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.

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.

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.

If you’re planning a community garage sale, Garage Sale Finder would like to help. We offer special FREE services to communities planning a community-wide or neighborhood-wide sale.

1. We can simply add a single bright magenta Community Garage Sale Icon icon to our regular maps; just tell us the best intersection to put it on. Email the information to us at least one day before your sale and we’ll add it to our database and the many visitors to the garagesalefinder.com site each week will see your sale with the extra attention the unique icon adds. It would still be a good idea to encourage your members to list their garage sales (for free), as the more markers clustered together on a map, the higher the traffic flow.or…
2. We can show all of the individual addresses for the sales in your neighborhood on our map and even provide you with a custom map showing the sales in your neighborhood that you can print out and distribute the day of your sale.Here’s the information we’ll need to make your custom map:
   • Neighborhood/Subdivision Name (civic league name)
   • Dates of Sale
   • Time of Sale
   • Street Addresses of Participants
   • Brief Description of Sale (optional)

Just email the information to us at least 2 days before your sale and we’ll add the data to our database, create a unique map just for you, and send you a link that you can use to print out the map or even post on sites like Craigslist.org. Better yet, the large number of visitors to the garagesalefinder.com site each week will see your sale and will be drawn by the large cluster of sales in one area.

If you have any questions about our Community Garage Sale services, please email us via our contact form, or call us at (757) 638-8041.

In an October 2009 article by Mark Nestmann, he warns about the potential ramifications of selling recalled goods. I think he’s gone a little overboard with regard to the risks. Or perhaps I just don’t his sense of humor. In any case, I’m guessing nobody from the Consumer Product Safety Commission is going to be shopping at my yard sale and it would be tough to prove where one bought a particular item second-hand. That said, as an upstanding member of society, and one with a conscience, I don’t sell stuff that I deem dangerous, especially when it comes to products for kids. Am I going to look up every item I have for sale to make sure it’s never been recalled? Not likely, but then half of the stuff in my house was bought second-hand to start off with.

Details can be found in the CFTC publication, a “Handbook for Resale Stores and Product Resellers.” It clearly states “CPSC’s laws and regulations apply to anyone who sells or distributes consumer products. This includes thrift stores, consignment stores, charities, and individuals holding yard sales and flea markets.” It further states, “… resellers… cannot knowingly sell products that do not meet the requirements of the law.” Knowingly? Sounds like a gray area, but as the 20 page PDF states, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Hmmm. Ignorance of the law, maybe not, but ignorance of the products being considered “dangerous” would be another matter in my mind. Therefore it wouldn’t be knowingly. But I’m not a lawyer, so don’t listen to me!

Some products, like baby rattles containing lead, I get. But so many of the products on the recall lists are there because of stupid users. Natural selection, once more is being negated by a government program.

What are your thoughts? Do you have any products you’re still using that have been recalled? How did YOU survive childhood with all the danger? Without the government protecting us?

• Chesapeake Garage Sales
  
  • $5
  • PDF Form available online
• Norfolk Garage Sales
  
  • $5
  • PDF Form available online
• Portsmouth Garage Sales
  • Permits required, but there is no information on their site except a phone number that nobody seems to answer at the Commissioner of Revenue office (757) 393-8771
• Virginia Beach Garage Sales
  • No permit required
  • Up to 2 sales per year, no more than 3 days long
    (info via the online 311 help desk, since it’s not on the site, but apparently *is* in the municipal code)
• Suffolk Garage Sales
  • No information on the city web site

