Tag Archives: Thrifting

Gone Man, Solid Gone

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There’s this frozen instant in time when almost everything in the house is gone, sucked away. What exists afterward depends on what we were doing where it was happening, and inches apparently matter.

The cast iron pans that Russ was restoring in a lye bath outside were safe and orchids from the back deck survived, but the smoker beside them didn’t because it was too heavy and risky to move before it bent when the house fell. Two sterling silver Revere bowls in an upstairs closet were charred and misshapen. There was no apparent trace of whole categories of possessions, perhaps they were unrecognizable in the rubble. A miniature stained glass church I bought in an after Christmas clearance sale survived, perfectly preserved by a form fitting Styrofoam box that showed no signs of heat damage. It was stored near the part of the house that was apparently the hottest and it was among the least sentimental of those things it was stored with. The fire investigator told me there would be some things that would survive, but they wouldn’t be the things I wanted. He knew.

I have a firm grip on the importance of people and the comparative lack of importance of stuff, so getting through this with grace is at least in my ballpark. But still, I loved my stuff and I feel an affinity with Bernadette Peters in “The Jerk” when she finds out she has suddenly gone from unimaginably wealthy to bankrupt. She whines with a pouty face “It’s not the money, it’s the Stuuuuf”. I had good stuff. I’ve been collecting it for a long time, waiting for a good price, getting the stuff that is well made, the stuff that is built to last… under normal conditions that is.

Just before the fire, one of those great truisms showed up on my Facebook feed. It said “You can’t control what happens to you, just how you respond to it.” I hope to take that to heart.

One of the things about our thrifting experiment, sometimes in the second hand places you can find that solid stuff built well and made sturdy, that stuff I admire and respect. Our little experiment will be very time intensive, but given that money and time are both limited resources, it seems that splitting them up and using balanced amounts of each is the most likely way to rebuild well on a budget.

We have decided on rules for our thrifty rebuild. We want to get as much as we can from thrift and estate sales, but there are some things that we want to purchase new.

We have a list of things that we will buy new. We may buy other things new as well. For instance, the mixer I had nor the mixer I wanted was on the second hand prohibited list, but we didn’t find one in the time frame we wanted. Here is our list of things that we will buy new, not second hand.

Mattresses

Upholstered Furniture (unless we think re-upholstering is practical)

Any other difficult-to-clean thing that could have animal dander, mites or bedbugs

Plastic Food Storage Containers (Chemicals can bond and we don’t know how they might have been used)

Plastic or Wood Food Utensils (same)

Undergarments

Shoes

The list is based on cleanliness and the ability to transfer anything harmful. There’s also a bit of the personal ick factor. Undergarments could be cleaned, I just don’t want any second hand. Fungicide can be applied to shoes, I just don’t want to use or trust it. The list may grow or have exceptions, but they will remain based on known ability to transfer harm or what ever we personally find unappealing.

Thrifty

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Cookie Jars, LostBefore the fire, Russ and I were frequenting thrift stores and estate sales to find things to up-cycle, re-purpose or re-sell for our vintage and handmade business. Our treasures were available (and will be again) online at Etsy.com shops Six Degrees and Lost Vacation and in booths at local Antiques and Interiors stores. Woodstock Antiques and Queen of Hearts in Marietta
We love the manufacturing standards of older things as well as giving new life to things that might otherwise be lost forever. The treasure and bargains that you can find are amazing, especially in an affluent and densely populated area like the one we live in.

We also find things that friends and family are looking for. When I see something that makes me think of them, they may get a “Hey do you want..?” call, text or photo. Some of my stories of bargains sound great, just like those shows on cable. Sometimes I see a sofa or a trinket that I have… scratch that…had, or that my grandmother had. Finding those “usta haves” will be important now. But, it is a take what you find kind of pursuit. In a full price store, you know what to expect and have a reasonable idea whether or not the thing you want might be on the shelf. In a thrift store, you can find great bargains, but the stellar price may not be on the something that should take up space in your own life, business or hoarder home. So, how practical can it be to rely heavily on a commitment to thrift store purchases for replacing the must haves?

If you are up-cycling or reselling there’s a lot in knowing what things are and what they are currently worth. But it is hit or miss even then. Some thrift stores charge as much as some retail stores (I’ve even seen things priced as much as double retail), but they don’t offer returns or warranties, believing that dedication to their cause will get enough customers to buy their wares. And there is all of the time and gas involved.

After the fire, Russ and I wondered how much of our world we could put back together in thrift stores, estate sales and auctions. We’ve had some good finds, but are they good enough to justify the time and expenses as anything more than a hobby or an amusement? We were working on finding out if what was primarily my pursuit born of unemployment could grow into a realistic replacement career. We had built our stock and planned for a strong and busy holiday season that would boost this pursuit into a full fledged business, but it is not a metaphor to say that it all went up in smoke.

