" at us, they'd just be "disappointed."

Once again, the end caps taunted us, this time with all of their Nate Berkus-y flair...

...But we stuck to our plan and headed to the lamp aisle.

Wendy immediately picked out a good looking and handsome light that might work perfectly for our Asian table. The look was modern, but not too modern, just right for our new kitchen and sun porch area. Though the selection of the lamp came easily, the shade was another question.

Wendy began eyeing the various shades for the room like an LPGA pro trying to get a read from a tricky 18th green with the tour title on the line. She was in search of the perfect complementary yet low cost shade option, and you could read it all over her face.

She selected two gray shades, and we setup a rudimentary yet effective side by side test to determine the weaker of the flock and weed them out. There's no room for stragglers when it comes to DIY home design, yet it was quite obvious who wasn't going to be making it to the show.

The smaller shade on the right, like the one kid everyone had in their first grade class, had "I'm a failure" written all over it, so we mercifully placed it back on the shelf and proceeded with our selected winner. But can we really call it a winner when there was really no competition to begin with?

Our next stop on our late evening tour of the Tar-Jay was the frames aisle. Once again, we avoided the siren song of Nate Berkus's high gloss, contrasting colors, rich patterns, and seemingly random collections of accoutrements (what's up with the faux tortoise shell wall art??) and focused on our end game. We had struck out on frames at Michaels and needed to find a few to hang on either side of the white hutch. Lucky for us, Wendy found a couple contenders almost immediately. Her eye was sharp yesterday evening, I could see it, she was clearly in the zone.

Feeling as if our trip was a success, we were dealt one minor setback when we realized that two of the five frames available in the size and style we wanted were significantly damaged. We needed four frames, yet only three were in the store and undamaged. I now know how the crew of Apollo 13 must have felt when they realized they would still need to travel around the far side of the moon, but would be unable to land.

We purchased two of the frames, thinking we might instead hang one frame on either side of the hutch, or if needed, we'll go back out and pick up two additional frames from another local Target.

Upon our arrival home, we had just enough energy to give the frames a test hang in an attempt determine if we'd need to go searching for two additional frames. I gave it a go:

One...one frame! Ah ah ah.

Two...two frames! Ah ah ah.

Hands down, we're voting for the two frames option. What are your thoughts on this decision? One frame or two?

With tired bones, exhausted minds, and spent bodies, we turned in for the evening at roughly 11:30 pm. Somewhere, in some college town, another younger Alex and Wendy's nights were just getting started. Little do they know where they'll be in about a dozen years -- trolling the aisles of home design stores in the hopes of scoring that elusive accessory or two. Best of luck to you...young Alex and Wendy, best of luck indeed.

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Call it maturity, foolishness, impatience, or just stupidity, but we’ve started to feel there has been an error in our ways. Items we’ve long lived with, and have done so without major issue, have begun to wear on us. Lately, we feel like it’s high time to start replacing many of the things we’ve just been talking about replacing for some time now. One of those items is our old and tired mattress.

You may have seen photos of the bed in our master bedroom before. The bed itself is a beautiful carved Louis XVI antique bed from the turn of the 19th century, but the mattress…oh the mattress.

The queen size mattress is actually the same mattress that Wendy bought back in August 2000 on the weekend we moved to Washington DC. It lived in our apartment, then in two rooms of our home, but it was never particularly comfortable. Always too hard for us, we’ve slept with at least one and usually two down feather beds laid on top of it for years.

We’ve actually been talking about replacing our mattress for several years, but for whatever reason, just never pursued it earnestly. Well, over Labor Day (yes, the same day Wendy was lured into our appliance purchase by looking at the deals in the Sunday paper) Wendy saw a “great deal” on mattresses at Sleepy’s, the local non budget mattress store.

I really don’t know what it is, but budget mattress stores are right up there with rug stores. They always seem to be having “blowout bargains,” or are “slashing prices to cut inventory.” Half of them seem to constantly use the “going out of business, everything must go” ploy, and many have the “we’ll beat anyone’s prices, guaranteed” as long as you read the fine print that includes the fact that “anyone” is actually one or two particular stores that never have lower prices. I guess mattress places just sort of skeeve me out. When we decided to go into Sleepy’s, since it was a higher end mattress store, not a bargain basement store, I was hoping to have a slightly different opinion.

