Breezeway Update
It has been such a busy week! Mark, our site manager for estate sales has been on a well-deserved vacation but is coming back tomorrow. Key helpers in the estate sale group have been great about helping me pick up the slack. We are officially out of our annual crunch time for estate sales and are now back down to "only" four sales per week for the time being. Crunch time usually takes place in May or June, as the best time to sell a home is in early Spring and once the homes sell and a closing date is set clients are ready for their moving sales. However this year we experienced a delay in summer weather (remember the blizzard at the end of April?) so crunch time was in July this year. I'm looking forward to things settling down a bit so I can spend more time preparing for Vintage Shop Hop. However I'm as busy as ever with client meetings, marketing and paperwork. I can always dream!
One unexpected surprise this week was that not only were the two living room pieces that I have been waiting on for months were delivered but the two pieces for the breezeway as well. They all turned out amazing! I bought the pieces from another company's estate sale, they were unfinished and a little worse for wear but have great design. I highly recommend Len at Ageless Furniture Restoration, he has refinished and / or professionally painted quite a few pieces for me including my Heywood-Wakefield dining room set on the first floor and my James Mont dining room set and Broyhill Sculptra desk and credenza in the lower level. Before I started working with Len, my designer Julie and I had someone else paint my sets of American of Martinsville furniture designed by Merton Gershun - Bali Hi in the second floor dormer and Dania in the first floor office. Unfortunately it seems that they didn't do any prep work and the paint is discolored in spots, especially on the drawer fronts of the bedroom furniture. Someday I will have Len redo them! Above is the after photo of the dressers which will go in the breezeway and below is a before photo for reference:
One unexpected surprise this week was that not only were the two living room pieces that I have been waiting on for months were delivered but the two pieces for the breezeway as well. They all turned out amazing! I bought the pieces from another company's estate sale, they were unfinished and a little worse for wear but have great design. I highly recommend Len at Ageless Furniture Restoration, he has refinished and / or professionally painted quite a few pieces for me including my Heywood-Wakefield dining room set on the first floor and my James Mont dining room set and Broyhill Sculptra desk and credenza in the lower level. Before I started working with Len, my designer Julie and I had someone else paint my sets of American of Martinsville furniture designed by Merton Gershun - Bali Hi in the second floor dormer and Dania in the first floor office. Unfortunately it seems that they didn't do any prep work and the paint is discolored in spots, especially on the drawer fronts of the bedroom furniture. Someday I will have Len redo them! Above is the after photo of the dressers which will go in the breezeway and below is a before photo for reference:
I am really excited about the way the breezeway is going to turn out. It will be such a glamorous space to showcase all of my fabulous vintage costume jewelry. I'm hoping that I will be able to have my trusty 1950s work table and pair of chairs redone to put in the space as well. I priced so much jewelry on that set when it was in my living room for many years! It's been so long but I think I bought those pieces on eBay.
This week also marked a major milestone! With the great help of Shelby and Kelly, we were able to park both of our cars in the garage for the first time in years! I broke down and got a climate-controlled storage unit to house the furniture and decor I currently have for sale online. These are mostly my personal pieces which were displaced after my major redecorating. Once these pieces sell, I'm going to keep the storage unit for a while and possibly we will be able to help more people who have great items but not enough for an estate sale. We moved quite a few pieces to the storage unit this week and when Rory has time he will help me move the larger pieces over there. With the breezeway redesign I will need as much space as possible in the garage to display both the permanent fixtures and the pieces which will be sold. My usual problem, too much good stuff! I also need to plan for construction delays in case the breezeway is not completed in time for Vintage Shop Hop. The contractor promises that it will though! We still have a ways to go but it was great progress this week. Now back to estate sale work!