A Whirlwind Week

by Brigid McAlpin May 24, 2026

Well this week did not turn out the way I expected! Kuochun and I headed up to Prescott on Wednesday with another trunk loaded with items to sell up there, only to find that the building of the Arizona room had begun and the folks working on it used every last inch of space I had left in the pop-up shop to store their tools and other materials. A huge saw was literally half an inch away from the brand new beverage refrigerator! I had to squeeze the stuff I brought into the garage, so no more pathway for anyone to get to the ceiling fan and mini-split which are being stored in there. Tina arrived as I was unloading the car and we made the discovery in the pop-up shop together. She said not to worry, that if they put so much as a scratch on anything they will have to make it right. I have watched enough episodes of Flip Or Flop to know that you definitely cannot leave tools or materials outside or they will be as good as gone so I understand it. I'm excited to get the pop-up shop going but I will just need to continue to be patient. The backyard and entire area behind the house are all torn up and we did not see the landscapers while we were there. I just know the girls are going to love the yard when it is finished. Even Margot who is so picky took the opportunity to do her business on a pile of dirt when Kuochun walked them back there.

On Thursday my bed frame delivery from Lulu & Georgia went off without a hitch. This is the first "real bed" I have had in over 30 years. Since I left Vernon Hills, I have always had a mattress on a frame with a vintage headboard, this continuing in Mount Prospect and Scottsdale as well. I am so pleased with it! Normally I am not into new furniture but it is such nice quality and feels so sturdy. My room is not set up yet, new bedding and an area rug are on order and should arrive any time, and I need to figure out which lamps I want to put on the nightstand and dresser. I also have extra furniture in there which I need to do something with - Mother's beautiful antique settee, her mid-century Lane cedar chest and the highboy dresser which matches this set. Tina suggested that I put the highboy in the garage for extra storage but she does not know that I already have Mother's adorable "cowgirl" dresser in there as well as my rolling store shelves. She also suggested that I try and work the settee into the pop-up shop. I will try to do that because it would look beautiful in there. After the bed frame delivery, Tina stopped by to check it out and she was very pleased with it too. Maybe I have given her a new resource!

I never heard from the folks I bought the Mexican tin mirror on Facebook Marketplace from regarding their coordinating headboard but that is OK, someday I might swap out the bedroom set I currently have in Scottsdale (which is what I was using in Mount Prospect) and get a new set from Lulu & Georgia. Sadly every piece of my wonderful 1952 Bali Hi set by American of Martinsville was damaged in the move. When I get the chance I am going to see about having it repaired and/or refinished. I had it painted about 9 years ago and it does have sun fading as well. I am afraid it will cost more to fix up than just purchasing new furniture but it is a valuable set and I have so many pieces which I have collected over time.

Tina and I had a productive meeting at the house on Thursday as well. We worked out where the art is going to go and unfortunately three pieces are on the chopping block. I left them there just in case. One of them is my little flamenco dancer oil painting but another is the fabulous framed girl painted on beadboard which I bought in Nashville when Mother and I went to the EstateSales.net conference in 2000 just before the pandemic started. The colors are perfect for the space! In the hallway there are two sconces on the wall and the previous owner had a square piece of art there. I thought the size and shape was perfect and immediately planned to place my square orange floral original art there, which was originally in my office in Mount Prospect. However, Tina felt that it was too large of a piece and we have to think about aging in place. She said she was afraid Kuochun would lose his balance walking through the hallway (which cannot be more than eight feet long!) and fall into the art. Instead, she wants to place a smaller piece there which I had as an accent in the living room in Mount Prospect. I love that piece but think it is too small for the space. When I told Kuochun about it he thought it was hilarious! Maybe she would compromise and accept the Nashville girl there. She is not wide but pretty tall. I am proud to say I did not buy a single new furniture or decor item for this house except for my bed frame.

