Books & Birds
This Saturday we set our alarms and sprung (well, stumbled) out of bed to take on the Forest Hill Neighborhood Yard Sale bright and early. With over 30 coordinated sales within walking distance, we certainly kept ourselves busy and came across lots of fabulous finds. And the neighborhood was so charming that we couldn’t help but snap a few photos of the homes that caught our eye- even if our arms were full of yard sale goodies.
Here’s a sweet red-doored house with two ladies selling their wares in the front yard. Not a bad way to spend a morning if you ask me. Especially if you live here…
Here’s a house with a gorgeous open porch (we love that it’s low enough to have no railing), crisp craftsman columns and an amazing stacked stone wall out front.
This is the house of our dreams. Literally- we stood in front of it for five minutes just taking it all in. The sweet little round window near the door and the wraparound porch wooed us to no end, plus the fact that it’s still modest in size (and oh so ranchy) had us drooling.
This grand home was also rocking a wraparound porch with large stately white columns, floor to ceiling windows and a gorgeous double door.
This house’s craftsman door and sage & red accent colors really made it a stunner (and we loved the stenciled detail on the front of each step that really gave it a dash of extra style).
Can you imagine walking up to this dreamy door every day? We love the graphic house numbers and the lush grasses that line the path.
As if this neighborhood didn’t adequately charm you thus far, how adorable is this vintage VW truck?
And isn’t this woven fence with metal caps so interesting and sculptural?
We had so much fun walking around and taking in the sights. And you know we didn’t leave empty handed. But we didn’t beak the bank either. We like to set a “budget” beforehand so we don’t get carried away, and we entered this supersized yard sale thinking we’d like to spend about $20 or so. Well, for just $12 we left with all these goodies:
That’s right, we snagged seven books, twelve magazines (eleven of which are vintage House Beautiful issues from the 70s and 80s!), and two ceramic animals (for just $1.50 each). You guys know I have a weakness for white ceramic “friends” for our home, so they were the first thing we grabbed. Then we stumbled upon one of the most amazing book sales and grabbed $127 worth of books (really, we did the math) for just… (drumroll please)… $8. It doesn’t get much better than that.
But then it did. We came across a woman who was shutting down for the day and offered us any of her magazines for free (many of which were thirty to forty years old- so we happily snatched up some old House Beautiful issues and can’t wait to dig through them for eye candy and what-goes-around-comes-around inspiration). But we said we spent $12 and that’s only $11. Ok, ok, we also picked up two Krispy Kreme donuts for a dollar along the way (some very smart yard-salers offered up eats and we couldn’t resist).
So from two ceramic birds and a slew of old glossies to a health food book and a classic novel to some chic lit and a few wild card reads, we came home with some pretty fun stuff (along with a bunch of house pics in remembrance of a morning well spent). Have you guys had any yard sale fun these days? Any favorite finds you wanna share? Any tales of hosting your own yard sale and making some nice pocket change? Do tell!
And speaking of hosting your own yard sale, here’s an old post about our very own yard sale last spring with a few tips and tricks that we picked up along the way. Good times.
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Wow, thank you for sharing those are really cute houses.. We don’t see as many neighborhoods like that up here in DC….
I just tried placing my vote several times & its not working :( i had read someone’s comments sometimes last week, where the code would not go through & that’s what’s happening to me! I’m entering the code right, but it will not go thru!! I signed out & signed back in, but no luck. I guess I’ll try it again this afternoon.
Hey Adriana,
Yeah, there have been a few glitches lately. Hopefully it goes through later today. Thanks for giving it a go either way!
xo,
s
Oh wow, all of those houses are so beautiful. I’ve a real soft spot for porches (esp. wrap-around) and… is it called clapboard..?
Makes me want to up sticks and move across the pond immediately!!!
Excellent score with the birdies and the reading gear, btw. One thing I really miss about my time in the States is the yard sales.
Just voted :D
Love the ceramic birds and books (I have those chic lit titles!). I haven’t been to any yard sales yet this year but my boyfriend and I are likely going next weekend. My city is having a big one at the end of the month that I’m thinking of participating in. I have a HUGE stack of things in the basement that I’d like to get rid of!
