I knew “Garage Sale America” author Bruce Littlefield was enthusiastic about garage saling.  What I didn’t know was just how enthusiastic our parent bloggers are too.  But after reading the first set of reviews, I have to admit that I might have a new way to keep myself and my kids occupied on Friday mornings.

(Yes, Fridays.  Biggest day for garage sales around here.  I thought it was strange too.)

How can I not be inspired after reading blogger tales such as these?

• “Then there was that time when [my husband] scored a rare Fire King jadite breakfast bowl at a church rummage sale for a quarter. He knew I loved green glass, but what he didn’t know was that his score is worth $125 on the eBay market.” 
• “Once I found an antique Heywood-Wakefield child’s rocking chair in one of these stores, not what I was looking for but a good find nonetheless. I balked at the price tag and decided to pass and I’ve been kicking myself in the tuckus ever since.”
• “So there I am, reading Garage Sale America all these years later, and on the eighth page in, a colorful set of mixing bowls in a photo catches my eye. I look closer, and I realize that those are MY mixing bowls! Not only that, but in the photo is a advertising brochure that identifies them as a set of New! Pyrex Bowls in the colors of Spring Flowers…only $2.50 each!”

As the owner of those mixing bowls put it, “There are unbelievable treasures to be found at garage sales, if you just know where to look.”

Garage Sale America “takes you through Littlefield’s home, his adventures garage-saling and the people he meets along the way. There are helpful tips and hints sprinkled through out the book, along with spotlights on garage salers, artists, and collectors. I enjoyed not only seeing what Littlefield scored at the world’s largest garage sale, but also how he blended the items into his home decor.”  Another blogger adds that the book is: “Part primer for erstwhile garage-salers and shoppers, part cultural analysis of an intriguing popular phenomenon, Garage Sale America taps into why people like me (and the neighbors I drag out of bed on a Friday morning to ride shotgun) get all of a twitter about a decent garage sale.”

Even for those who are trying to curtail their garage saling habit (”Despite my promise to avoid old shit, I still like to look for that gem, that rare find that will make my house less cheap subdivision and more shabby chic.”) or those who’ve tried unsuccessfully to acquire it (”I haven’t got an eighth of [Littlefield's] panache, and have never been successful at garage saling, but this book was an interesting read and inspiring to boot.”), Garage Sale America was a hit.  Littlefield “goes into great detail discussing collectibles found and ways people have made fortunes with cheap purchases, and made me see vintage in a whole new light.”  He even corroborated one blogger’s supposedly crazy friend’s way of identifying Bakelite:

“Is this Bakelite?

I don’t know, rub it. Does it smell like burning hair?

Wha? Rub it and what?

I thought she was kidding, really and truly. I had filed the incident away in the My Best Friend Is NUTS folder until I came across this tip in [the book]. Upon finding the helpful hints for identifying Bakelite, I had to pick up the phone and let her know she wasn’t so crazy after all.”

One of our avid garage salers hails from England, where “Car Boot sales, the slightly glum British equivalent of the Garage Sale, involve early wet mornings surrounded by lots of other families who have lugged their knick knacks to a school playing field. I should know, as I seem to remember sitting in front of our open trunk and watching my brother’s eyes glisten as his various Star Wars figures get carted off.”  She goes on to praise America’s garage sales, noting that: ”There is something about a Saturday morning Garage Saling in the midwest that is infinitely more fun and quintessentially American.”

And another blogger reminisced about her own trek along the World’s Longest Yard Sale:  “I actually shopped about 150 miles of the 450-mile-long U.S. 127 Sale in 2004. For work, no less. I was the creative brain behind a partnership between Suave and the Style Network’s The Look for Less, so I got to watch four women compete for the title of America’s Smartest Shopper (by creating outfits exclusively from yard sale finds) and I was given a huge pile of cash to spend on prizes for a related sweepstakes. It was an unbelievable event: mile after mile and table after table of stuff, priced from a nickel up to $5000. Old baby clothes, farmhouse furniture, guns, tools and vintage cars. Everything was for sale and every car held shoppers. I don’t think traffic ever picked up beyond 30 miles per hour.”  What a great work assignment!

What really caught my attention were the blogger comments regarding design.  I can shop all day long, but that doesn’t mean I know what to do with my finds.  One blogger reminds us that “Littlefield is, after all, a designer, and the book has a section on interior design with these cheap treasures. As a matter of fact, Littlefield has furnished his own house almost completely with items he’s purchased at yard sales. It’s a helluva lot more interesting than Pottery Barn.”  And another blogger agrees: “After reading Garage Sale America’s section on design, I am going to try to keep my eyes peeled for unexpected items can be worked into our decor.”

I love the idea of treasure-hunting and pulling disparate pieces into a cohesive style, and I have to admit that these blogger reviews have really piqued my interest in both “Garage Sale America” and the activity of garage saling itself.  Check out the second half of our blogger reviews coming up, along with the final round-up here at PBN!

6/25 Her Bad Mother, Ruth Dynamite
6/26 Formula Fed and Flexible Parenting
6/27 Mama Tulip
6/28 Buzz Review Blog
6/29 Karianna, Sarah’s Dandelions
7/2 Quarter Rest
7/3 Round-Up Review at PBN