New Yard To Sale On

We had our first yard sale of the summer over the weekend, smack dab in the middle of our new big driveway.

Maybe if we had planned better and the weather had cooperated more, we would have been able to have this sale at the old house before we moved (hence moving about 5 truckloads less) but we also considered that having it at the new house might draw a different type of yard sale-goer, and would certainly give us the opportunity to meet more of our new neighbors. Which we did. In mass.

Getting on with the sale landed at the top of our to-do list because until we cleared it all out, the garage was essentially unusable for our cars. Plus, we wanted to be rid of the stuff before we found a place to hoard it in the new house.

Having lived in the house for several weeks now, we had a good idea what wasn’t going to work/fit/jive with the goals we have for this house, and knowing that in advance made stocking the sale and discounting our belongings to cheaper-than-Salvation-Army lows that much easier.

Having identified in advance what pieces were no longer fit with our home took a lot of the emotion out of selling materials and pieces of home decor that I still liked, and made me more apt to let people negotiate prices and make us offers. It also meant we moved a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff that you probably grew used to seeing in our old house. And I don’t even want to tell you what that stuff is so you don’t make me feel guilty for ditching it. So hormonal.

I think this photo is from the only time I sat down on Friday. I regret not taking a quick photo at the beginning of the day, because this place looked totally crazeballs.

Crazeballs, right. With people touring through out stuff as early as 7:30am, and not stopping long enough to let me finish my breakfast. In fact, we spent all of Friday during the sale relocating our inventory out of the house and into the driveway, which kept many customers loitering around like they were lions anticipating the fresh meat, which is a good feeling. Friday alone was nearly twice as productive, financially-speaking, than any of the other garage sales I wrote about hosting at the old house, and of course that could be due to any number of things, better weather, better neighborhood, better products, etc. We did, however, get away with using the old signage we had used for the past few years (because they never listed an address, just simple details with arrows), and supplemented with a few creative signs to encourage our immediate neighbors to come say hello.

Julia hosted a lemonade stand at the sale this year, an added complexity that we had never taken on before. I supplemented with five dozen homemade chocolate chip cookies, and I would recommend that to anyone. The stand is something that we’ll do again for sure; the little worker bee earned herself $50 on Saturday alone, which totally paid for the $13 water cooler I reluctantly splurged on at the last minute.

Our garage is relieved now; we can even fit our garbage and recycling bins in there, total luxury. In fact, after we Craigslist the last few big items (rugs, trunk, futon frame), and donate one more car load to drop off at the thrift store (far left behind the red stacked table frames) we’ll be able to park our cars in it (hurrah!).

How was your holiday weekend?