HELP! There's a junk monster in my basement!

Well...the junk goblin has just visited me...

aka Candy the "Junk Sophisticator"

She has disturbed the junking monster in my basement --- it is threatening to take over my entire house...one rusty arm at a time...reaching into nooks and crannies and "collecting" and "repurposing" vintage/antique findings - some too wonderful to sell... (You know what that's like...you have to keep a "few" things, right?) Anyway, I know she doesn't realize what she's done (I hear it creeping up the stairs right now...but I'll try to get it back in its cage (but those darned "rusty" hinges aren't very strong...) - and take back control of my little house!

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(Thanks Candy!) (wink...wink)

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So, you've finally gotten to the point of my slightly twisted story...

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You Have Been BOO'd!

The air is cool, the season is fall,

Soon Halloween will come to all.

Ghosts and goblins, spooks galore...

Tricky witches at your door.

The spooks are after things to do,

In fact, a spook brought this "BOO" to you.

The excitement comes when friends like you,

Copy this note and make it two.

We'll all have smiles on our faces,

When we see who Boo'd who's places.

I was Boo'd by Candy@junksophisticate.

Now...The following 4 ladies have been officially BOO'd...

Sue at Sullivan & Murphy - she's got great style - and is a thrifty shopper! (and - her hubby is her "partner in crime")

JunkerMidge at Having Fun with Junk (and Life in General) - she's becoming quite the "voice" of junkers everywhere!

Katie at SoBo Style - lots of fun stuff to see at this blog - and at her store in Columbus, Ohio!

and last, but certainly not least...

Debi at The Junkin' YaYa - I just love her - what a wonderful jewelry designer and creator of all things beautiful...!!

***This BOO party was started by Toni@The Tattered Cottage.

Please keep the fun going by following these instructions.

1. You have 24 hours to work your spell

2. Copy and post the Halloween Boo Poem with the instructions for playing.

3. Pick 4 blogs you enjoying visiting and tell why you enjoy visiting them, with a link to their blog and remember to link back to me.

4. Go to the original BOO Party post at the Tattered Cottage and add your MckLinky.

5. Let's see how fast and far this spreads between now and Halloween.

HAVE FUN AND BOO TO YOU!

And...(drum roll...)

Kim at The View from White Pine Lane has passed on the HONEST SCRAP award to me - and has said I can make my own rules (I SOOOO love that). I met Kim on my trip to Minnesota this past August - and she's just getting her feet wet in the junking world and taking her daughter with her - what BIG fun!

(Thanks for thinking of me, Kim!)

Anyway, in September, I had been given the HONEST SCRAP Award by fellow blogger, Jane over at Finding Fabulous - check out her blog - She's my kind of blogger - thrifty AND creative - a perfect mix...being thrifty definitely tends to bring out the creativity in a person - be sure to stop by and tell her hi for me!

So, what I'm going to do is to "re-mention" (kind of like "re-gift") the HONEST SCRAP award to the same fabulous ladies as I did in September. See my post to get the honest "scrap" about me...HONEST SCRAP award and check out the blogs of these scrap/junk loving ladies - and tell them hi for me!

1. Candy at Junk Sophisticate

2. Sue at Sullivan & Murphy

3. Gretchen at Mimi-Toria's Designs

4. Kennesha at Me and My House

5. JunkerMidge at Having Fun With Junk (and life in general)

6. Janis at junkdreams

7. Rachel at chippycottagecharmhouse

Have a wonderful day and hope you enjoyed a little blogging fun!

Stay tuned - my next post will be about CLOCKS, CLOCKS & MORE CLOCKS! I've received a bunch of emails requesting information on our clocks - you can check ebay (seller name - terraeoz) to see what we have for sale. And, I'll also be emailing everyone to try and confirm some requests. We haven't started working on pieces/parts yet - still wading through the clocks. Thanks for your patience!

Kathy

Hickory, Dickory Dock...our Saturday finds ROCK!!!

10/19/09 - update: We're in the midst of sorting and pricing (and figuring out how to price...) clocks, pieces and parts - and checking to see which ones work, etc......so to anyone who has emailed me interested in purchasing - I will get back with you as soon as I can - thanks so much for your patience! And, for anyone just visiting (thanks for stopping by) - if you're interested in purchasing, please let me know.
Have a wonderful day! Kathy
P.S. We've purchased the rest of the estate, so there are LOTS more to pick from!!!
Well, not sure where to begin...ok - how about first thing Saturday morning. I'm all set to go to an estate sale at 9:30, but my friend, Tela, called and let me in on a little curbside rescue that needed to be accomplished. She had spied some things, and knew exactly who to call...me... Kind of like "who ya gonna call???? JUNK BUSTERS" Sorry...my day was just starting out SO right!! :)

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So, I hopped in my van and found the abandoned furniture just two blocks from my house (actually in front of the same house I had found the wonderful Hoosier cabinet a couple weeks before). I really think I should just run up to the door and give them my phone number for future reference!!

