The original owners built this historic home in 1915 and sold it with many of their original possessions to the current owner’s family in the 1960s. The second owners filled it to the rafters with inherited family items. One of the most the most intact antique homes I have ever seen! Here is a little peek.

Did I mention that the guy was a dentist in like 1940? (Sadly, I missed most of the cool dental stuff.) Clothing, dishes, tools …

… really EVERYTHING.

Here is a video of the insane paintings on at the top of the main stairs.

Along with a few items from the sale. I was so in awe that I didnâ€t take many pictures. Enjoy!

Derek first came to my attention when he posted a fake show at the Than Brothers Pho Restaurant that seemed to have every Seattle band in existence.

It was very obviously a joke, but that didnâ€t stop folks on Facebook (and friends of the band Candlebox) from getting really upset about an imaginary show in a soup joint. Here is more details about Seattle Megafest #3 and its sequel Megafest #4.

I wasnâ€t even sure about going, I mean maybe itâ€s not even a sale and we are all going to get pranked in line?! Cathyâ€s enthusiasm that it would be interesting won out. He does use some of our favorite yard sale catch phrases:

EXCELLENT FURNITURE! A MASSIVE COLLECTION OF ART! THINGS LEFT AT MY HOUSE DURING PARTIES! DISHES! OFFICE SUPPLIES! BOOKS! MUSIC! MISC ITEMS! MUCH MORE! BRIC-A-BRAC! Come and say goodbye to my house and hello to my belongings, as they will then be yours.

The signs were great as soon as you entered the house. I made a comment about the “carry it yourself” at the very bottom of the free metal desk sign, and all I heard back was “Well, Iâ€m not going to carry it.”

There was tons of his and others’ art for sale, but I had zero plans to buy any art, since I can barely get the stuff that I do own up on the walls in our house.

Cathy picked up a few things right away while I popped into the back bedroom finding this gem in a pile. I sort of hemmed and hawed about if I should buy this, I mean when do you wear a “NO HAND JOBS IN THE HOT TUB” T-shirt?!?! And the person paid extra to have the fingers nails screened in green.

I was going to buy this amazing sign, but itâ€s not that often that I need to let folks know about my Identidy theft.

Here are few more gems from the sale.

I did hear the story about the woman who made the T-shirts. She had just gotten a divorce and she purchased a hot tub and then made these shirts for her friends.

Just in keeping with the theme, I had lunch plans with my friend Tim who is an insane collector of Derekâ€s paintings. As we drove to lunch I spotted a moose head and a Spiderman in the front yard of this house.

Here’s a closer look at that very tall wooden paint brush man in the back.

We pulled over to see what else they had. As soon as we walked up I saw two guys walking out with about 10 LPs. That usually means if anything is good they have picked it up. And itâ€s 1:30 in the afternoon, well past when I usually hit a sale.

Once inside I saw a few large boxes of records, almost all of them Beatles LPs. I was quickly told that they wouldnâ€t be selling any Beatles LPs … hmmmm, OK.

The house was packed and I couldnâ€t work out how must of the stuff was still there. It seemed like most of it should have been grabbed in the first few hours.

I donâ€t need a black velvet painting, but someone does.

Once downstairs I found the records. Sadly many of them had been stored badly, though some were fine. It took awhile digging, but we both pulled some stuff out for $1 each.

Tim found a few framed posters, all of them really good. Then I picked up probably one of the best things I have seen at a sale in years. Itâ€s a 1960s Batgirl Hairstyle poster.

I am sort of speechless about it, but itâ€s in my office now.

This year they added a Bingo game!

I was planning to meet a girl friend and when she texted that she was going to be late I hit a few sales without her. Scoring this Weltron 2001 “Space Ball” Radio/8 Track player.

Pretty cool, huh? I am completely obsessed with the turntables and it was nice to get one of these for a good prices. Here is some information about them.

I hit a sale that had these beauties at them. Not something I really want to own …

We hit loads of sales over the next few hours.

And this place wasnâ€t having a sale, but I stopped to take a photo anyway.

I am so rusty I forgot to take a trunk shot!

Jenny was the navigator and we tried to find a few good sales for them. About seven or eight sales in we hit one that this woman was having in her garage and part of a shipping container filled with books. As I was looking around I saw a hat that recognized, because I had made it. In 1990 Seattle had a huge snowstorm and my sister and her two children all ended up being stuck in Ballard for 4 days. In that time we crafted for hours just to keep busy. We made jewelry and Christmas stockings, and I also made a couple of hats. One of which was now here.