1. Find out the laws in your area for having a garage sale. You may need to purchase a permit which usually costs only a few dollars.
2. Go through everything in your house before the sale to make sure you have a large amount of items.
3. Try to organize neighbors to have a sale on the same day, people love multi-family sales.
4. Go through the pockets of all the clothes you want to sell and remove anything you find that you want to keep
5. Wash everything before you put it out for sale, no one wants to buy anything smelly or dirty.
6. Organize your sale by like items; too much clutter will turn people away.
7. Have a plan for adverse weather: in some areas sales are still a go, in others you’ll have no shoppers and will need to postpone (consider predetermining a rain date).
8. Advertise your garage sale with signs, balloons, newspaper ads and flyers.
9. Advertise your garage sale online, many times for free. Especially popular are sites like Garage Sale Finder, where shoppers can print out a map with directions to each sale. Take advantage of other online advertising venues such as craigslist.org.
10. Price everything so you don’t leave customers guessing.
11. Make sure the price tag is large enough to be seen.
12. Colorful stick on dots work well for pricing except on books, posters and anything you can’t peel them off of.
13. Have a decent amount of money available to make change, this includes actual coin change and paper currency.
14. Put pets away, even if your animals are super friendly. Many people, both adults and children, are afraid of them.
15. Don’t hover over your customers. A quick hello is fine but no one wants to shop with someone standing over their shoulder.
16. If you are holding your garage sale on a really hot day consider selling sodas, bottles of water or juice boxes from a cooler.
17. Total up the order yourself. You never know when a customer might try to pull a fast one on you.
18. Never leave sharp items on tables where small children can reach them.
19. Never leave your money sitting on a table unattended. Consider wearing a fannypack to hold your money.
20. Don’t accept checks unless you know the person well.
21. When making change never put the bill you were given in with your money until the customer has walked away. This will help avoid them telling you they gave you a large bill than they really did.
22. Have plastic bags available for customers to take home their items in.
23. Wrap anything breakable in newspaper before putting it in the bag.
24. Consider having a small “free box” for children to sift through while their parents are shopping. Ideas for this are old kids meal toys etc.
25. Have a plan on what to do with items that don’t sell. Donate to charity, save for another sale, etc. Many charities will pick up your unsold items if you give them advance notice.

Join in the fun! There are treasures to be found for a bargain. A remember, the hunt is part of the fun!

Ah, the song said it so well. Whether you call it a yard sale or a garage sale is largely dependent on your region. Around here it bounces back and forth between garage sale and yard sale. But if you’ve ever watched Martha Stewart, up in Connecticut they call them tag sales.

Then of course in the mid-west they are sometimes called rummage sales, and churches frequently call them white elephant sales.

There are some definite advantages to actually holding your sale in a garage: you are sheltered from the effects of mother nature and if you’re having the sale inside you don’t have to worry about rain, which can be a problem in hurricane country! Plus you can set up ahead of time, and not have to worry about getting up at the crack of dawn to set out your merchandise. So a “garage” sale will keep you from singing the title line in that song, “Let’s call the whole thing off.”

Of course, one of the benefits to the shorter words like “Yard Sale” or “Tag Sale” is that they fit better on signs. And readable signs are important! So important that we have two articles about how to make good garage sale signs.

So whether you’re searching for maps to yard sales, garage sales, or tag sales, or if you want to advertise your yard sale for free, you’ve come to the right place!

One of the keys to a good sign is a good, clear arrow. It needs to be visible from a moving car… BEFORE you need to turn. I’m forever seeing signs that are on the far side of the street at ground level. You never see them until just after you miss the turn. Argh!

Enough ranting. Let’s let pictures tell the story…

Being on the far side of the intersection would have been forgivable (not driving too fast in a residential neighborhood), but CRAYONS?! I realize folks have to use what they have on hand, but crayons on construction paper just aren't visible. Period. Get a sharpie or acrylic paint (either about a buck) or run the paper through your printer.

This one is much better. Cardboard doesn't make the best background as far as contrast goes, but the size and readability make up for it.

This was nice and bright, but was on the small side considering it needed to be read from across the street. Plus it's just paper and has flopped down so it's totally unreadable.

This was wonderfully bright, but was on the far side of a busy intersection. Ideally it would have been big enough to see from across the street. Hint: Walgreen's fluorescent poster board is about a buck for a great big piece.

Cheap and perfect. The sellers used a large piece of foam insulation from the big box hardware store and cut it into large pieces. Then they painted them with plain old acrylic paint and popped them on recycled election sign stands. Waterproof, too!