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I stopped and packed up (all by myself) a great old green bookcase, a craft/sewing table, and another table/cabinet (not really sure what it was...) - that's all I could get though. I left behind an old sewing machine and a few other things - but was a happy camper when I drove away - I just left a few treasures for someone else! So...here's what I found (at stop #1)

Not bad, huh? And it was FREE!!!!!

Love the old "green" of this piece! This will be great to display the rest of the "junk" we found on Saturday... keep reading...

This will make a sweet worktable for my workshop!

This is my "unknown" table/cabinet - you can tell from the first picture, the top is hinged and it opens up... Anybody know what it is? (maybe some kind of radio cabinet?)

We'll paint it and maybe add some junky hardware or something to it...give it a new purpose in life!

Now...on to the estate sale. And just a quick little story. The gentleman who had lived there had done clock repair work for fifty-five years - out of his workshop in the basement. There were treasures waiting to be found.

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The basement looked like nothing was ever thrown out - all boxed, tagged and stored for a long, long time... It's kind of hard to describe the feeling, but I know most of you can relate (you know you can) - it was like a dream venturing into the basement, where there were tubs and tubs of clocks - floor to ceiling, AND pieces and parts carefully stored away for future use. (We really wanted to jump up and down and yell a bit...but there were other people around.)

So, we searched box by box and made pile after pile of what we liked, and the man who was running the estate sale kept carrying our overflowing boxes upstairs - and an hour and a half later...AND a little bargaining...180 clocks and pieces and parts were loaded into my van. Oh my gosh - we had been to junk heaven.

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Here's my van...I'm so glad they weren't all wound...the sound would have been deafening!!

Old schoolhouse clocks and lots more pieces and parts...

More pieces and parts - clock faces, gears and more!!

When we got back to my house - we unloaded out in the driveway (my neighbors have to think I'm just a bit crazy, don't ya think?) - and proceeded to sort and count (and photograph) and oooh and ahhhhh. It was so hard to know where to get started... And of course for all of our hard work, we picked out a few for ourselves (that's the fun of it, right???), and we're planning on selling the rest at our shows and probably on ebay (we're researching some of them right now). Terri's ebay name is "terraeoz" if you want to check them out. It'll take us a while - so be sure to put her on your watch list! We may also be selling some wholesale...anybody interested?

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Alrighty - here's about half the haul!

And, here's the other half... Don't you love the BIG clocks (I'm keeping one of those!)

It just goes on and on and on...

A view from the other side...

Did I mention I LOVE these??

Many of them had been individually packaged and all the mates put in tubs...and tagged with the manufacturer, year made, and a price...

Clock faces...large and small...concave glass fronts of all different sizes...

Gears and pieces and parts of clocks...

More...

The patina on each of these is just so cool - aged and crackled and faded and just so PERFECT!

One of my favs!

More...

Still more...

Thirty-four of these "babies" and they were all named "BEN"!

Trying to catch some rays...(it's October you guys...back in the box!)

I LOVE the green one - but what about those crackly finished pink ones??

The table was set just in "time"!

Yep - even more... Sales like that don't come along very often (our "timing" was just right I guess) - and I'm just thankful and happy, happy, happy that we found this one! Hope you have enjoyed a quick peek into clock heaven - I'll share a post later with some displays that we'll be doing!

P.S. Surrounded by all these clocks, I "shouldn't" have an excuse for being late...for a long "time"!!

Oh...just a few more pics...our "pics" of the bunch!

Here's Terri with one of her favs...I told her not to do the cheesy smile...

but she was so stinking happy! (so was I...)

Here are three of the ones Terri picked! Ya gotta love a little bling! And here is my #1 favorite - a big 'ol schoolhouse clock - hanging above my dining room window (with a great old street sign that was gifted to me by one of my Minnesota junking friends, Amy of junkologie and Whisperwood Cottage.From the biggest to almost the smallest of the bunch!