I asked the woman, “Can you tell me about this hat?”

“Oh, sure. I have had those for years. I purchased them at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. Do you know about that festival?” Well, no I don’t know jack shit about that festival, but how do I tell this woman I made that hat. I mean really. WTF?

Jenny leaned over and said “I think that’s Women with a Y.” So, I just said I knew nothing about any “Womyn’s” festival, but I made that hat.

Here is the real kicker. She had the other hat I made too. She purchased both of them in Michigan and brought both of them back to Ballard — 15 blocks away from our old house! She wanted to know how long I made hats for and how long I sold hats for. I HAVE NEVER SOLD A HAT IN MY LIFE.

I had to call my sister right away, since the sale was 10 blocks from our old house. INSANE.

We did hit a few more sales, including this sale that had the most insane table built on a shopping cart – janky.

I picked up an old movie canister that is really cool.

I honestly donâ€t remember much else that happened, but we had a nice time and we each bought at few things. Here is a little blog about Brett and Jennyâ€s trip to the USA, which includes a rare photo of us styling the trunk.

One of our very first sales wasnâ€t open at 9:00 and we vowed to try to get back to it, since it looked like it could be good. It was a woman clearing out her whole house (more on her later).

As we drove away from her house, we happened to drive right past a house as they started setting up. Sure the sale doesnâ€t look that great, but she was selling all of her folks’ glasses and dishware that had been in boxes for years. My mom purchased a huge box of stuff, I found a really nice green and blue vintage Blendo cocktail set.

Her daughter was selling snacks and made this pretty great sign.

At one of our next sales we saw this (and one other) vintage doll house.

Of course my mom needed to inform the ladies running the sale about how my grandfather made me a doll house that I pushed against the heater in our house in 1976 and it almost burnt our whole house down.

Now, I realize when folks sell an entire box of one color bandanas that they donâ€t probably know anything about “hanky code”. But that doesnâ€t make it any less funny to me.

By about 9:30 we already had to do our first unloading of the car! We did hit a ton more sales over the course of the next 4 hours. Including a couple of hipster sales.

During this time my mom and I had a conversation about her carrying around her money in a banking envelope. This had come up a few years ago and I even purchased a nice wallet for her, which she informed me she is using, but itâ€s in her car. My worry was that she would leave her envelope of cash at a sale or a store.

We finally made it back to the sale that we tried to hit early on. She had this cool King Tut mural.

I picked up a ton of vintage games for super cheap. The woman was really nice and she was selling everything to move to a warmer climate.

We both picked up some great stuff at this sale and left for one last stop. Starting out, the stairs were scary.

The house itself was filled with stuff.

Nothing that I really needed, but my mom cleaned up buying all of her cut crystal stemware.

After getting back to my house, my mom realized she had left an envelope with $400 at the sale where we picked up the games. WTF MOM?!?!

We drove back to the sale just talking about how the money would definitely be gone and you know what? The woman had found it and returned all of the cash! Wow! My mom was very lucky.

And here’s one of our two full trunks!

Here are a few things I did see out at sales a couple of weeks ago.

An entire boat filled with stuff. This seems like an “only in Seattle” sort of thing …

Pile of lawn chairs.

Butterfly rugs.

Pretty bad looking “free stuff” across the street from a sale.

A sale that was all cookbooks. No, really. Four tarps of just cookbooks.

Here is the one item that caught my eye: Benson & Hedges 100’s Presents 100 of the World’s Greatest Recipes by James Beard. Do you think that the foodie folks that tout the James Beard Awards have this in their kitchen?

It was a bust of a day, so no trunk shot.

This weekend I started looking at the listings and it just didnâ€t look that good. I hit couple of sales on Friday morning before work, one that was super odd, since it was an estate sale filled with kids toys and shabby chic projects that no one completed. Plus, it was dark and cold, because they didnâ€t have any power on in the house. Classy!

I did see one ad that looked really good on craigâ€s. The photos looked interesting (and usually they donâ€t) and the listing sounded great. Plus, they didnâ€t try to call it an estate sale.

