Junkin’ Journal

The junk posse was all atwitter this week about a big estate sale that started Friday. The dealer having the sale sent out an advance e-mail that had us salivating. Historic Buckhead mansion! Nine-acre estate! Like that. Jinxie and I got ourselves over there before the 9 am start time, climbed the looong driveway up to the manse, which was a breathtakingly beautiful 1920s Tudor Revival. About 30 people were already lined up to get inside. We were positively tingly with anticipation. And then…..bupkus. Some decorator had perpetrated a massive fraud upon these home-owners, selling them boatloads of hideously expensive brand-new crapola. We’re talking purple leather sofas, “art” that looked like it had been picked up on clearance at Michael’s, and the gaudiest damned be-fringed, swagged, tasselled window treatments ever. Jinxie’s friend Nancy, who has exquisite taste–(we are considering allowing her to join the posse on a permanent basis)–summed it up. “Looks like a Haverty’s show house,” she sniffed. Of course we were dying to know the story behind the estate sale. One of the helpers confided that the owners were in the process of a divorce, and that the wife had left the premises. Apparently she took whatever good stuff there was, because the only signs of female habitation I saw were the stacks of Manolo and Jimmy Choo shoe bags she left behind. So we trudged back down the driveway and went on our way–antique-less. Just goes to show you can’t judge a sale by the address. We had better luck on Saturday, where we went to a sale at a much smaller, but ten times more charming stone cottage. I got a small mahogany table to put between the beds in my guest bedroom, and some Waterford-looking cut-glass old-fashion tumblers for Mr. Mary Kay, who likes to sip his bourbon from a heavy glass. I’ve got my eye on an Empire dresser, so I may go back tomorrow to see if the prices have been reduced. It is totally against my constitution to pay full price at an estate sale. I shall keep you all posted.