Some Recent Second-Hand Treasures

In the past month, we've picked up many little useful items at thrift stores, yard sales, and...people's trash (a second toddler bed, which might come in handy when baby #3 comes along).  Here are a few of the things I grabbed pictures of:

1. A bunch of vintage Christmas ornaments for TEN CENTS EACH (!!).  Tom doesn't know about these yet, because I went on a rare thrift-store trip without him, and stashed them with the Christmas stuff as soon as I got home.  He already thinks we have waaaaay too many ornaments.

2. An old-fashioned wicker carpet-beater ($2).  I got this solely for the quaintness of it, and it's hanging on the wall now.  I'm on the lookout for other old-fashioned household items to join it one day, such as a washboard.

3. This statue of Our Lady of Sorrows from a yard sale (talked down to $25).  It replaced a less-nice Our Lady of Grace statue on a little shelf in the living room.

 

4. And when the woman at the yardsale saw that I was interested in religious art, she mentioned a larger statue she had in her garage, and was willing to sell me.  I talked her down as much as possible, but I'm not going to tell how much I paid for it, because I'm still feeling a bit of sticker shock over it.  But it's a beautiful statue, and I'm trying not to regret the purchase.  Here's Tom standing next to her, for size comparison.

 

The main issue is that the statue is made of plaster, and thus very fragile.  Not something that can be left in the open around little kids.  In a future home, we might keep it up on a pedestal of sorts, or maybe behind closet doors (to be opened for family prayer time)....for now, though, she's standing down in the basement next to the washer and dryer.  This will sound completely ridiculous, but when I go down there to do laundry, there's often this tiny fear in the back of my mind that I will encounter some scary person down there who has broken into our house and is about to kill us all.  Since Mary has been down there to greet me, it's made me feel much safer.

5. We picked up this charming solid wood cabinet for $20 at Goodwill.  We both liked the look of it, but weren't sure what the heck we would use it for.  Until Tom carried it into the house, and fortuitously set it down in the kitchen - taking a break from lifting it before bringing it down to the big mess of random stored crap that is our basement.

cabinet before: green

It was standing right next to our cheap and ugly microwave cart that I've had since I moved into my first-ever apartment.  Hmm...perhaps we could switch it out for something nicer, I thought.

old crappy microwave cart

 The coffeemaker and the toaster would need a new home, though.  Tom suggested putting them on the other kitchen cart thing which was storing my cookbooks.

old cookbook storage

We sanded the new cabinet down and painted it aqua to match my kitchen colors.  Then we moved the cookbooks inside of it, as well as some of the random stuff from the old microwave cart.

cabinet after: aqua!  So much better than the previous one from Wal-Mart.

 And now that other cart in the corner has transformed into my little coffee and tea station! (plus the toaster, which I have no better place for). 

I'm liking it!