We went into the store on Labor Day to “test drive” a few mattresses. They were offering sale prices on many mattresses as well as gift cards to other stores like Home Depot, Lowes, and other retailers for “up to” $400.

When we walked in we were surprised at the wonderful lack of sales pressure. There were several people in the store, but only one person working the floor. He was polite, courteous, didn’t pressure us in any way, and was available to answer our questions when we asked. He actually invited us to lay on a mattress "machine" towards the back of the store that would be able to gage our ideal mattress type based on our sleep style. It was actually a mattress that I’d have to assume has several small scales placed inside of it. The mattress probably senses where the most pressure and heaviest weight sits, then suggests a firmness based on compensation to achieve an ideal weight. In other words, I think it’s mostly sleep fairies and pixie dust that do the calculations.

Based on our preferred sleeping position and a quick lay on the mattress, the machine printed out the ideal mattress scenario for Wendy and me, “Green,” it said.

What does “Green” mean? Sleepy’s offers a specific brand of mattress called “My Side” that allows you to custom fit your side of the mattress with the firmness that works best for you. This allows you and your partner to have a single mattress that accommodates both of your sleeping habits. If you’re familiar with the Sleep Number mattresses, it’s kind of like that, but without the ability to adjust firmness once it’s set.

Lucky for us, we’re easy, we’re both quite close to each other from a sleep rating standpoint and need a mattress that is the same on both sides. Wendy and I went around the store and tried out every mattress that fit the category that our chart fell into.

Yes, I was the creepy weirdo taking pictures of people trying out mattresses in the store...well, mostly Wendy.

Let me just tell you, this was one of the most relaxing shopping experiences of my life. I mean, we just laid around. Curious what it looks like to shop for a mattress? Well, if you’re testing it out on your back, it looks sort of like this.

After testing several of the My Side branded mattresses, we moved over to several of the Stearns & Foster mattresses. As I said, the fact that we were matching ratings meant that we could purchase a standard matched side mattress without the need for the additional expense. This is another item I really need to give the sales guy credit for. He could have gone for the upsell and talked us into one of the much more expensive mattresses. We probably would have bought it, especially the whole “what’s a good mattress really cost when you consider how much time you spend in it every night, versus what you paid for your care?” Instead, he leveled with us and told us about less expensive mattresses and just told us to go with the ones that felt most comfortable.

After about an hour in the store, with lots of laying around, Wendy and I decided on a particular Sterns & Foster that seemed nice and comfortable and would suit our needs. Before we went to the sales desk we took a peek at the pricing and noticed something odd. The pamphlet listed “Sale” prices that masked the MSRP card under it. After we slid the “Sale” prices out of the way we saw that the MSRP was essentially the same as the “Sale” price. Curious, don’t you think? Perhaps old habits die hard in mattress shops.

We sat at the sales desk to let the salesman know what our decision was and that we might like to purchase a mattress set that day. Wendy asked him what sort of deals they had going on for Labor Day, since she had seen the various items in the paper regarding major price reductions and $400 gift cards. He stated, somewhat bashfully, “unfortunately, the mattress you’re interested in doesn’t qualify for the gift cards, and the sale price is the one listed on the price card, there aren’t any additional discounts.” Wendy, using her best “hard ass” negotiating tactics, just stared back across the desk at the salesman.

Let me give you a little insight via my side of this whole exchange.

In the red corner sits Wendy “The Negotiator.” When she wants a good price, she employs tactics that makes me squirm. Wendy loves a bargain, and she’s willing to sit through uncomfortable exchanges to achieve it. She’s ready to walk away from the table at any time, and she’s ready to call any unsuspecting salesmen on this shit. She doesn’t particularly like it, but she likes that she’s good at it.

I hate playing hardball, I hate bluffing, I hate the awkwardness of it. My first job was as a shoe salesman where I had to up-sell cleaning supplies and other useless crap, and I couldn’t do that either. I just hate the whole sales game.

When Wendy’s cold stare and silence was met with a response of “We really can’t do anything with the price, I mean, the manufacturer price fixes.” I knew it was game on! At one point Wendy said “So it really doesn’t matter if we buy it today or later? Here I thought it was important to make sure we bought it today before the Labor Day deals were over.” As I sat watching the awkward exchange necessary to get us to walk out of the store with a mattress that day.

By the end of the conversation we had purchased a Sterns & Foster mattress and low profile box spring (necessary to work with our bed), and ended up with free in home delivery and setup, as well as a $100 gift card to The Home Depot.

