Estate Sales Are On A Roll...

There is no jewelry news to report this week as I had to take time out to complete my taxes before this year's July 15 deadline. Now that this big task is behind me, the focus is on estate sale paperwork. We have had steady business with the estate sales since we moved to Phase 3 of the Restore Illinois plan in early June. The first weekend was a big one with six sales as we had a few clients who were able to wait out the stay at home order but wanted to have their sales as soon as possible. We found that our customers were glad to get back to estate sale shopping (this was the longest drought ever!) and overall have been patient and cooperative with the guidelines of limiting the number of people in the house at one time as well as mandatory mask-wearing.

This past week we have had an explosion of new sales and are basically booked until Labor Day. We received a record fifteen contracts in one week! Adam has been handling many of the meetings with potential estate sale clients in 2020, either by FaceTime or in person and this has been very helpful to me. There have been so many people interested in our services that I have handled a number of these meetings as well including four in two days this week. One was particularly interesting, it is a hidden gem in an unexpected location. I hope to receive the opportunity to share this time capsule treasure trove with everyone!

This coming week we will start to prepare for a combined moving sale in Barrington Hills in a beautiful 4-bedroom waterfront home on 4 picturesque acres. The sale will take place at the end of this month and it looks like this will be a good time to start to reintroduce the jewelry caravan. As I have mentioned before, the stay at home order took effect about a month after we returned from our big Arizona buying trip. I purchased more than ever this time including amazing pieces from Mexico, Thailand and Tibet. Unfortunately no one has been able to see these pieces yet and the Tucson Gem Show finds have been very popular in the past. The Tibet pieces are bohemian in feel and especially great for spring and summer wear. The summer is fleeting by and now that we have hit our stride with estate sales again I feel the time is as good as any to bring the jewelry caravan back. I have a procedure figured out, my intention is to keep everyone safe yet make the procedure as simple as possible. I will provide hand sanitizer and the customer will just need to apply some before handling the jewelry. This way our helpers will not have to wear gloves all day and they can use the provided hand sanitizer whenever they like.

In addition, we will be sending lots of neat furniture and decorative items to Barrington Hills to sell. I am going to create a mid-century modern room with a cool sofa, sideboard, display shelf, fabulous hand-dyed New Zealand wool rugs and chrome decorative sculptures by Raju Peddada and a great collection of mid-century modern colored glassware including some famous names. The plan is to basically empty the storage unit, my shed and garage of items I would like to sell and bring them to Barrington Hills. I would then like to move to a storage unit closer to the garage bay. I love my current access code which is a combination of my unit number and birthday. It is so easy to remember because it is all ones, sevens and zeroes but convenience is winning out. I noticed several available units which are very close to the bay. I am all the way down the hall but if it will cost more I will just keep my current unit. I would like the shed to be devoted to our overflow of display props which we only use twice a year for the pop-up sales. I also need to prepare for the arrival of all of the garage furniture which has been with Len the furniture restorer since January. It will be time for the next Vintage Shop Hop before we know it! I have not been able to store my outdoor patio furniture in the shed these past two years because the rugs are in there and although the furniture is powder coated I would like to put it back under a roof this winter. I have been very good about keeping the garage, breezeway and basement organized and with a little help on Tuesday it will be that much easier to keep it under control. The goal is to have the organization totally complete before the Fall Vintage Shop Hop the first weekend of October so I can focus on jewelry as much as I can for the holiday season.

I do have some new arrivals for Native American as well as Mexican jewelry and would like to get them posted next week as well. As usual, I need three of me to accomplish everything I would like to! I have got to get back to the paperwork so until next time...