I found that if the “code” did not work, I simply pressed F5 to refresh and hit the place my vote button and the code would change and totally work.
C’mon people– we have to get the lead back!! VOTE VOTE VOTE everyday.
Great birds and books you scored guys.
Great finds! I love the ceramic birds (your photo made me giggle though – the bird with horns!). How awesome that you were able to get old decorating magazines for FREE! Lucky you! The neighborhood is beautiful. Thanks for the tour!
Haha- we were waiting for someone to notice those bull horns behind our little ceramic bird. Apparently he has the heart of a lion- or a bull. Is it a sign that there are too many ceramic animals in your house when you take a photo of one and another one interferes in the background?
xo,
s
Great scores! I love grabbing books at garage sales — great way to recycle. :)
Also, that neighborhood is GORGEOUS. And I absolutely agree with you that your “dream house” is the most drool-worthy of the bunch.
LOVE the homes your chose to showcase. We are househunting ourselves (for real) right now and it looks like we all have very similar taste. (We just have to sell our current condo first). I totally related to stading out front and dreaming about the home you mentioned. My husband and I did that at the house we have fallen for– it has a great front steps for our daughter’s pumpkins. :) If we get the house, I’ll be sure to send you some pictures.
Great site. I look forwarding to reading every day!
Johanna Patterson
Chicago Illinois
I LOVE garage sale-ing! I save my quarters all year so that I can spend them at sales over the summer. The summer we got married we furnished our ENTIRE apartment with garage sale furniture, minus our bed. Considering we spent a total of about$120, I think that’s pretty good!
On another note, a question for the two of you. I have a yellow stucco house with soon to be green trim on the windows and the doors. The concrete porch needs to be painted, do you have any suggestions on a color?
hey Jenny,
Ooh tough question without seeing a pic (for example, green trim could be sage or evergreen or mint, etc). That being said, something soft and tan might work with both the yellow and the green- you know we love a dash of neutral to keep things classic and inviting. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Your dream house = adorable! I’m in looovvveeee!! This is perfect timing; I’m trying to decide if I should paint my front door red and these doors are about to convince me! Only problem is, I’ve got molding around the door that I don’t know what to do with – I’ve been trying to decide if I should paint it all red, leave it white, or paint the molding black to match the shutters and the door red. Decisions, decisions!
I’m so envious you found all those goodies for less than $12! But I’m curious (as I always am when I’m on your blog), where do you keep your books? I’ve only seen a few books lying here and there and I don’t think I’ve seen a bookshelf yet in your house…I know you guys use books to accessorize your house, but how do you choose the books you wish to have out? Is it based on color? Location? Subject? Mood?
Hey Priscilla,
When it comes to books, we’re usually library people so we only own a few of our favorite hardcover books (which we stack all over the place: the coffee table, the console table, the bench in the guest bedroom, etc). As for what stack of hardcover books go where, I’m afraid there’s little method to our madness. As we acquire them we just stack them anywhere and although the color of the spine might have something to do with where a book ends up (for example there’s a bright turquoise one on an ottoman in our third bedroom since it complements the duvet) most books are neutral so they can really live anywhere if they’re big hardcover lovelies.
And you can actually see our small collection of softcover books that we keep in the top left of the guest bedroom closet right above Burger’s crate in this post (they’re less decorative so we don’t keep ‘em stacked around the house but they’re favorites none the less so we can’t quite let them go). As for the soft cover chic-lit I picked up, I doubt it’ll make it to the “keep forever” collection in the closet and will either get handed off to a friend or dropped off at Goodwill to continue the recycling fest (since they were only 50 cents each). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
I just wanted to drop a note to tell you I love your blog. I discovered it about a week ago while looking for ways to spruce up the backyard and now I’m hooked. Thanks for keeping me entertained.
You guys live in such a beautiful area! What eye-candy you have! Thanks for sharing some of the homes in your area!