Sure it’s not $500+ in savings, but I’d say the equivalent of $200 off of a price fixed mattress (it’s true, I looked up their price fixing) is not too shabby of a deal. We may have been able to get even more out of him, but I almost felt bad for him at certain points. My wife had been unleashed, and there was no stopping her.

We took delivery of our mattress on the day we were leaving for vacation, so we weren’t going to even be able to sleep in it before we left. The delivery service was great. They arrived on time and were careful taking it upstairs and placing it in our room.

I was quite nervous that the height of the mattress would be too much and would look bad on our antique bed, but the low profile box spring really does its job and lowers the height of the thick mattress.

We got the whole bed set up and ready to go with fresh sheets just waiting for our return from our trip. Actually, while we were on the trip and sleeping on mattresses of various levels of comfort, we kept saying “when we get home we’re going to be able to sleep in our new bed.”

On our final day of our trip we had a long 19 plus hour trip ahead of us, but we knew we’d have a nice new bed waiting for us. After several flight delays, we finally arrived home just after midnight and anxiously crawled into bed with our trusty companion, Lulu. The bed seemed to have a bit of a chemical smell, not too unlike that of a new car, but we thought nothing of it and went to sleep.

After quickly falling into our slumber we were awaken a few hours later by a strange noise. Lulu, who tends to breathe a little loudly from time to time, and who has also been known to saw a few logs at night, was restless, uncomfortable, and snorting loudly. The severity would come and go, sometimes worse, sometimes almost like a hiccup, but she was clearly bothered by something. We let this go on for a little while until Wendy and I felt like Lulu must have been bothered by the chemical smell from the mattress. To test our theory we moved to the back bedroom to sleep the remainder of the night on our old mattress in the guest bedroom. Within about 45 minutes, Lulu had stopped snorting and was back to sleep on the foot of our old bed.

Here’s a quick video that shows a little of Lulu’s snorting. It isn’t the loudest or worst it sounded, but it should give you an idea.

The next night we slept in the back bedroom again to see if Lulu would have any snorting fits. We ended up going through the whole night without a peep from our Lulu. Sure, we weren’t as comfortable as we could have been, but we just wanted to make sure she was as comfortable as possible.

The following night we opted to sleep on the new mattress again. We thought that the first night may have been a fluke, but within two hours of falling asleep, Lulu was back to snorting and gasping again. From this, we’re relatively certain the smell from our mattress was ultimately what was bothering Lulu.

Each day we kept our bedroom windows open, the fan going, and took the sheets and blankets off of the mattress during the day. Our hope was to let the mattress air out a little each day so Lulu (and the two of us) could sleep on the new mattress in comfort.

During our vet appointment we showed the video to the doctor for her opinion. She felt the correlation between the mattress and the snorting was likely. Rather than just let Lulu suffer through it, and rather than having us sleep on the old mattress, she suggested we should give Lulu some Benadryl before bed. That evening, we gave Lulu 25 mg of Benadryl on a little peanut butter (her favorite) and headed to bed.

With the Benadryl to keep any reaction or swelling that could cause her breathing difficulties, Lulu was able to sleep soundly through the night, no middle of the night snorting fits to wake us up. Since that first night we’ve continued the Benadryl for both the sleep benefit and to help her in her continued surgery recovery. She’s been sleeping through the night without issue, and we feel like the mattress is smelling far less than it used to.

The mattress, in general, is very comfortable. It suits our bed, sleeping styles, and room quite nicely. I’m pulling for a small feather topper to add a little comfort, but otherwise, it’s a great mattress that we’re happy with. We just wish it didn’t smell so strongly when it first arrived.

We have a 30 day trial that we’re within right now, and we’d have the option to exchange it for another mattress that Sleepy’s offers if we’d like, but so far, we like the mattress we purchased. But I have to admit, we're both unnerved by the smell. If it's causing Lulu to have such a strong response, what harm might it be causing us? Maybe we should have gone with an organic mattress.

Do you have a mattress you love? If so, tell us about it. Or maybe you’ve had a similar situation with offgassing from a new mattress purchase? We’d also love to hear stories about that aspect of new mattress ownership.

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Do you remember the two large brass trays we picked up at a local estate sale last year? If you don't recall the specific post, or you haven't been around these parts since last September, here's a photo to get you up to speed.