I was also able to ask a few questions which have been on my mind, like my hangers do not fit in the closet without angling way over to one side and the double hung rods are way to close together. The upper rods can be moved backwards so the hangers can be straight and the lower rods will need to be removed altogether because the way it is now would basically only work for children's clothing. The regular shower head was installed as well as the glass shower door and thankfully Kuochun and I both agree that it's great. The vanity sink is now up and running as well. The bathroom is small like the rest of the house and I was kind of concerned about it. Now that the super tall bathtub is gone the bathroom feels more spacious. The door will need to be shaved down a bit because right now there is not enough clearance for a bath rug. Then it will be perfect!

After our meeting at the house, Tina took me over to her new studio space in downtown Prescott so we could choose window shades. I totally fell in love with the building she is in! It is so charming, the building looks like it was built in the 1960s in a Spanish style with wrought iron and the original wrought iron building name and address. Stepping through the huge wrought iron gate, there are eight studios (four on each side) and a fountain in the center. Each studio has its own wrought iron sign! I noticed that one of the signs did not have a business name and I said I want one! Tina said that is the owner's studio and she actually rented the last available studio. Her space is utilitarian because she will have folks come and look at sample books (like I did) as well as draperies. She makes cowboy hats and had a hat on display for a customer to come pick up. I said she needs to have a hat display as well! Mother would have loved it just as much as me, I wish she was here to see it.

The weather was absolutely glorious in Prescott, lower 70s for a high and cool evenings. We had planned to leave Saturday because Kuochun has a dental appointment Tuesday and he did not want to go back to Scottsdale at the last minute. However that plan went out the window when I had a customer contact me through Facebook Marketplace inquiring about a belt buckle. I did not bring the jewelry with me since we were not going to be gone long and I could still make my shipping deadlines even if something sold. But in this case, the man's anniversary was Saturday and he wanted to pick up the belt buckle before that. And then after that, I was asked by the store owner in Cave Creek to come up Saturday and show him some jewelry. He found Mother's cuff bracelet on Facebook Marketplace and wanted to buy it as well. As a result, we left Friday, after I took some time to tidy up the house before we left in case anyone needed to do any work in there. We were not going to bother putting Kuochun's bed frame back together because I thought his rug was going to be delivered soon but it turned out it will not be arriving until August. It is not the worst thing because it will give me some time to sell the current rug.

I let the customer know we were back in town and it turned out he was afraid his wife might feel the belt buckle would be too large so he decided not to surprise her with it. They wanted to see it in person on Saturday. They live about an hour away from me so I offered to meet them at the Cave Creek post office before my appointment at the store. I brought all of the buckles I currently have but she ended up getting the original one. It was a great choice, it looked amazing on her. Our visit to the store was successful as well, I sold lots of jewelry, Kuochun found some art he liked and I did a partial jewelry swap. There was a cute little sterling silver turtle pin in one of their cases and the second I flipped it over and saw it was by acclaimed Navajo jeweler Artie Yellowhorse, it was a must-buy. Artie Yellowhorse was Mother's favorite Native American artist and she had quite a few of her pieces. It will be for sale, along with Mother's pieces eventually. They are very beautiful but a little too serious for me.

After our meetings, we stopped by the Grotto Cafe in town for a quick bite before heading home. I had the "famous" chicken salad sandwich and kettle chips which were good. The chicken salad was on cranberry walnut bread. Kuochun enjoyed his grilled chicken sandwich and seasoned fries. I never thought I would see the day when Kuochun would eat chicken sandwiches (this is usually my go-to) but he is thinking of his health.

With all this activity and unexpected schedule changes I did not have much of a chance to post new items. I did list four items on Sunday since I did not have to do paperwork - this interesting contemporary style concho belt set, the butterfly pins from the 1930s and 1940s respectively and this tiny Zuni sunface pin with headdress.

Other than the Facebook Marketplace sales, I only sold two additional items but I was super happy about both of them! After two weeks of price shaming by random men on Facebook Marketplace and many, many inquiries on this belt buckle - I received a message on Facebook Marketplace by a man who asked me if I had sold it on Etsy. I had not been notified of a sale but I checked and there was no sale. He said he bought it and I figured he got it from another seller. Twenty minutes later, I was notified by Etsy that I had a pending sale. I let him know and the sale went through in the morning so I was able to ship it on our way out of town. I am not complaining in the least but it seems that I get a last-minute sale every time we are heading to Prescott.

