Mary Kay Andrews

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Junk for Joy Part 2

Saturday, Katie and two of her high school classmates and I saddled up for the Druid Hills neighborhood yard sale extravaganza. We headed out shortly after 8 a.m. for the 9am. start time, and by shortly after 9, I'd made my first purchases of the day, the black tole tray below, and the pink tole wastebasket. It was a lovely day for junking. I also got the two framed seashell prints shown with the tole items, and at the same sale, Katie scored a $50 sofa to put in her husband's "man cave." One of the girls also purchased some new-in-the-box Ikea wall sconces, new white china canisters, and some other household items.

My favorite item from Saturday has to be the faux crocodile train case. I think it looks like something from an old Doris Day movie. I mean, can't you see Doris arriving in New York, wearing a chic hat, white gloves, pumps, and carrying this train case? It had a $7 pricetag, which wasn't bad, it just wasn't what I felt like paying. It was locked, and had this old-timey padlock. The thing is, my high school graduation luggage had a lock just like it. You were supposed to set the combination, and I never did. Just left it at 0-0-0. So, I spun the combination, and yessirreebob, it was set at 0-0-0. I took it to the woman running the sale and asked if she could do better on the price. She just looked at me and said, "honey, it doesn't unlock. But if you can unlock it, you can have it for free." Oh, really? I spun the lock and it clicked open. She laughed and told me I could have it for free. Then I told her the trick, and being a good sport, she laughed again. Don't you just love free? The other items are some of the things I found on Friday at the "Five Gay Men with Fabulous Taste" sale, which is where the television trays, the wicker hamper and the wool plaid stadium blankets and shaving mirror came from. I spent part of the day today working on re-doing the antique New England wooden screens I brought back from Brimfield. I think they're going to look great when I'm done. The problem is, I'll have so much time and money invested in them, it'll be hard to make a profit. And of course, the more I fix 'em, the more I fall in love with them. Such is the lot of the part-time antique dealer, I guess.

Labels: Junking, The Writing Life

Friday, September 26, 2008

Junkin' for Joy

The junk planets seem aligned just right. Yesterday, three members of the posse--including daughter Katie, saddled up to attend the 6th annual ATLANTA PET RESCUE tag sale. Jinxie and I went last year and got some major scores, so we all ponied up the $25 "advance" fee this year, and dashed inside. I scored a great painted beachy dresser--in fact, it's painted with a shell border on the bottom, for $100. This will go in the Tybee beach house. Also got a great wooden pole lamp for $20, and some designer fabric 1/2-yard swatches for $4 apiece. While waiting to get into the sale, a guy was handing out flyers for his sale, which started today. The come-on? "Five Gay Guys with Fabulous Taste are Having a Yard Sale." Well, how could I not check it out? Got some cool stuff, including three wool plaid stadium blankets, a wicker hamper, brass shaving mirror with bevelled mirror, awesome big white scrolly clock, and a pair of rattan TV trays on folding stands. I also checked in at another estate sale in Buckhead. I got a bag of five vintage 1950s Christmas pixies--the ones with the little fabric legs folded up, all with the original dime-store tags. I've got a collection of those that I put out for my vintage tacky Christmas display. Also snagged a retro red taffeta Christmas apron with white embroidery. Tragically, I was also the victim of unprovoked estate sale viciousness. I'd spotted 12 white milk-glass dessert bowls in a kitchen cupboard--marked $15 for all. I scooped them up, and went out to one of the cashiers to ask if I could make a pile of stuff I was buying. She told me to put the stuff on a chair and she'd guard them. As I was setting them down, this heinous bee-yatch (you know the type--dressed in her cool work-out clothes) rushed over and snatched up the whole pile. "Uh?" I said in my best passive-aggressive back-off bee-yatch voice. "I was buying these," she snarled. She turned to the lady. "Remember? I asked you to move them and put them in a stack for me?" the yard-sale lady just kind of shrugged and said ok. People, this is not proper estate sale etiquette. I let it go this time, but next time around, I will smack this bee-yatch upside her botoxed-head with my sack o' Christmas Pixies. Seriously. Tomorrow is the big Druid Hills neighborhood-wide yard sale. Druid Hills is the Atlanta neighborhood around Emory University, and it's full of beautiful old homes. It was also the setting for DRIVING MISS DAISY. Supposedly 140 families are participating. I'm just a-quiver with excitement and anticipation. Will hopefully blog/brag tomorrow about all the treasures I score.