They weren't in great condition when I bought them, but for only $55.00, I took home both and felt like I could make them work. I was hoping they wouldn't look weird or out of place, and today my purchases were validated. As I was just doing a little browsing on One Kings Lane, I stumbled on something that looked very familiar. Check it out.

Yep, almost identical to one of the asian brass trays I scored last year. Did you catch the price? Here, let me help you see it.

That's right. $275.00 marked down from $450.00!!! That price seems pretty crazy, but it makes me feel pretty darn good about paying just $27.50 per tray. Pretty spectacular, don't you think? 

In case you're wondering how we used our trays, after a little polishing up, we chose to use one as a table top in our sun porch (the decorating in here is still in progress).

And the second hangs on the wall in our family room. 

Now when I look at them I can smile to myself, thinking of what a great deal they were. $27.50 instead of $275.00? Yes please! That's why I couldn't resist sharing my shopping triumph with you. We may be doing a little antique hunting this weekend so I hope this is an omen of good things to come. 

Do you have any great bargains that you've scored over the years? Amazing finds you've stumbled upon or stores that seem to always bring you luck? I'd love to hear all about your shopping adventures.

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Old Town offers some very unique opportunities when it comes to estate sales. Many of the homes in our area have been lived in by the same families for decades. Often times these residents are ex-military, political, or have had professions or hobbies that have made them world travelers and collectors of some magnificent things. When the families of these long-time owners opt to hold an estate sale, it often provides an opportunity to purchase some very interesting and unique items at sometimes reasonable prices.

There are typically a handful of estate sales that Wendy and I attend each year. In any case, we always have the same goal in mind as we head in: find unique items that would work in our home at a fair price. But sometime during the hunt through someone else's things...it hits us. We're looking through the material items that formed peoples lives. This is where that element of sadness comes in. We can't help but to imagine the people the items belonged to, what their story was, and how they and the stuff we are looking through came to be. Though we attempt to be as respectful as possible when shopping in estate sales, we usually see some customers who seem to miss this element of the sale.

A few weekends ago we stopped at an estate sale we happened upon while out for a walk with Lulu. The quaint 19th century home had a large banner draped over the front advertising the sale along with the hours the sale would be open.

When we arrived a few minutes before the doors opened on the second day there was already a line or about seven or eight people.

Upon entry to an estate sale home, I'm always too busy looking at the details and structure of the house rather than the items for sale. In most cases the house is in moderate to poor condition, but is typically intact from a detail and architectural standpoint in a "has great bones" sort of way. This house was no exception. Fireplaces, nice floors, plaster walls -- it hadn't been stripped of it's character.

Wendy, on the other hand, can stick with the bargain hunting better than I can. On this particular day after only a few minutes in the house, she was able to find two large brass Asian plates. They were tarnished and in need of some elbow grease, but she could see the potential. They were marked $32 each but Wendy was able to get them both for $55. A little sadness and a distracted husband can't derail Wendy as a bargain shopper.

Proud of her find and glad to be giving these unique items a good home, we looked through the rest of the items in the house. While looking, we also checked out all of the floors and rooms of the house and talked about what we would do to renovate it. Yep, we have a true addiction and borderline sickness. But seriously, how cool is this entryway?

We paid for the items and headed home. Almost as soon as we got the large dishes home Wendy immediately got to work polishing them. Using some metal polish, Wendy got the grime off and got them both looking clean, shiny, and ready for our home. As you can see, she was working vigorously.

Much of the thick tarnish came off with the application of a little elbow grease and the details of the pieces started to show. Here's some midway progress.

We weren't sure exactly what to do with them, but Wendy suggested hanging one on the wall in our living room and decided to use the other as a table top under the lamp in our sun porch. After a quick measuring for the correct height and location in the family room and placement of the wall anchor, we finally had a unique and interesting piece to hang above the chair in the corner. 

The best part of this whole thing was my skepticism but acceptance that Wendy knows better than me. No joke, I don't let onto this fact much, but she does, especially when it comes to aesthetics. After hanging the tray on the wall, I had to admit, I liked the way it looked. But even better, when we went on the Old Town Home Tour last weekend, the absolutely nicest house we went through had a very similar Peruvian tray hanging in their dining room. The docent was gushing about it, and when we saw it Wendy looked at me with that knowing glance that unequivocally stated..."I was right."

Have you picked up any great finds at estate sales recently? Do you get the same vague sense of sadness when going through estate sales, or are you all about the find?

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