Hi you two, We had a garage sale on Saturday and felt really happy that we made $965.00. We started at 8 a.m. and ended at 1 p.m.. We made profit on many antique items, but of course lost money on my like new clothes and shoes. We had a ton of people come. We have these sales about 2 times a year and it’s really fun. I have over 20 years of retail management experience, so I always set a goal at our sales and count the money frequently. We usually achieve our plan and I really believe you can’t reach a goal if you don’t set one. Anyway great scores at your garage sales, I love books and old decorating magazines and love the white birds.
Thanks for spotlighting forest hill! as a proud resident I am always going on and on about the charming architecture, the farmers market, and the proximity to the river. Now you have put our little hood on the map :)
Hey youngsters, have you heard of paperbackswap? Its a place where you can swap books online for free – I’ve been a member for years and have received many great reads in return for the books I no longer want (I am also a member of their dvd swap and cd swap).
http://www.paperbackswap.com/
Hey Amy,
Good to know! We’ll definitely check it out. Thanks so much for the link!
xo,
s
hey! we live behind that “dreamy door” that you mentioned—thanks so much for the compliment! your blog is a daily pleasure, and we appreciate you highlighting a neighborhood where we feel lucky to live!
Hey Mandy,
No way! We can’t believe one of our readers lives behind that dreamy door. If only we’d knocked…
Congrats on such a lovely home in a truly amazing neighborhood. I’m glad you didn’t see us snapping pics out front and call the cops!
xo,
s
I share your love of white ceramic “friends”! Actually, you may have been the inspiration for this relatively new collection I’ve started, including candlesticks! But I have an owl, some birds, a snail, deer (for Christmas) and this is my newest addition that I scored at Goodwill (in Richmond!) for $2 and change! A hippo. In its former life it was a toothbrush holder. But it’s gaping mouth and two front teeth make it the perfect card holder in my office! Here’s a pic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbannest/3607086409/
Loved the Forest Hill tour and so sorry that I missed the yard sale! Juliet
That hippo totally rocks my world. I’m seriously green with hippo jealousy over here. You could also make him into a little vase with flowers poking out of the holes or even use ‘em as pen holders on a desk with the business cards in the mouth. Adorable!!!
xo,
s
Christine, don’t sell DC short! Check out a couple of the houses in town on my blog. . . burbappeal.blogspot.com.
For all you Richmonders, don’t miss the Carillon’s neighborhood yard sale on June 20 from 8-2. You’ll enjoy the lovely homes … and the bargains! I believe that the neighborhood association will run an ad in the Richmond Times-Dispatch listing the addresses of the participants. Happy hunting!
Amy — I was going to suggest paperbackswap.com too! I love that site. I used to have hundreds of books cluttering up the place — but now it’s like I’m keeping them at everyone else’s house and when I want them back, I just request them on paperbackswap.
Those houses are amazing! Im sad that I missed that yard sale. How did you guys find out about it? Im a local Richmonder and didnt hear anything… we dont subscribe to the paper either though.
Love those birds too! I recently found an old ceramic owl that was brown at my own yardsale (it was joint with other family members) I painted him white and now he lives on the mantel! Heres my post about it: http://housebuiltfor2.blogspot.com/2009/05/yard-sale-finds-part-2.html
Hey Amy,
We’re loving your owl makeover. As for the garage sale, John is the king of learning about all the fun things going on in town and I’m just along for the ride. I think he may have found out on Twitter (since he follows a lot of locals and they mention upcoming events) but he also drives through that neighborhood on the way to work and there were signs up so that was another tip-off. Oh and a good place to find out about these local events is rvanews.com (and it’s free). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Oh my goodness! I am in love with those houses. I will be dreaming about those wraparound porches tonight.
http://www.thesouthernnest.blogspot.com
What a beautiful neighborhood! I’m a total sucker for big porches. I love older neighborhoods because it’s fun to see all the different styles of homes. It obviously grew over time and wasn’t just plopped down during some housing boom within five years. That adds so much character and history. If I ever move east, I may have to consider this (so far I’ve never been east of Chicago).
Maggie
Great finds youngsters. I can’t believe everything you were able to get for $12 and still got to see all those adorable homes. Please, post pics of any interesting articles you find in the vintage magazines, they are my weakness. Thanks for sharing with us.