This little guy comes to us from far, far away - West Germany...and he really loves his new home! He's already been introduced to his new clock family (aka - collection)at my house! That's it! We're both worn out after all that junking fun - but...somebody has to do it, right??

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Your junking friend,

Kathy

P.S. A little update - we went back and bought more goodies - clock pieces and parts (gears, faces, etc...) - anybody interested in purchasing - email me and I'll send pics when we get things sorted - we'll have some great prices on this stuff. It would be great for jewelry making, collage, altered art, etc....

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Keep checking back - Ill be doing my FIRST giveaway very soon - and there are some awesome surprises in store!

A Sweet Time at the BitterSweet Cabin

While visiting my hometown of Bryan, Ohio this past summer, my friend, Sue (she's actually my bf in Bryan) and I were told by Sue's sister-in-law about a cute little shop - and that it was my kind of stuff. So, we just had to check it out....(AND - she was SO right!)

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Just a note: I had intended to post this in September (which totally got away from me...) - but decided that the style and country setting of this shop was well suited for a fall posting! Enjoy the tour!

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We drove up to a house that had the most beautiful bright red and welcoming building just to the left of it... And the sign said "The Bittersweet Cabin".

Well, I could hardly get out of the car fast enough... There were many things calling my name - an old bicycle, ladders, tables, and some repurposed pieces on the front porch - there were lots of rustic and aged treasures waiting to be discovered!

Here is the proprietress - Jan - it took me at least a half hour to get past the front door - we were engrossed in some serious junking discussions immediately - our histories and our love for junk - (Kindred spirits for sure - and in our junking world - it's an "at first glance" kind of thing).

She mentioned that she was a fan of JUNKMARKET Style, and enjoyed all the creative ideas - so I got to share that I was one of the contributors on the site. She told me that she had dreamed of having her own shop - and we were standing inside her dream that day! It's an awesome thing to see the love and passion a person has for doing what they love - there really isn't anything like it! And, as she laughingly told me that her profession was "curbside acquisition" - I SO understood!!

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Jan runs the shop with the help of her husband Duane, who is a master at carpentry - he builds cabinets, etc. from cast-off pieces of furniture and scraps of aged wood. They're truly beautiful! She sells everything from rustic/primitive pieces...to antiques...to the items that they rebuild and/or repurpose - a rustic eclectic mix that she displays to perfection!

The picture below is what her shop looked like before it was a shop - an old garage. It was sectioned off in pieces and moved to their property - where it was transformed into the shop that stands there today! The building itself is literally the "picture" of repurposing - an amazing find - and even more amazing save!!

Here's Jan and I standing next to a piece of furniture (it had been an old wardrobe) - it was lovingly transformed into a one-of-a-kind display piece - as well some great storage. I could see this in my house...!

Here's another cabinet - the door is an old screen painted black -with the inside finished off in some great old beadboard (beadboard is one of my favorite things!!). I love the rustic, fall-ish look of this display.

Out on the porch, she had a fabulous display of vintage camping/picnic pieces - and who doesn't love an old bench??

Here's a gem...an old light fixure hanging out on the porch waiting for either a candle or a bunch of - what else...bittersweet!!

Out front is a fenced area with more stuff...a great old weathervane, a bicycle, ladder, and more...

This bike was rusted to perfection (seriously!!)

I love the display against the red wall - it just pops - in a vintage-sort of way! :)

Me and my "bf" in Bryan, Sue (holding her son's new puppy - "Paisley") - relaxing for a moment! Thanks, Susie - for putting up with me - I can be a little "junk crazy" sometimes!!

Out back were more surprises - I really thought it'd never end...(and that's a good thing!)

Don't you love this? I think it's a chicken nesting condo! A double-decker!!

I love the fact that no surface is left untouched - too much junking fun!

Finding Jan and The Bittersweet Cabin, was the perfect end to my afternoon - and I so appreciate Jan and Duane's hospitality - and for allowing me into a bit of their dream. And, not to mention...a new friend - that was a bonus!

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Now, for some information on The Bittersweet Cabin:

It is located at 4889 St. Rt. 576 in Bryan, Ohio

The phone number is 419-630-7311

Shop hours are: Thursday and Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday 10am-2pm - or call if you're in the area, and if available - they'll open up shop for you!!

EVENT NOTE: A Christmas Open House is being held at The BitterSweet Cabin on Friday, November 13th (6pm-9pm) and Saturday, November 14th (9am-3pm)!

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Can't wait to stop by and say hi to my new friend, Jan, and see what she does for the Christmas season!

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Take care and have a blessed day!

Kathy