Saturday, October 6, 2012
From Michelle Tullar and the Community Garage Sale Committee
This year’s Community Garage Sale is Saturday, October 6, 2012 from 9am – 4 pm at the American Legion Hall, 220 S. Ovid Street, Elsie, MI.
Come spend the day with us in Elsie for the Free Fall Festival on Saturday, October 6, 2012 from 9 am to 4 pm. Treasure hunt at the sale, take a stroll downtown and enjoy live entertainment, streets full of vendors, collectables, antiques, Farmer’s / Flee Market, arts and crafts; a Cruisin’ For a Cause (Car Show), a burn out, a hot dog eating contest, bake sale at Dorman’s Art Gallery, baking contest, auction, and a Scrap Metal and E-Scrap Recycling Drive.
For the kids there will be a bounce house, straw maze, art tent, corn box and activities, scarecrow search, petting zoo, face painting, pony rides and more! New this year is a live auction at 1pm, with Ben Glardon, State Representative, Auctioneer. We hope to see you there.
New cabinets were not in our budget and I really desired to have more storage space in the laundry room, so I dreamed up big plans to knock out our interior wall between it and the garage in order to build a bump out storage area, complete with shelves and cabinet doors. An unexpected trip to ReStore (Habitat for Humanity) changed my vision, plan and dream.
This spring my husband and I were cleaning the garage and decided to remove shelving that was inconveniently located and rehang it in another location. In the middle of the project we realized we needed shelving brackets. We didn’t have any so we went to see if ReStore might. They didn’t.
What caught my eye was a white cupboard with four glass doors on one side and two on the other. In its former dwelling place, it hung over a kitchen island. The first set of doors had a mirrored backing, the second had a pass through that allowed access to the shelves from either side of the counter. I instantly loved it, my husband did not and thought $55 was too much to pay. I saw uniqueness, value and potential — for our laundry room.
In our laundry room, the cabinet would be mounted against the wall. The two doors on the backside could be hung on another set of cabinets. It took a little convincing but he finally let me buy it. The next weekend I returned to ReStore and found another cabinet for the two other glass doors. My husband modified the second cabinet to accommodate the glass doors and mounted both sets to the wall. After a fresh coat of paint, he added new hinges. The original door handles were unique; we spray painted them.
The ReStore find had given me a new vision of what might be possible so a few weeks later, when I was at a garage sale and the homeowners asked if I were looking for anything in particular, I said I had wanted a built-in ironing board for quite some time. To my amazement their family friend said he had one in his barn. We agreed on a price and I picked it up the next day. I brought it home, stripped off the old paint and brushed on new, painted the metal steam plate to match the cabinet door handles, added new hinges, a cute knob and covered the board with a new lining and fabric. It is beautiful.
Next we picked up an old dresser that had been used as an arts and craft table. After a fresh coat of paint, a shelf to hold three wicker baskets to use as drawers and a couple of new laundry hampers – we have a “new” folding table. A repurposed 26 year-old shelf, hung behind the door, stores cleaning tools and supplies. Last, we purchased a fold-up clothing system from Amazon. Total project cost – including cabinets, wall, ceiling, and trim paint, striper, tape, drawer baskets, laundry baskets and miscellaneous expenses: $370! My husband loves it!
New cabinets were not in our budget – but by repurposing things we found at ReStore and garage sales and by reusing items we had plus a little elbow grease, our laundry room was transformed into space we never dreamed we would have. It has become a place of “unanticipated beauty” – a Heavenly inspired gift – and is one more example why I love “new to me” garage, estate and auction sales, 2nd hand stores, consignment shops, hand-me-downs, free-along-side-the-road and clearance sales! To me, is what they all have in common, they are a treasure hunt waiting to happen, a way to have a new look without spending a lot of money – and put a smile on not only my face – but many faces!
And those are the reasons why we love the annual Community Garage Sale to Benefit the Elsie Area Food Bank! So many folks donate stuff, and so many folks come to buy and benefit the food bank. We never know what types of treasures will fill our tables, floors, and lawn or what items buyers may find that might inspire an “unanticipated beauty” project. We do know that together we are helping to raise money to fill the shelves of the Elsie Area Food Bank. Together we make a difference to help families. We love that.
Please visit http://www.elsie.org/Events.html for more information.