Thanks for the advice about my porch. I should have mentioned that the house is mustard yellow, and the trim will be in the evergreen green family. :-) We were leaning towards tan… so I think that will be the way to go! Love your blog!
The Highway 68 400 mile yard sale (stretches all the way across the state of Kentucky) was this weekend, and I found a couple of great finds (like an antique dresser that needs lots of love but will be a great bathroom vanity for $25). See the rest at my blog, http://meltonpoint.blogspot.com
I love a good garage sale! When I got my first place in college I got a dining room set that I refurbished to look like something out of Pottery Barn…but I only spent $2.50 for each chair, and $10 dollars for the table! Best $20 I’ve ever spent in my entire life! Nothing beats a good yard sale.
my best garage sale find is a really nice baseball glove that I picked up for 2 bucks last spring. It probably would retail for something around 100, and it looked like it had barely been used. We weren’t even meaning to go to a garage sale, just passed it on a walk to get coffee.
I LOVE garage sales!
One of my most favorite recent finds was a huge, sturdy mirror to go over my fireplace. It didn’t have a price, so I offered $5 (knowing that it could probably go for $50 at a steal.) The woman said no, so I walked away. Luckily she called me back and I managed to get her to take $10. $10!! I grabbed the mirror and ran out of there as quickly as I could before she changed her mind! I have it all sanded down and ready for a nice dark stain. I can’t wait to get it up on the wall!
These houses can be described in one word:YUMMY!
Ooh that’s a great story Bethie! We actually snagged a big mirror a while back for five buckaroos after a yard sale had ended and the lady didn’t want to have to haul it away or bring it back into her house. Talk about a lucky break. Here’s the post about it:
http://www.younghouselove.com/2008/08/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall/
xoxo,
Sherry
I discovered your blog a few weeks ago when searching for tips on planning my first yard sale. The idea for the yard sale came from my 9 year old daughter who is a fan of Clean House. We are re-doing her bedroom for her 10th b-day and she thought why not fund it with a sale like they do on the show!
I had no real expectation in terms of making a lot of cash. clothes/toys for $1, Grand total earnings $480 with still a lot of items off to the Rescue Mission!
But, the most the most valuable lesson I (we all) learned was to scale back on stuff moving forward, especially clothing. In the past, things got packed away in bags and dropped off at a charity, …never laid out on 8 ft. tables….seeing all those clothes laid out on 3 tables was impactful! Too much! I do not plan on having another yard sale for years, but I do plan on scaling back starting now!
I love your blog and stop by each day for inspiration for my daughter’s “garden spa” room. yes, that is what she’s going for!
What a lovely neighbourhood! Thanks for sharing.
I love garage sales, too. My favourite buy this weekend — and for only a dime — was a tin that originally held “Products of Quality and Distinction” from the James Strachan Bakery of Montreal, “Three Rivers”, and Quebec.
Besides the lady on the lid, I love its quality. Tins made today just don’t stand up. This one is obviously years old yet there’s no warping at all and the lid fits perfectly. There’s some wear from use and a bit of rusting on the inside lid, but otherwise it’s fine.
Contrast that with a cookie tin we received a couple of years ago from Sandringhamm — the Queen’s own private estate — which was unusable because the lid warped and wouldn’t stay on.
All this to say that one of my favourite things about garage sales is that I can pick up items of a greater quality than I can afford new or that are simply no longer available in better a better quality.
OMG I LOVE LOVE LOVE those houses. Totally my style. Old look and feel. So beautiful. I’m drooling right along with you.
Greetings YHL
i have several gal pals who follow your blog. looks like i’m your newest fan. I (with fella) own the Green house on Stonewall. Thank-you for your kind comments. Please knock next time you’re out and about.
We have undertaken an exterior and interior restoration/renovation of our home and would love to give you a tour and share stories.
Dena
Hey Dena,
Your house is just gorgeous and we’re thrilled that you found your way to our blog! Feel free to take off your shoes and stay a while. And of course we’d love a house tour whenever we’re in the neighborhood!
xo,
s