And then there is the time component of the up-cycles. It makes great entertainment to see a save on a show like Storage Wars when a cast member makes a great up-cycle from old junk into cool stuff, but they never talk about how much time that takes, especially if you don’t have a team of helpers to get it done on the filming schedule. Those shows give the numbers people want to consider, actual purchase price versus potential sales price without regard for time, gas, storage, marketing or other expenses. In other words, they ignore all of the inconvenient real costs for the camera. There are clear winners on the occasional miss in the pricing departments of most thrift stores, but do the bargains come often enough? That is our experiment. To call it a success, we believe that it has to justify the time spent, just like work. If I put a year into this and haven’t saved at least as much money as I would earn working at something else, then I would have been better off doing something else.

Few people have a fire sweep their lives, and adding up the real costs? That doesn’t make as good a show as just looking at the fun and interesting parts, so why would I put all of this time into writing a blog about this stuff? Even though a fire isn’t the most common thing, many people do have to start over for any number of reasons and when they do, it’s pretty daunting. So many decisions, and no time to make them be the best ever. So whether you are overloaded by a reboot, or just looking for some weekend project or entertainment, I hope that I can share something fun or interesting with you.

So that is what we will find out, that is what this blog is about now.

How much of our lives and our business can we recreate second hand through thrift stores, estate sales and any other source out there in three R land?

Soon we will have the name and look that my tech advisor recommended, but all the old content will still be in the background.

Borrower’s Bookcase

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By Karen

The first time my lodging came with a lending library I was in Turrialba, Costa Rica at a bed and breakfast. The bookcase was centrally located near the dining area. Don’t imagine a Victorian cottage when I say this, rather something elegantly rustic with open space, cool breezes, hammocks, tropical plants and a lot of fresh fruit on the menu. The large bookcase had a sign the said “Take one, Leave One”, permission for which I was grateful because I found a book that I couldn’t put down and didn’t have time to finish.

Later I stayed at the lodge in Volcanoes National Park on the “big island” of Hawaii and there was a bookcase headboard. These books were hard bound and didn’t seem to offer themselves up the way the books in Costa Rica did, but I appreciated the more temporal loan none the less. I decided that staying in the kind of place that offered books was the ultimate luxury. Then I didn’t see it much anymore for a long time.

I remembered how much I enjoyed the loan of books while away from home when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. I was collecting donations from around my home. I was cash poor and beyond that, I don’t like to throw cash indiscriminately at a problem when I don’t know how it will be spent. I had been through hurricanes before. I knew what kind of things you need when your front porch is two blocks away and there’s a tire on your bed. I sent the obvious things. Linens, first aid supplies, air mattresses, extra travel toiletry kits that the airlines gave away on international flights, spare suitcases. I also went through all my bookcases and pulled out every book I was willing to part with, and a couple that I knew I would replace. They were books that I would enjoy reading if I were stuck in the Astrodome or some other shelter for an indefinite period of time.

I was reminded of these things on a recent trip to south Florida. We were camping in the Everglades without electricity, thus no radio. The sky was clear, but just as we were leaving a storm came quickly and we were caught in the rain, a cold wind driven rain leaving us soaked and shivering. (Now we have a wind-up solar radio with NOAA channels).

Places to warm up and dry off are few and far between on the Tamiami Trail. When you do make it to civilization, you find yourself in the high rent district just as suddenly as that storm rose, and we drove north along the interstate for some time looking for a place to stay for a price we’d pay. Beyond tired and not quite dry, we finally stopped at a mid-level chain hotel. They had the standard free breakfast room adjacent to the lobby, and in the corner beside a built in bench seat was a book case. Seeing that unexpected bookcase was the emotional equivalent of a warm fire.

My love of a book borrowed probably started in childhood. My father had a particular book that he liked to share with anyone who seemed interested. We joked about how many copies he must have bought over time, and still I have no idea what that number might be, only were it was that we looked to see if a copy was currently residing in the bookcase.

There has been a borrower’s bookcase at the YMCA where I work out for many years. I am seeing them in more and more places and they are filled with promise. The promise of a good story or idea shared, the promise of recycling, the promise of a little enlightenment or levity. The last book that I put into a borrowers bookcase was given to me by a roommate from Canada while I was traveling in Japan. Her other book went home with a Czech. It is not just a shared book, but a well traveled book. I wonder if the books in these cases were tracked like dollar bills on “Where’s George?” or a Geocoin if the story of how the book came to be in the bookcase might be as interesting as the book itself.

Here’s my suggestion. If you are in charge of a space where people linger, if there is space, even for a small book case, put one there. If you are on a low budget, get the bookcase at a charity thrift store and do a good deed while you’re doing a good deed. If you do not have books to share, you can get your seed books there too, or get them when the public library has its annual purge, another way to increase the footprint of your good deed. Little Free Libraries are good too!