Labels: Junking, The Writing Life

Saturday, September 20, 2008

The Fixer-Upper: Stick a fork in me---I'm DONE!

I am beyond thrilled and amazed to announce that I finished THE FIXER-UPPER at 4:55 p.m. EDT today. Yayayayayay! As has been my tradition upon finishing a book--and this is my 18th time--I toasted myself with some favorite treats. Usually, I wash my celebratory Reese's down with Wink, the delightful grapefruit soda of my youth. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack the bottle of Wink I've been hoarding since spring, for the trip to Tybee. The Wathen's Kentucky Bourbon made a tasty substitute, but it just ain't Wink.

Tragically, you can no longer buy Wink in Georgia, because I guess they don't have a distributor down here. I bought my bottle of Wink back in the spring, when I was on my writing retreat at Holden Beach with the Inksters. Anyway, here's to me! Technically, of course, I'm far from finished with THE FIXER UPPER. The manuscript you see in the photo here is not a pretty thing. It is a bloated disgusting mess at this point, full of pointless meanderings, shoddy grammar, nonexistent punctuation and worse. Fortunately, I have the honor of having an amazing editor at HarperCollins, who is even now sharpening her red pencil in preparation for whipping this beast into shape. Here's to Carolyn! Burp. Excuse me. That's the bourbon talking, not me. Soon Carolyn will have me slaving away over revisions, slashing thru the excess and the absurd. And then comes the fun part. We figure out zingy candy colors for the jacket. We finalize the jacket art and talk about marketing this puppy. And I get about 27 minutes off, until I start all over again on a new book. Oh the horror! Oh the sublime, blessed joy of making a living off what you love to do. Thank you, dear readers, for making it all possible.

Labels: Junking, The Writing Life

Thursday, September 18, 2008

A bump in the road

There I was, writing along, singing a song---well, not actually singing--but I was cranking out the pages. And then, to paraphrase Dr. Seuss. Bump! How that bump made me jump! And I'm so close to the end, too. I'm at a plotting impasse. I've called my editor for an emergency consult, so hopefully, I'll jump the bump. Tomorrow or the next day. Which means maybe I stay down at Tybee a little longer than I'd originally planned. Not a bad thing, except I miss home and hubby---and junk buddies. And I SO want this book done. But you can't hurry fiction. So here I stay, for the time being. In the mean time, on Tuesday, when things were going well, I finished my morning page quota in time to sneak out to an estate sale. It's totally a very tiny world, because while at the sale, I discovered it was being held by an ollllllddd college buddy from UGA. BD, (who is still an amazingly talented photographer--and he even teaches digital photography--gotta sign up for a class) and I worked together at the Red and Black (that's the college paper), and then later, we free-lanced stories out of Savannah together for the Atlanta and Jacksonville newspapers. The house was BD's late mom's house. I bought a swell lavender chenille bedspread, and some cool '60s banded ice tea tumblers, and an aluminum water pitcher, all of which will go in the booth at Maisy's Daisy. The bedspread had some weird orange stains, but after four washings, including an Oxy-Clean soak and extensive Oxy-Clean spray-on stain removal, all the orange went away. What the ??? is in that stuff? I wish I could buy stock in it, I love it so much. While my mind was in a stall pattern today, I took my new finds, plus the rest of my Brimfield goodies, over to Maisy's Daisy, where Susan, the Seaside Sister madam, has promised to make it all look yummy. In the meantime, here's a peek at the goods, which I styled here at the Mermaid Cottage I'm hiding out in. Check out the amazing egret/heron barkcloth pillows I picked up at Brimfield. Also, the cool old black and white 1920s beach snapshots. Tonight, I went to an book-signing for my friend Polly Powers Stramm, at the Trends and Traditions Framing Gallery, in Ardsley Park. Another example of what a small world it is, I used to work at the Atlanta Constitution with the owner's father, the late, great, Tom McCollister, a wonderful sportswriter and all around sweet man, who we lost too soon. And of course, Polly is an old pal from waaaay back (we're talking 30 years here) when I was just a baby reporter at The Savannah Morning News. I bought a copy of Sentimental Savannah, her collection of columns written for the Morning News, to put in my "local library" which I'm planning for the beach house. And now, just to tease you, here's a sunset I shot from the Back River the other day. By the way, today the weather was so beautiful. Breezy, with just the slightest hint of fall. It's a great time to be at Tybee...if only I could jump that bump.

