RUMMAGE, REMNANTS and RESALE

RUMMAGE, REMNANTS and RESALE: From Secondhand to First-class Décor Finally, a place of our own

For several years, my husband and I rented places in Florida, but we kept losing the rental units, many times because the owners wanted to retire and move into their places themselves. The nerve of them!

When we lost our most recent rental, we decided to purchase our own place. Now we’re the ones who are retired and living in a condominium community on a small island on the gulf coast of Florida.

Thinking green

I wasn’t thinking eco-friendly green when I started redecorating our Florida residence. I wasn’t even thinking green as in tropical greenery. No, I was thinking green as in money, as in now that we had a monthly mortgage payment and a condo maintenance fee, we couldn’t afford to purchase at retail prices all the furnishings we needed for the place. We’re talking design on a “broken shoestring” here, folks.

This book will show you how I redecorated our nearly 2,000-square-foot condo using finds from RUMMAGE sales; REMNANTS of fabric, paint and lumber; and RESALE items from garage sales, thrift stores and flea markets. As well as scavenging in roadside trash piles and diving in a few Dumpsters.

Can you believe I found many of my free and secondhand items without ever leaving our small island? I also brought a few items I found or purchased on my excursions throughout the upper Midwest. There were times I thought my husband might strap me to the top of the car so all my stuff would fit inside as we traveled south.

I’ve “trained” many of my neighbors and friends to let me know if they see a piece of furniture in a trash pile alongside the road. They laugh when I sometimes just throw on a jacket over my pajamas and drive off to retrieve it before someone else gets it. And I’ve nearly caused accidents braking quickly to peruse a junk pile at the end of someone’s driveway.

Many of my “finds” just needed a little molding here ... a bit of hardware there ... a spritz of spray paint … to turn them into decorative and useful items.

And the best part is I spent less than $2,000.00 on all the secondhand items. I consider this the “greenest” way to furnish a home. I saved many items from going into landfills. And I saved a lot of greenbacks in the process. As of now, “green” is my new favorite color.

Building a room around an inspiration piece Once upon a shopping trip, I found a gorgeous pair of earrings that matched nothing in my existing wardrobe, but I purchased them anyway. Then proceeded to build a wardrobe around them. That’s essentially how I decorated each room in our condo. I found a unique inspiration piece and decorated the room around it.

In one instance, it was a gallon can of paint I purchased at a garage sale for two dollars that determined the color scheme for the guest suite. What inspired the theme in my kitchen was a fruit-bedecked ceramic chicken I purchased for fifty-cents at a garage sale. In the laundry room, I started with a twenty-five cent scrap of colorful fabric from a church rummage sale. Seeing is believing

A separate chapter in RUMMAGE, REMNANTS and RESALE is devoted to each room in the condo, where I’ve highlighted the inspiration piece that determined the décor theme and color scheme. You’ll see before photos of each room and before pictures of many of the secondhand items I purchased. The after photos show how I altered the room and the items to fit the decor theme. I included a floorplan of each room to show the furniture arrangement. And finally, at the end of each chapter, I listed what the items actually cost and what I might have paid for them if I’d purchased them at retail. I totaled the suggested retail prices and the actual costs of the entire renovation so you can see for yourself how little I spent and how much I saved.

Some of the ideas in this book are specifically designed to unobtrusively blend in those necessary items we senior citizens have to keep on hand ... facial tissues, reading glasses, medications, hearing aids, blood pressure monitors, and so on. I’ve come up with some unusual ways to keep these items handy but out of sight. After all, who wants to be reminded of being old? These design tricks aren’t limited to accommodating items for the aged, however. I give suggestions for adapting my ideas to many purposes. So even if you aren’t one of us old folks, you may use my ideas to corral other items you need to keep handy but don’t want to leave out in plain sight. I’ve included several how-to instructions if you’d like to replicate some of my projects. I also give you some general and specific decorating tips along the way.

Finding your earrings

I hope RUMMAGE, REMNANTS and RESALE will inspire you to find your “earrings” ... you know, that little piece of jewelry so irresistible that you just have to buy it and then build a wardrobe around it. So go out and find those inspiration pieces to create decorating themes and color schemes for your rooms. You may discover your inspirations by attending RUMMAGE sales; using REMNANTS of fabric, paint or lumber; or visiting RESALE shops, flea markets and garage sales. You may even want to try the sport of Dumpster diving or hunting through roadside trash piles where all items are free. And you can do it all for very little expense. Go for it! What have you got to lose?