This ripped, dated and water-stained sofa was headed for the landfill. Saved by Carol's Upholstery, this 1940s Chippendale Camel Back style sofa with intact metal coil springs and a solid harwood frame is ready for reupholstery and many more years of use.

DIYers and Environmentally-Conscious Shoppers Find Value in Second-hand Furniture

Furniture is the third largest household expense, which is an expensive reality for many newly established households including newlyweds, first-time homeowners and young families.  With garage sale season just around the corner, it’s a great time to find quality second-hand furniture but, unless you know what to look for, can be hard to spot.  The key is to look beyond the furniture’s outward condition to see its real value.  Older furniture is typically better constructed than new and has a long life-cycle that can span generations. Second-hand furniture purchases also keep these items out of our landfills. Millions of pounds of furniture are unnecessarily dumped in landfills every year in the United States.

Carol Morrissey and Ann Ray, the garage sale gurus and co-owners of Carol’s Upholstery, located in Novi, MI, want to share their collective 40 years of furniture and upholstery experience with you.  “You’ve got to look past, even ignore, old, worn, torn, stained and dated upholstery.  It’s what’s underneath the fabric and filler that makes for a quality piece of furniture.  You can always change the upholstery to suit your style,” says Carol.

Subtle animal print upholstery and decorative nailheads updated the old chair into an on-trend accent piece.

They offer the following advice:

1. Know where to go.  Thrift shops, garage and moving sales are the best places to find furniture at low cost.  Shopping estate and antique shops increase the likelihood of finding quality furniture more easily, but you’ll pay more since the store is in business to make a profit buying and selling second-hand furniture.  Check the web first to plan your shopping excursion.  Sites like GarageSaleFInder.com can give you multiple listings for a specific day and may even include photos of big ticket items, like furniture.
2. Ask about age. “You want to find furniture at least 15 -20 years old, which is better engineered and manufactured,” says Ann.  She continues, “Most furniture in this age range is made with steel coil springs, which are virtually indestructible.”
3. Flip the furniture over.  Look for a solid hardwood frame and, again, any steel spring system.

Faux patent, available in many colors and patterns, is one of the latest upholstery trends great for kids of all ages.

Once you have your fabulous find, you’re ready to reupholster the piece to fit your style. Upholstery fabric ranges in cost from $20 – $100 per yard, with the average cost of $45 per yard. Total cost for re-upholstering depends on the type of fabric selected, fabric yardage required for the project, labor, and cushion refill. Labor will vary depending on the complexity of the piece. Budget-minded consumers with smaller projects, like dining room chairs, should check for remnant fabrics available. With literally thousands of upholstery fabric brands, styles, patterns and colors, you have unlimited options to make your second-hand furniture find uniquely yours and looking brand new.

For those in the Detroit metro area, check out Carol’s Upholstery’s Garage Sale Furniture Finding Clinic Saturday, May 19, from 12-1 p.m. at their shop located at 44480 Grand River Avenue in Novi.  Giveaways, special promotions and refreshments provided.  For more information, visit Carol’s Upholstery Facebook page at www.facebook.com/CarolsUpholstery.

The thirteenth annual Great U.S. 50 Yard Sale will be held Friday-Sunday, May 18-20, 2012.  The yard sale started in 2000, stretching across most of Indiana.  The goal is for it to grow into a Coast-to-Coast event held each year on the weekend before the Memorial Day weekend.  The Great U.S. 50 Yard Sale also serves to promote tourism along U.S. 50, to unite the many diverse communities, to provide opportunities for fund raising by civic organizations, to aid the environment through recycling,  and to serve as an opportunity for individuals to enjoy a great weekend of sales.

For more information please visit the route50.com website

Chesapeake Commissioner of the Revenue, Ray A. Conner, brought the request to amend the ordinance forward to City Council as a way to enhance the efficiency of City operations and to provide greater convenience for residents.

“In 2010, my office issued 2,621 garage sale permits, totaling $13,105 in revenue,” said Conner. “While I am well aware of the current fiscal realities, it certainly seems that the staff time used for such a small intake can be better prioritized elsewhere in the Commissioner’s office. This, along with a desire to make things simpler for our citizens, drove my decision to seek this change.”

While the permit and fee requirements have been rescinded, other facets of the ordinance remain unchanged. These include restrictions on the number of sales per calendar year (two total per address) and the duration of a single sale (not more than three consecutive days).

Residents with questions about garage sales may contact the Commissioner of the Revenue’s office at 382-6738.

A few hours after the conversation he sent me the press release about the city of Chesapeake nixing the need for us to get garage sale permits.

Well, I decided to google garage sales wsj and found his article here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203899504577128971266748552.html

Lots of folks couldn’t read it when I shared it on facebook because WSJ wants you to subscribe, but I found if you google it yourself you’ll generally get a link that lets you read it.

