June 30, 2015

The Barn Sale

Well, the Barn Sale is over and it was a massive success, despite more than two inches of rain that fell on the first day! IMG_2821All of Friday, we’d spent doing the final preparations of the barn, making sure everything was tagged and styling the furnishings to make them look fabulous. IMG_2802

If you look at the header picture and then at this one above, you will see that we’ve added a ton of pea gravel, some cool lounge chairs, some urns, a table and a great glass ball. The rest of the patio has more chairs, lanterns and some wire plant holders. Most everything in these pictures was gone by the end of day one!IMG_2804

As I said, it was chucking down rain all of Saturday, but the crowds still came. We had everyone line up to wait for the opening, and they had their Wellie boots and big umbrellas.IMG_2824

When we finally let people into the barn, at 9:00 a.m. on the dot, people sprinted to get first dibs!IMG_2826

We knew it was going to rain, but no one had any inkling that it would rain so much and so hard. But even so, everyone was cheerful and patient.IMG_2834

Prices ranged from thousands of dollars to one dollar and people bought at every range. IMG_2830

When things finally wound down on Saturday afternoon, we realized that we’d sold most of the big pieces of furniture, including a gorgeous antique Baltimore table for the tidy sum of $9,000. So much for the person who complained that we only had “old stuff”. We estimated that we’d probably sold 2/3 of what was in the barn at the end of the first day.IMG_2545

After everyone left, we shifted a lot of things around so the barn wouldn’t look so empty and made the space look fresh again!IMG_2851IMG_2853Luckily, overnight, a big front blew all of the rain out and the crisp sunny air in!IMG_2863

We had decided that at noon, almost everything would be half price and that’s when the crowds came! Things were flying out of the barn! We roped Jonathan in to ferry people and their items up to the upper field – the lower one had turned into a mud bath after the rains – and it was such fun to see the Gator filled with fabrics, pillows and china!IMG_2868

After having been at the barn setting up the sale for weeks and weeks, I finally got around to doing some shopping at the end of the second day, when more than 3/4 of everything was GONE! I picked out some fabrics, including a fabulous Brunschwig & Fils deep chocolate brown zebra print on linen!IMG_2900

I found a beautiful blue and white serving dish that has so much detail to it. This is the handle, although that’s hard to tell. IMG_2903

Here’s the mark on the reverse, and that’s even detailed, too!IMG_2922

I love old linens, especially when they’re actually LINEN, and picked up two beautifully monogrammed top-sheets which I am going to make into a duvet cover. I am sure that somewhere in my family tree, there’s someone with these initials!IMG_2907

Here are some more of the fabrics I picked up.
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It was a fun weekend, and we thank everyone who volunteered and attended the sale! Thanks for taking the time to introduce yourselves to me. I really loved meeting you.
 

When people asked us when the next sale was going to happen, we cheerfully told them NEVER EVER AGAIN!

16 comments:

  1. Gosh, that was a very good tour of your Aladdin's cave of a sale, and by your account a raging success - well done! You must be thrilled to see an empty barn after all the hard work you put into this once in a lifetime sale.

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    1. It was mostly empty. The remainder is going to the local school for the arts (fabric and trim), the book thing (books and auction catalogues from sotheby's & christies), a local church (kitchen things for farm workers), etc.

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  2. Sorry to have missed it but the rain put us off glad it was a success!!

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  3. It was fantastic - and obvious how much work you all put into it! I was in that soggy pre-9 am line and it was fun - everyone was excited and the rain made it more of an adventure. I was sorry not to make it back again on Sunday (life got in the way) but am happy with the funny selection of things I took home on Saturday. I have lots of new place card holders now (they're one of my favorite things to collect)! And my MIL picked up some fabric she's going to have made into a caftan. So glad it was a success all around!

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    1. It was such fun to see you! Glad you both could come.

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  4. Those pink curtain swags would have looked great in my guest room. Sorry I missed the sale, but upstate New York is a long way from there. So glad it went well. Looks like a lot of fun.

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    1. Those went to a friend's house - huge house and not much furniture and NO curtains!

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  5. I'm so sorry to have missed it! Couldn't make the trip from Boston.

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  6. Congrats Meg, for all of the hard work ending in success (and fun)! I truly admire you and your "team" for an obvious tenacious effort So disappointed to have missed it.
    Never say never - maybe it's like childbirth, the pain becomes somewhat a faded memory and many do it again LOL!

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  7. good for you Meg + bet it was glorious.xx peggybraswelldesign.com

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  8. Meg I wish I could have attended, so glad it was great success!!

    xoxo
    Karena
    The Arts by Karena
    Galley Opening!

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  9. Look at that line! Congrats to you all. I'm terribly sorry we missed it. And thank goodness Sunday was nice and pretty. xoxo

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  10. So happy to hear it was such a success. Your photos are beautiful, I can just imagine the atmosphere. And you still managed to come home with some beautiful fabrics. If I could find linen sheets like the ones my grandmother had...

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  11. Congrats on your success! Wish I could have been there!

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