How To Find a Great Items At Yardsales

I'm so sorry that I have not been able to do a new post in awhile, I have been busy prepping for my big debut at a large flea market this upcoming weekend. During this past week I have been going to as many yard sales as possible to have quite a bit of pieces for next weekend.

When it comes to yard sales there are many ways to find them. The first way I find them is the old fashioned way through the classifieds of my local newspaper. For the area I live in, I used the Frederick News Post or the Washington Post. Both papers usually have large sections for yard sales and I tend to look for either community yard sales or estate sales, since there should be a lot to look through to find the treasures. The second place i use to find yardsales is Craigslist and is labeled garage sales. Most people who post about them will create a list of items that they are selling and I always look for the words furniture or antiques. The next best website I use to find yardsales is www.yardsales.net. I think it is very helpful, since not everyone posts on Craigslist or in their local paper. If not the last way I find them is just by driving around and seeing one. Once you have found the yardsales, it would be best to create a list where they are located and what time they start. I think you will be able to find the best items at the earlier time and you have the higher possibility of fining great quality tressures. 

Now on to the actual yardsaling. If you are looking for furniture, it's best to pick out the wooden pieces over plastic. I myself have had the issue of thinking it was real wood instead of faux wood until I started to sand it, which turned into a gigantic mess. I think it sometimes take a couple of tries to learn the difference. I think the biggest difference is with weight. The faux wood will seem to be lighter than what it should be. The next part when it comes to looking for furniture is to see if there is any dovetailing on the piece. This is a sign that it was made really well and is a great quality piece to work with. The dovetailing could be with the drawers on a desk, table, dresser, on the end of the piece, etc. 

If you are looking for knicknacks or things to decorate your house with, you may have a better time finding your treasures. I have started to look at old glassware and have found pieces that were made in West Germany, so it predates WW II, and different old French bottles from the 1800's. These were by far the coolest finds I found. But when it comes to yardsales you may never know what someone has for sale until you look. More people are selling smaller items than bigger items like furniture.

I suggest that when you want to go yardsaling one day to create a list of items you are looking for and go on an adventure trying to find your buried treasure. If you have any great finds you have found in e past, please post in the thread below today's post.

Memorial Day Weekend

Overall I feel like I had a very successful weekend when it came to refurbishing. I was able to complete three projects and start on two more projects.

The first project I completed was a on a desk that I received from a neighbor in my neighborhood. It started off with this grostesck white paint that was chipping all over the place and ended up with a stained top and gray body. It took a lot of work just to remove all of the paint. It is a great accomplishment of mine just to say that I completed it. If you read my earlier posts I mention about paint removal and staining or painting. 

The next project I completed was a small chalkboard frame. By far these projects are the most fun to complete. I can finish them within a day by sanding, priming, painting both the frame and the board with the chalkboard paint. I feel like my net adventure with them are going to be with creating chalkboard paint. I'm at ease when I am working on a chalkboard project.

The last project I completed today was a jewelry frame or a momentos frame. I did the same process with it was in sanding, priming and painting. The next step was using fabric as a background and adding chicken wire to the front to hold all of the item in the frame. It's a really cool piece when you think about all of the different aspects of the piece are. 

Currently I am working on refurbishing a side table that was hollow and turning it into a dog bed/ end table. This is the a lot of work, but in the long run I think it will all work out in the end. If you are currently working on any projects that you want to talk about, comment below.

To Stain Or Not To Stain

This past week I have been working on a few projects and was contemplating wether or not to stain a piece of furniture, and well I chose to do both on one. There have been an increased amount of new furniture that has some part of it stained and painted and I wanted to try it out. 

In my mind staining is by far the easiest thing to do to a completely cleaned up and sanded item. You just paint on the stain and wait two to three minutes and wipe it off and wait for an hour. Then you can see if it needs to be sanded with a fine grit like 220. If it's a little rough then you get to sand and then stain it another coat. Once it's smooth and stained you just need to paint on a top coat, which I prefer a semi gloss clear coat. Then you clean up all of your materials with mineral spirits. Even though it is a very easy process, you can see a lot of imperfections that might be in the wood that didn't come out during the sanding process. 

That is what happened to me, which made me decide to paint those areas. The project I was working on at the time was originally a painted white desk that was chipping beyond belief. So after removing the paint and sanding it, it showed that I wasn't able to completely remove all signs of having paint on it before. So this is where I thought of painting the bottom portion of the desk and stain the top of it. 

If you are wanting to do this, I advise to stain the top at least once before painting so that you can see where you need to cover it to avoid any accidents with the paint. Then you will need to tape the edges of the top and then you can start the process of painting. With the desk I was working on, I used the same paint primer I used in my other projects and I found a grey paint at Home Depot in the oops section, so it was at a discounted price. Once the paint was dry and after three coats of paint, I did the rest of the process that is involved with staining (sanding, staining again and the top coat).

In my opinion I don't think I will do the combination with the stain and the grey paint again, but I might with a much lighter color because it will allow the stained part to stand out a little bit more. I think staining or painting a piece is all up to a personal preference and if you want to try to do both in one project I hope you enjoy it.