Labels: Junking

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Sneak Peek

The worst part about coming home from a buying trip is the un-loading and un-packing. The fun part is the hunt, and then the fluffing. After a 14-hour drive Friday--much of it through driving rain, Beth and I made it back to Raleigh, and then I drove another six hours to get home to Atlanta Saturday afternoon. Today I unpacked my treasures. So, here's a sneak peek at some of the goodies. The quilt has wonderful colors and detailed quilting, but the red dyes in old fabrics frequently made the fabric weak, so the red stars have some wear. Still, the wonderful red, white and blue colors and the graphic appeal of the stars would look wonderful as a wall hanging, or even folded at the foot of a bed or in a cupboard. I fell hard for the vintage Georgia and Georgia Tech pennants, which are framed, and you can see a representative assortment of other stuff too. Not shown is the great pink and white quilt, which is being laundered with Oxy-Clean. I don't know what's in that stuff, but I swear, it works wonders. Two weeks ago, a friend's son knocked over a full glass of red wine on the sisal rug in the living room. She brought over a steam cleaner to try to clean it, but it only turned the wine stains black. The next day, I gave it two applications of spray-on Oxy-clean, and voila--the stains disappeared. Also not shown is the wicker highchair, which is a work in progress. It's Heywood-Wakefield, complete with worn label on the underside. I'm painting it Seaside Green, and then it'll get a vintage barkcloth seat cushion. The three-panel cottage screen will also undergo a transformation, with a new paint job and some shirred fabric. I'll try to post them when my projects are completed. As usual, I'm torn this week--between getting my Brimfield goodies priced and ready to take down to Seaside Sisters--and writing. But writing must win. Mustfinishbookmustfinishbookmustfinishbookmustfinish....

Labels: Junking, The Writing Life

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Bye-Bye Brimfield!

After three days of serious, kick-ass, hard-core junking, junk sistah Beth and I are packing up to go home. The van is full, our bank accounts near-empty, and we are, as my daughter Katie would put it, "tore up from the floor up."

But it was loads of fun. If you are a junk novice, let me just tell you that the Brimfield Antique Market is the largest antique market of its kind in the U.S. Estimates vary, but I've read that at least 2400 dealers from around the world set up here in these former pastures in the tiny town of Brimfield, Mass. And buyers come from around the world too, especially antique dealers, who come to re-stock their shops. I've bought tons of goodies for my booth at Seaside Sisters, at Tybee Island, Ga., and Beth has been buying for her business, Knick-Knack Paddywhack, in Raleigh. Fortunately, we are at the opposite ends of the spectrum in the antique world. Beth buys high-end, bona-fide antiques--much of it French or English for her customers. And me? I buy shabby chic, retro, funky junky beach house-type stuff. I love to buy original art--amateur oil paintings, water-colors or drawings. I have a weakness for forties and fifties barkcloth, and because our little shop is at the beach, I buy anything nautical. And wicker. And rattan. And McCoy pottery. And architectural salvage. So, a reader asks, what did I buy this week? Three cottagey screens which can be hinged together, with chipped white paint. A pair of fabulous barkcloth pillows in acid green with herons on them. A wicker high-chair, a pair of 1950s-era framed Georgia and Georgia Tech felt pennants, an adorable turn--of-the-century double school desk-table with cast-iron legs. Four children's English blue willow grill plates. A pine-topped green wicker table. An old-timey bingo hopper, complete with the original bingo balls and bakelite detailing. A pair of small wooden paddles, several paintings, and some great vintage black and white beachy snapshots. For her part, Beth bought several oriental rugs, lots of blue and white English transferware, a pair of 19th century French walnut cane-bottom chairs, a gorgeous French daybed, some silver, and a slew of paintings, including a Florida Highwaymen painting which I covet in the extreme. It's been a good, fun week. We ate at our favorite food court, New England Motel, pictured above, every day. Beth had lobster, I had pilgrim roll (turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce), and Greek food. The people-watching was great. I saw a dealer who specializes in selling Viking ships (now that's specialized!), and another who buys full-sized robots and models of flying saucers. Lots of dealers had their dogs in their booths. I saw a huge Robert E. Lee statue. In Massachusetts, yet. Beth had a celebrity sighting--Keri Russell was buying up lots of Swedish antiques. And now? It' time to head home and try to out-run the tropical storms and hurricanes taking aim at the South. Oh yeah. Time to go home and finish the new book before my editor comes back from vacation.