While it was fun to have the site mentioned by name (though not by URL) and be quoted in such a prestigious newspaper, the fact that he mentioned gsalr.com and that you could find look up sales by zip code on that site, then mentioned my site by name with a somewhat frivolous quote about buying a textbook for under a buck and selling it for $75, and didn’t mention that one could look up sales on this site… oh well. Better than nothing. The article was picked up all over the place. Too bad there wasn’t an actual link to my site in it, that would have been awesome for search engine rankings.

If you can’t read the article with the above link, you can also read it on Amazon at: http://www.amazonsellercommunity.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=2775954&tstart=0

While the bulk of our listings come from other sources, such as craigslist and local newspapers, the number of individuals listing their own sales is growing exponentially as well.

Obviously, I rarely make posts here, but I’d love to hear back from folks who use the site. What would you change? What frustrates you? What do you love? Being a single-person webmaster with a programmer in another state, Garage Sale Finder has become what *I* want it to be… but I’m sure it could be so much more. Just post a comment or send me an email.

virginia beach Moving sale, furniture, freezer, bedroom sets, tvs, desks, computers, lots of items, everything must go!!

I don’t know if they placed the ad online, in person, or on the phone… but unless their signs are really good, the fact that there’s no address makes me think nobody will find it (or bother to look!).

So…

Rule #1 – Include your location

At least a street, ideally an address. For most folks, the name of the subdivision (unless it’s a neighborhood-wide sale) isn’t enough. Some subdivisions may have dozens of streets and hundreds of houses. Don’t count on folks knowing that your neighborhood is small. Or even where your neighborhood is.

Today is Thursday, the ad came out today… but does the sale start today? If you’d included your address I might show up and you might not be ready.

Rule #2 – Include the date and time of your sale

Saturday, Sat, 5/28, 5-28 are all acceptable. “This weekend” isn’t clear enough. Times are important too! Garage sale shoppers get out early. If your sale starts at 6:00 a.m. or 7:00 a.m., we might want to go there before the sales that start at 8:00 a.m. Ideally, include a time when the sale ends. If you’re packing up at noon, as a shopper I’d prefer to know that, so I don’t waste gas driving there at 1pm, only to find out you’re done. Oh, and it’s common courtesy to stay open for the times you’d advertised.

Rule #3 – There isn’t one

Ads are simple. It’s nice to know the types of stuff for sale, but the most important info is just where and when the sale is going to be held. Other helpful stuff to know is if the sale is being held by multiple families (multi-family), or being held by a group, or if it’s part of a neighborhood-wide sale. Not mandatory, but helpful. I don’t really care when your rain date is, I’m not going to mark my calendar for it.

1. MASS Live (Western Massachusetts)
2. Lehigh Valley Live (Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania)
3. Syracuse (Syracuse NY)
4. Cleveland.com (North-eastern Ohio)
5. NJ.com (New Jersey)
6. MLive (Michigan)
7. NOLA.com (New Orleans)
8. AL.com (Alabama, pretty much the whole state, except the gulf coast)
9. Sillive (Staten Island, NY)
10. GulfLive (Jackson, MS, GulfCoast, AL & FL)
11. PennLive (Central Pennsylvania)
12. OregonLive (Oregon)

About half of these are in areas that have a long winter, but the southern states should be picking up soon. Let me know if these are useful to you, or if there are other online sources you’d like to see mapped.

National Garage Sale Day!

Annually, National Garage Sale Day is the second Saturday in August. That means this year it’s August 14th.

If you’ve never tried shopping at garage sales (or yard sales, or rummage sales, or tag sales… depending on your region), give it a try this year. While it takes some experience to spot a good deal, at the very least you can enjoy the eclectic mix of items for sale and chat with the folks holding the sales.

Second-hand shopping is becoming more popular, not only because of the down economy, but folks like to copy the Hollywood hot shots, and many of today’s young, hip stars are sporting vintage finds from second-hand sources.

Part of the fun of shopping at garage sales, whether it’s National Garage Sale Day or not, is the bartering or haggling. Where else do you get to dicker over the price? There’s an art to it, so if you’re new to bartering, check out Garage Sale Etiquette: Useful Phrases When Haggling.

Or maybe you’ll find an incredible treasure such as the man who paid $45 for a box of old glass photo negatives only to find out they were the lost work of Ansel Adams and are valued at an estimated $200 million.

If you’re not in the mood to shop, take the opportunity to hold your own sale and make a little cash with all the junk you no longer need. Old toys, old books, old movies (both VHS and DVD), appliances, clothing, furniture and more are all good candidates for making a little cash. Make it a family affair and do a little late spring cleaning. What doesn’t sell can be donated to charity. (Be sure to take a photo and get a receipt.)

Check out these articles for some ideas about pricing items for sale at your garage sale, or how to make great signs for your garage sale. Of course, advertising is key, which is why GarageSaleFinder.com is such a great idea. Use it in conjunction with your signs and perhaps a newspaper ad for maximum traffic.

Here’s one last article: Top 25 tips for having a great garage sale

So mark your calendar: August 14th – National Garage Sale Day