In a bid to get our home looking it’s very best before it was open house time, we decided to hold a garage sale.
We’d seen friends do it before, listened to my mum rattle off the bargains she’d bagged at sales every weekend, and asked everyone’s advice on the best way to get rid of good, but unnecessary stuff.
So I booked the ad a few weeks ago ready for the sale on Saturday. I awoke to voices outside the house around 6.30am and then listened closer to hear rain. It was pouring – and I mean bucketing down. Who would want to traipse around garage sales in this weather? I know I wouldn’t.
But people did. They started arriving in fleets by 7.30am and Harvey quickly stuffed some breakfast into his mouth, and pulled on shoes as he ran out the door to meet them (followed very closely by two kids eager to meet the visitors and a curious dog).
As the time passed I noticed people had personal missions – some drove from garage sale to garage sale looking for one particular item (like the man who wanted a food processor to cut scraps for his worm farm), others just liked to see what was around (like the guy who checked out Ethan’s change table with a view of “doing it up”, even though he had no children) and then there were just oddballs (like the woman who bought a $1 basket but refused to look at anything while Jack was around because, “dogs smell at this time of year”, or the guy who made me promise not to sell the pram to anyone else while he got money and never returned). It was an experience watching all these characters come out of the woodwork.
Instead of being able to spread the items around our front lawn so people could pick their way through and get a good look at what was on offer, the rain meant everything was piled into my office around my desk and bookcase. People had to cram into the small, cluttered space to see what we were offering. There was more than one occasion that I had to explain my computer was not for sale! It was far from ideal.
A steady stream of visitors kept coming until about 9.30am and then it dropped off. By then the kids were sick of the whole process and driving us mad so Harvey took them and Jack for a drive to preserve some sanity.
He was away a while and I sold a few more bits and pieces until about half of our baby and household items were gone. We’d raised $151.60 and were fairly happy with the results considering the weather and my mistake of not stating a day in the ad.
The proceeds bought Ethan’s new quilt, sheets and pillow ready for his transition from a cot (which we sold) into a ‘big’ bed. Remaining items were saved for friends who expressed an interest (I hope they still want them) or were dropped off at the Smith Family.
There is definitely less clutter in our house now and we’ll soon be open for inspection!