Labels: Junking, The Writing Life

Monday, September 1, 2008

Book Fair, and Back to Brimfield

The AJC Decatur Book Festival was big fun. Friday night, my friend Jennifer and I went to hear poet Billy Collins at Agnes Scott College. He was wonderful, funny, charming, refreshing, his poems funny and sly and subversive and silly. My favorite part was when he dropped the F-bomb. I mean, the former poet laureate of the United States, and he drops the F-Bomb at a girl's college. You gotta love it. I got to meet him afterwards, and before-hand, got to meet one of my favorite southern writers, Bailey White. If you've never heard her on NPR, or read SLEEPING AT THE STARLIGHT MOTEL, or MAMA MAKES UP HER MIND, you have missed a rare and wondrous treat. She's got a new book coming out, called NOTHING WITH STRINGS, and I, for one, can't wait. I met Rick Bragg in the author's green room too. That's the great thing about a book festival. One time, I was in the green room at the Miami Book Festival, and Amy Tan came in, with her two eensy-weensy purse puppies, and then Dave Barry came in, and I just took it all in.

We had a very nice crowd for the book festival. Right after my gig at the festival Saturday, I ran home and jumped in the 10-ft. cargo van and hot-footed it up to Raleigh to pick up junk sistah Beth. Sunday morning, we lit out for Brimfield, which turned out to be a 14-hour odyssey, due to traffic jams on various turnpikes. But we are here, we have done a reconaissance around the fields, and have set our alarms for---buttcrack of dawn, or as some people call it, 4 a.m. All the antique fields are supposed to be officially closed today, but I snuck in, and the first person I ran into was Bob, who sold me my bathtub and kitchen sink at Scott's in Atlanta. The junk world really is a small place. A few years ago, on my first junking trip to England, I ran into a dealer friend from Atlanta at the antique fair in Ardingly. Tomorrow, I junk for joy!

Labels: Junking, The Writing Life

Friday, August 8, 2008

That sinking feeling

Irushed back from the mountains last Thursday because it was early shopper day at Scott's Antique Market--and I definitely qualify as an early shopper. As I drove into the parking lot at the South building, I spotted it--a jadeite green sink almost exactly like this one pictured. It practically screamed beach house--so I sprinted (well, ok maybe not exactly sprinted) hurried? over to check it out, and it quickly became mine for a hundred bucks. The one pictured here was one I found online at a antique salvage shop--and it sold for $750, so I'm feeling pretty smug about my green jewel. Mine came out of a beauty parlour in New Hampshire. It doesn't have the spray attachment this one has, but it has a slot for one. Of course, now I'm jonesing for a jadeite green toilet, but have very little hope of finding one in decent condition. So I'll probably just settle for a white toilet, with the green sink as a "statement" in the downstairs bath. That statement will be--"I was bought by a crazy woman. She is the kind of person who will pry old windows out of an 80-year-old house in hundred degree heat. She is the kind of person who trolls ebay and craigslist for hours on end when she should be writing her next book. She is the kind of person who is seriously considering a trip to Eugenia's Antique Hardware in Chamblee, Ga.--because on their website they have a photo of a jadeite green porcelain toothbrush holder. She is the kind of person who, even now, is pining for a TURQUOISE vintage electric stove she found on Ebay. She is the kind of person who would, given any encouragement, bid on this stove, sight unseen, and then drive to Gawdknowswhere, Michigan

to try to stuff it in the back of her under-sized SUV. This woman needs help!