Huge moving sale (or, the estate sale we would have if we were dead). Leaving 2800 square feet and moving to one bedroom! Mid Century house filled with mid century. Furniture – including DWR, West Elm, Vintage “Tank” desk, armoire, etc. Pottery – McCoy, Fiesta, USA, California, Syracuse, Holt Howard, Metro, etc. Linens: Pottery Barn, vintage quilts and table cloths. Household: Crate and Barrel, vintage. Includes china sets, vintage pitchers, old kitchen tools, etc. Tools: both vintage and newer. Garden tools and containers. Vintage planters with plants. Vintage Globes! Anatomy Chart. Midcentury art. Original art. Everything priced to sell. Large free box!

It started at 10 AM, so my plan was to hit an 8 AM sale, get some more coffee, hit the bank, and see was going on at this crazy sounding sale.

I ended up getting there so early there wasnâ€t a single person waiting. They had a little sign-in sheet and I was the only person to put my name on it. Then I headed back to wait in my car instead of stalking their front door alone. At about 10 til 9:00 a woman came out to my car and gestured me inside. Yeah! First one into the sale and no one else around.

The house was amazing and they did have great stuff and I wouldnâ€t say it was dirt cheap, but it was good enough that it didnâ€t matter. I loved the two ladies. They told me they wanted to downsize and had purchased a one bedroom condo on one of the islands. If this is what they got rid of they must have had some great stuff that they kept.

I was busy checking stuff out and making a large pile, so the only photo I took was of this folk art baby doggie painting. Itâ€s amazing, right?

When folks started to crowd in, I realized that I’d better pay for my items and get them to the car before someone started to take stuff out of the pile I had. My pile was $65 and then I spent another $10 when I went back through for a second pass.

My trunk shot is so crappy … see what happens when Jenny isnâ€t here to style it for me?

So, I did lay everything out on my couch for a photo where you can see it a little better. McCoy, Fiesta, Bauer pottery. 2 quilts, a couple state glasses, 3 50s table cloths, one ladies Pendleton and a few more things.

And I was home by 9:50 AM.

I wasnâ€t even planning on doing a blog entry, but I did see a few things last weekend, even if overall the sales were a bust (after my finding money in a box last week).

I started out at 8:00 am, since an early sale sounded good across town, but it turned out to be a waste of time. So after I headed back to Ballard I saw signs for a sale that had some really bad dresses.

As soon as I turned around I saw this Joan Collins book with a ton of bad romance novels.

I guess I understand where she picked up that fashion sense! She didnâ€t have a copy of that book Lace, but I am willing to bet $50 that she has read it.

She did have a nice gnome collection.

I hit a few more sales, even picking up a friend for breakfast along the way. I saw both of these pictures and kind of loved them both, but not enough to purchase either one.

On our way to breakfast we happened to drive by a sale on Capitol Hill.

Turned out one of the folks putting it on was Ima Handful from Rat City Rollergirls. Sadly she was selling stuff since she is moving out of the country. I picked up a few things here, but I didnâ€t buy this sweater from her friend. Gadzooks!

And they had the cutest cashier of any sale I have ever seen!

I did have a pretty wacky Saturday last weekend. It was the Whittier Heights Neighborhood yard sale.

I have done this sale a few times alone and itâ€s great in the fact that you donâ€t need a map or your smart phone. There are enough signs that you can just meander around and find sales.

I felt badly that I purchased something here and she didnâ€t have any change and then I forgot to go back and pick up the item when I did have change – I remembered the next day. Rats.

I hit a few sales, I think I purchased a book and some work clothing, nothing all that exciting.

I didnâ€t buy these paintings, but I liked them.

I met this dog at another sale. He was carrying around his own leash and acting like he owed the place.

Then I hit this sale filled with dolls and sewing stuff.

I was happy to get some really nice 1930s sewing patterns. I also picked some vintage quilting fabric from the 40s.

I stopped by the Ballard High Glee club sale (or maybe it was the Drama club) and that turned out to be a bust.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that most sales run at schools that kids put on are pretty bad. I donâ€t need your worn out pants from last year … especially if you havenâ€t grown out of size 2.

Here is where things start to get a bit more wacky. I stopped at a sale that said entire contents, but it wasn’t listed as an estate sale, but it became clear pretty quickly that it was a full on woman that had passed away. She also hadnâ€t tossed anything away since 1974. It wasn’t hoarding exactly, but the house was very packed.

I wasnâ€t really finding anything … until I found around $85 in a box. This has never happened to me before! The two ladies running the sale seemed very flustered when I gave them the money back.

As I was leaving some guy mentioned that I need to check out “Candle Land.” I’m not sure what that is, but it sounds scary …

This is the first thing that I saw: the Cool-Dana.

