Simmertime…and the livin’ is steamy

I don’t care what the calendar says–it’s June here in Atlanta and it’s officially hot. How do I deal with heat? Junkin’! Last weekend was extremely junk-central. We started off Thursday with the Decatur First Baptist Gi-Normous Yard Sale. Katie and I–and her best friend Carolyn, got up at 5:30 a.m.–or what we call buttcrack of dawn, to get in line for the sale by 6 a.m. for the 7 a.m. start-time. Now that’s some serious junking. This is a yearly sale held to fund the church’s youth mission trips. Of course, we’d done a drive-by the night before to scope out the merch, and I’d spotted what looked like a queen-size headboard and footboard. Not really antique, but decent repro. We cruised by the bed again in the morning, just to make sure it looked good up close, which it did, and made a list of stuff we wanted to find: beds for my future beach house, maybe a dresser or two, and for Katie, two kitchen chairs to replace two of hers that had bit the dust. By the time the sale started, we were 9th or 10th in line, with close to a hundred people behind us. You gotta love a yard sale that starts with the church pastor giving a megaphone benediction. Once we’d been blessed, we were off! Our strategy was divide and conquer. Katie raced for the bed area, while I made a beeline for what looked like a decent sofa. The sofa was a no-go, (smelled like it had substituted for a catbox), so I sprinted over to the three metal spring-back motel chairs I’d been eyeballing. Just as I got there, another woman was placing a “sold” sticker on them. And they were only $15 apiece! They are just like the ones that were on the cover of SAVANNAH BLUES. I had to cuss under my breath (it being a Baptist church-sanctioned sale and all). I headed for the kitchen chair area, where I grabbed up two painted oak kitchen chairs (for Katie) for $30. Five minutes had passed by the time I made my way over to Katie, who’d scored the queen-bed, plus a retro-sixties white and yellow beachy headboard–for the grand total of $35. We trolled the rest of the aisles and came up with two more great finds: a queen-sized sleeper sofa from Storehouse–complete with slipcover–for $175–for my future beach house, plus a scarred and battered mahogany dresser for $40, which will be painted shabby-chic style for aforesaid beach house. And here’s a valuable tip we learned that day. Contrary to popular opinion, a queen-sized sleeper sofa will fit all the way into my husband’s Yukon! That was the good news. The bad news was that the same sofa would NOT fit through my basement doorway, despite the valiant efforts of my good neighbor Joel and son. So I had to cover the sofa with two bright blue plastic drop cloths until my husband and a friend could load it up and take it over to be stored at Boomerang Boy’s garage. Friday morning, when I went outside to make sure our dogs hadn’t decided to breakfast on the sofa, I discovered Wyatt lounging atop the tarp-draped sofa, looking quite pleased with himself. Of course, there was more junking to be done on Friday. With Katie and Jinxie along, we hit three excellent estate sales. I love an estate sale–dead people’s stuff is just way more exciting than the run-of-the-mill suburban homeowner’s assortment of cast-off clothing, plastic toys and hideous ’80s herculon Lazy-Boys. I bought an adorable ’50s chenille crib spread to take to Maisy’s Daisy, plus a bunch of other stuff for the booth. Saturday, I junked solo, scoring a great armchair and ottoman for the future beach house for $35, plus a pair of great-looking faux bamboo Chinese Chippendale armchairs. And to cap off the long weekend, I found a pair of vintage mahogany four-poster twin beds on Craig’s List–$50 for the pair. My basement is full, my fantasy beach house is nearly furnished, I’m a happy camper. Now, it’s back to THE FIXER UPPER. I actually wrote five pages yesterday, to atone for all that outta control junking.