Labels: Junking

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Life imitates Art...or sumthin'

For months now, I've been working on the next book, THE FIXER-UPPER, in which my protagonist, a young woman named Dempsey Killebrew, returns to her family's homeplace in a small middle Georgia town, to search for a new life--and to fix up said homeplace. And all this time, I've been scheming and shopping for what I'd come to call our virtual beach house. In June, we finally sealed the deal on our own fixer-upper. And now, life is imitating art. I'd been lusting after an old-timey backsplash porcelain kitchen sink for the beach house, so I had Dempsey's handyman buddy find her one at the town dump. Then I found one at the Scott's Antique Market here in Atlanta last month. I also found a claw-foot bathtub for our soon-to-be master bath at the beach, and Dempsey already has one of those. Dempsey had a great old pre-WWII gas stove in her kitchen, so I've been lusting after one of those too. I used to have my aunt's pre-WWII gas stove in my old house. It was a gleaming white Roper, big as a battleship, and we designed a kitchen around it. Sadly, we sold that house. So I've been pining for another old stove for the beach house. Scanning Craigslist--my favorite time-waster, I found the perfect old gas stove--it's called a Grand, it's preWWII, in great shape, and in a house only 15 minutes from mine. Yesterday I went and looked. I fell, hard. But it was not to be. This old gas stove has to have the burners lit each time you use it, and I was afraid our guests at the beach house would be terrified--or worse, blow the whole damned place to kingdom-come. BUT...the owner of the stove is getting ready to tear down this great old 1920s bungalow, and his in-laws were already harvesting the oak floors for their home. So I fell for this great pedestal sink--and he GAVE it to me. A sink! I call it a belated birthday gift. I somehow persuaded Mr. Mary Kay to remove the sink yesterday, and then, we bought a bunch of gorgeous old solid-wood panelled doors too--for five bucks apiece. And then I went back with my son-in-law Mark, and the cordless screwdriver, and Whitey Ford, the community pickup truck,....and bought the narrow crank casement windows, and some white porcelain bath sconces. And for less than a hundred bucks we got: an amazing vintage porcelain pedestal sink, 8 vintage solid-wood panel doors, 9 vintage windows, pair of sconces, pair of Craftsman iron lanterns, assorted doorknobs. The doors will replace the cheesey hollow-core doors at the beach house. I hope to make the windows into upper kitchen cupboard doors, the sconces will go in the master bath, the lanterns will be probably go on the screened porch. I'll have to settle for an ordinary stove, I'm afraid...unless somebody puts a vintage ELECTRIC stove on Craigslist.....

Labels: Junking

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Kitchen Sink Dreams

I'm back at my friend Shay's place in Ellijay, finishing up a three-day writing binge. It's been a very productive week. Fifty pages--plus a plotting break-through on THE FIXER UPPER, plus some more excellent junking. I get to go junking if I finish my daily page quotas. Among the treasures I've found on this trip are an enamel-topped side table--perfect for a beach house nightstand, because Mr. Mary Kay is bad about knocking over his water glass while fumbling around in the middle of the night. I've also found some things for MAISY'S DAISY, my antique booth at Seaside Sisters on Tybee Island. Also--I found a bomb crate. Yes. And for less than $100. Let me explain. My friend Janie's boyfriend Joe is the genius behind the Tybee Bomb Squad. It's kind of complicated, but suffice it to say that sometime in the 1940s, our very own armed forces dropped a bomb into the waters off Tybee Island. So Joe--who makes adorable adirondack chairs and also bartends at Doc's Bar at Tybee, deputized his very own Tybee Bomb Squad. Their official duties are shrouded in mystery, but I'm guessing there is a good deal of beer drinking involved. Joe has a Tybee Bomb Squad booth at Seaside Sisters. He also has a small bomb on display there, as well as spiffy ballcaps and T-shirts. You should buy some. They are a guaranteed conversation starter. I've been assured Joe's bomb has been disarmed. And now, courtesy of the Blue Ridge Antique Mall, he will have his very own bomb fuse crate. It's painted a festive blue color and lined with tin, and the outside is stencilled with words to the effect that this is a Bomb Fuse Crate. I don't think it's a fake--after all, who makes up this kind of stuff? What I have not found on this trip--or any other junking expedition this summer, is the perfect authentic vintage kitchen sink for The Breeze Inn. I have this fantasy sink in my head. I probably saw it in some old black and white movie. Or maybe Donna Reed did the dishes in it, helped by the always adorable Shelley Fabares, who played her daughter. This sink is porcelain over cast iron. It has a high, curved backsplash and double basins. Double basins are important at our house. I've seen this sink on Ebay--but it's always being offered by somebody in Wyoming or New Hampshire, and they refuse to ship--local pick-up only. The sink haunts me. It calls to me. It will make my beach house kitchen a culinary shrine. MUST HAVE SINK. Tomorrow, I'm packing up my laptop and heading home. Why? Because tomorrow is the first day of the Scott's Antique Market. Somewhere, a dealer at Scott's holds the key to my beach house kitchen nirvana. Stay tuned...