The other item was a beautiful pair of earrings by Anglo artist Leo Feeney. I had listed five pair of his earrings back in July 2023 and sold one of the five pair. I had put the remaining earrings aside because I wanted to shoot new photos. The current photos are kind of dark and muddy and do not show off the beauty of the earrings, which are made with a combination of Sleeping Beauty turquoise and genuine gemstones. Now there is one less item that I will need to photograph because another pair sold Friday. Sadly, the artist passed away about a year ago. Mother has a couple of pieces and I have a cuff bracelet I need to post by Leo Feeney as well. They are in the queue like just about everything else!

A bummer experience on eBay took a lot of time away while in Prescott. I sold this belt buckle, shipped it out and the day it arrived the customer initiated a return, saying the item was not as described. He said he is a 69 year old man and this buckle is for a lady, he can never wear it, I am so deceptive and on and on. I normally do not do this but I had previously added this photo to the listings with the buckle next to a quarter for size reference because someone had asked me for one on Mercari. Also, my listings are detailed and always include measurements. I included the size belt this buckle could accommodate as well. Even though I have a no returns policy due to the nature of selling vintage items eBay favors buyers and forced me to accept a return. I knew I could not fight a return but do not want the black mark on my record for a year for having an item not as described which was not true. I have been waiting for my negative review to drop off my 12-month statistics and I was almost there, now I will have this on my record for a year. I spent a good amount of time researching how I could get eBay to reconsider that but to no avail. On top of it, even though I requested that I wanted my $450.00 item back (and not allow the buyer to get his money back AND keep the item which is the other choice) eBay closed the return. I was not having that so I messaged the buyer and asked him to confirm the return before printing a return shipping label for him. So because I offer free shipping, I paid $12.10 there and $12.10 back, for Priority Mail when the man is only an hour away from me. Due to the holiday the package is supposed to come back to me Tuesday. There is another person who is interested in it so hopefully that sale can go through once I have the belt buckle back. Definitely a frustrating experience, all because this person did not read my description or look at my photos, and did not want to have to pay return shipping so he did not tell the truth about the situation. I have not had anyone ask for a refund on eBay in many years and wow has the process changed.

After an early morning physical therapy appointment on Tuesday, I am off for a bit as we needed to request more sessions from the insurance company. All the activity has really been aggravating my knee but I hope to get back to my exercise homework next week. It will be nice to have a break from the constant appointments - I had three between Monday and Tuesday including having my car serviced, which ended up taking three and a half hours. The Hyundai dealer has great snacks though so that kept us busy part of the time! I had a hot chocolate, popcorn and mini Nutter Butters, things I do not normally eat but it was fun. It is definitely interesting drinking hot chocolate when it is 95 degrees outside! The service manager that day was a woman which I thought was awesome to see in such a male-dominated field. She was super friendly and very knowledgeable. I have never had the inclination to fix cars but growing up with all of Mother's interesting cars really gave me a love and appreciation for them.

Next week the plan is to get back in the saddle and start posting again because I definitely see the effect when I put items out there! I think it would be nice to get to 500 items online but (and it is a great problem to have) I hover around 225 items. I post items and then different items sell. I had been mostly concentrating on the higher end items lately but I posted the tiny Zuni pin for fun. I only have it listed for $30 so I think it will sell quickly.

Kuochun signed up for the ESPN baseball package, which I encouraged him to do. Since we are crosstown rivals, we get double the value! I enjoy watching the Cubs while I am doing jewelry busy work, like polishing and pricing silver. Kuochun wanted to wait until he came back from China. The entire time Kuochun was gone the Cubs were 20-3 and since he has come back, they have lost eight in a row. As I well know being a fan since I was a kid, it is a long season and they will turn it around.

See you next time!