Yes, itâ€s the cool you down bandana. I have no idea when this is from, but “Wow … Thatâ€s Cool.”

Right next to that was this Sardine puzzle.

And then the joke that never gets old in my house -– the Norwegian joke!

You donâ€t have those in your house? Well, this is Ballard, the home to so many folks from Sweden, Scandinavia and Norway.

And then this — the Dog-O-Matic!

Let me just say that I hadnâ€t even made it into the basement yet! There were old cosmetics, novelty items, kitchen items, tools. Vintage Geritol from 1971! You get the idea. I snagged a 1960s hammock.

I did not snag this amazing cat toy, but I did remember it from the 1970s.

Here is what some of “Candle Land” looked like.

I found a stack of stuff of storage bins that hadnâ€t been touched with some great vintage clothing. But sadly, when I found the boxes of shoes they all had dry rot.

I did purchase this amazing catalog. I see a book report in my future …

I found one room that was filled with boxes, but no light. And it was sketchy. The whole basement was open, but I pulled a few things out and I just couldnâ€t deal. NO LIGHT = scary in a crazy basement sale.

I didnâ€t buy a ton of stuff here, but she had so much that was bordering on time capsule material that it was really great.

Oh, it goes on and on. I am sort of amazed at how many pictures we took of random items that we didn’t want to purchase.

At least the price was right for these seeds!

We laughed at the “old Apple technology” section of one sale. One item was labeled “Does not turn on but is still awesome.”

And this label cracked us up. Flapdoodles!

We did find our way to this memorable garage, where there’s a small but pretty great selection of vintage items each year.

Meghan dug through the clothes and other stuff, ending up with a small pile. Karl and I fanned out to the other sales nearby. One of them was a woman who brings out the same items every year, priced way too high to actually sell. I recognized a few things from previous years. Karl got a few things at another sale, and before we knew it the trunk was looking pretty good. We had to circle back to Meghan’s to switch cars (don’t even ask) so went ahead and took a halfway-through-the-day trunk shot.

On our way to get more cash we saw some very janky-looking spraypainted signs for a sale right on the main drag. As we got closer we discovered the sale was in a “bird control” business.

The woman running the sale said they weren’t going out of business, just closing up their office and clearing stuff out.

I couldn’t believe no one had snagged this amazingly freaky stuffed bird! Not that I wanted to own it …

Heading back over to Phinney, we hit a sale outside of a wacky toy/art shop. They had a pretty amazing bobblehead selection.

They also had some panties. Just sitting there, flapping in the breeze.

Just as we were about to leave I spotted this ginormous Rat Fink.

It’s about two feet tall, and has a coin slot and removable bottom so you can use it as a piggy bank. I sent a photo of my husband to see if he wanted it … and ended up bringing it home.

At another sale I became fascinated by this vintage blowdryer (but restrained myself from purchasing it).

It was here that Meghan purchased five or six vintage Home Ec textbooks, some of which are pretty amazing. Perhaps you’ll see them in a future Book Report post.

After a few unremarkable sales we came upon this one, where they had a lovely accordion!

It was $300. While admiring it, the woman told us a joke. “What do you call a gentleman? A man who knows how to play the accordion, but doesn’t.”

She also had The Mothership, which she described as “an ashtray for your chainsmoking friends who also like Star Trek.”

And on top of all that, she had a talking Pee Wee doll! Well … more like a squeaking Pee Wee doll.

Next stop: a sale where if you were looking for decorative booze bottles, you were in luck.

Glen Campbell was looking good.

Then Meghan spotted the “adult section.” Books, bottles, nudie mags … they kind of had it all.

We were getting close to winding down when we saw this crazy baby sign. What?!

There was a whole strip of sales we hadn’t hit yet. One of them had a couple of these skulls–labeled “leather mask templates,” whatever that means.

Meghan poked around while Karl and I hung out on the corner, where our attention drifted over to this horrifying pile of free boxes.

This was someone’s accumulation of all manner of sprays, oils, and cleaning products, ranging from about the ’60s to the ’80s. We dubbed it the “Toxic Corner,” marveling that someone having the nerve to put these out on the street for free instead of taking them to the hazardous waste disposal. Eventually curiosity took over and I started to gingerly poke around in the boxes. And what did I find? Captain Cat!

Amazing … and probably deadly.

Our second trunk shot is not as bountiful as the first, but not too bad!