A lot of bloggers I follow often talk about the great deals they find when they’re out shopping garage sales, antique shops, flea markets and so forth. Living in or near a large metropolitan area seems to afford them ready access to a plethora of resources for potential DIY and upcycling projects. It’s one of the few things I miss about living in the city. (Are you shocked that Farm Mama used to be a big city dweller? 😉 And while it’s really interesting to see how they use their bargains to create beautiful, cozy homes for their families, I can’t help but be a little envious.
See, I live in a very rural area where there are no antique malls, home decor superstores, etc.. In fact, there are really no stores at all to speak of. I mean, we have a local grocery store and a Dollar General, but that’s about it. I can drive to two very large cities in under 3 hours, but that’s quite a bit of time on the road, and not a lot of time left for browsing and shopping. And the garage sales generally don’t yield funky, cool ‘Pinterest-worthy’ project starters because, well, everyone in town follows everyone else’s Pinterest boards and we’re all wanting the same stuff!
Once in a great while, I manage to sneak away to a flea market or a day of browsing antique shops, but not often … and not for very long. So for the most part, I have to be content to find vintage treasures in one of a few places.
Sometimes, I come across a great piece of furniture on one of the Facebook buy/sell/trade pages I follow. I found two awesome antique oak desks for my son and husband, as well as a sweet vanity/desk for my 8 year old, for almost nothing. I always check those pages first, just in case something amazing pops up.
Another place that never fails to yield cool old stuff is … my yard. Seriously. I live on our family farm’s home place and there are about 70+ years of “collections” all over. Whenever I’m feeling the need to repurpose or *upcycle*, all I have to do is wander out by the corral or in one of the shop buildings and rummage through the assortment of stuff. I find cool doodads all the time, including a tractor tire rim that I’m crazy over. It’s yellow and chunky and absolutely perfect for holding a vintage flower pot I found in my grandma’s basement. While I haven’t furnished my house with my discoveries, the calf buckets, cream separators, tractor rims, and other farm ephemera decorate the outside areas nicely.
Along the same idea of scrounging through the junk at my own homestead, the other place I often find cool architectural salvage for free is my parents’ house. My parents are notorious pack rats. And while I complain about all the items they’ve accumulated over the years, I’m secretly grateful because I have access to some really choice goodies. If I wait until winter when the wasps and snakes are gone, I can sift through their barn for fun finds. One of my favorite pieces of all time came from my parents – they salvaged all the windows from the church where they got married. I nabbed a couple several years ago, stripped them down and refinished them in shabby chic style. A small one is in my oldest daughter’s room, and a large one hangs in my bedroom. It makes me so happy.
One of my most treasured ‘junk rescues’ is a pair of old 4-pane windows I found in the barn at our previous homestead. My husband told me they’d been out there for years – he wasn’t even sure where they came from, but he thought they might have been in his Grandmother’s house before she put in new windows. Anyway, I laid claim over 18 years ago and have been storing them since then – dragging them with us when we moved here 9 years ago and then storing them again. I was waiting to hang them in our forever home, you see? But last fall I got tired of waiting – it had been 18 years after all – so I decided to use the windows now, in our current house. They’re so large – over 3 feet by 3 feet – and our house is so small, I only had room for one. My husband hung it in our family room and I’ve been decorating it with seasonal wreaths and quotes. I am so glad I stopped waiting! I love everything about the window – the chippy paint, the rippled glass, the sheer impact from the size – it’s absolutely perfect!
I might not have the same resources that city and suburb dwelling treasure hunters have. But I do enjoy my forays and jaunts into the junk piles, basements, and outbuildings in my corner of the world, and I’m happy with the gems I’ve found. Of course, I’ll keep foraging for potential DIY projects wherever and whenever I can because it’s so much fun! And I’d love to know where y’all find your favorite trash to treasure projects, too.
In the meantime …
Love & Blessings
That Farm Mama