Labels: Junking

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Simmertime...and the livin' is steamy

I don't care what the calendar says--it's June here in Atlanta and it's officially hot. How do I deal with heat? Junkin'! Last weekend was extremely junk-central. We started off Thursday with the Decatur First Baptist Gi-Normous Yard Sale. Katie and I--and her best friend Carolyn, got up at 5:30 a.m.--or what we call buttcrack of dawn, to get in line for the sale by 6 a.m. for the 7 a.m. start-time. Now that's some serious junking. This is a yearly sale held to fund the church's youth mission trips. Of course, we'd done a drive-by the night before to scope out the merch, and I'd spotted what looked like a queen-size headboard and footboard. Not really antique, but decent repro. We cruised by the bed again in the morning, just to make sure it looked good up close, which it did, and made a list of stuff we wanted to find: beds for my future beach house, maybe a dresser or two, and for Katie, two kitchen chairs to replace two of hers that had bit the dust. By the time the sale started, we were 9th or 10th in line, with close to a hundred people behind us. You gotta love a yard sale that starts with the church pastor giving a megaphone benediction. Once we'd been blessed, we were off! Our strategy was divide and conquer. Katie raced for the bed area, while I made a beeline for what looked like a decent sofa. The sofa was a no-go, (smelled like it had substituted for a catbox), so I sprinted over to the three metal spring-back motel chairs I'd been eyeballing. Just as I got there, another woman was placing a "sold" sticker on them. And they were only $15 apiece! They are just like the ones that were on the cover of SAVANNAH BLUES. I had to cuss under my breath (it being a Baptist church-sanctioned sale and all). I headed for the kitchen chair area, where I grabbed up two painted oak kitchen chairs (for Katie) for $30. Five minutes had passed by the time I made my way over to Katie, who'd scored the queen-bed, plus a retro-sixties white and yellow beachy headboard--for the grand total of $35. We trolled the rest of the aisles and came up with two more great finds: a queen-sized sleeper sofa from Storehouse--complete with slipcover--for $175--for my future beach house, plus a scarred and battered mahogany dresser for $40, which will be painted shabby-chic style for aforesaid beach house. And here's a valuable tip we learned that day. Contrary to popular opinion, a queen-sized sleeper sofa will fit all the way into my husband's Yukon! That was the good news. The bad news was that the same sofa would NOT fit through my basement doorway, despite the valiant efforts of my good neighbor Joel and son. So I had to cover the sofa with two bright blue plastic drop cloths until my husband and a friend could load it up and take it over to be stored at Boomerang Boy's garage. Friday morning, when I went outside to make sure our dogs hadn't decided to breakfast on the sofa, I discovered Wyatt lounging atop the tarp-draped sofa, looking quite pleased with himself. Of course, there was more junking to be done on Friday. With Katie and Jinxie along, we hit three excellent estate sales. I love an estate sale--dead people's stuff is just way more exciting than the run-of-the-mill suburban homeowner's assortment of cast-off clothing, plastic toys and hideous '80s herculon Lazy-Boys. I bought an adorable '50s chenille crib spread to take to Maisy's Daisy, plus a bunch of other stuff for the booth. Saturday, I junked solo, scoring a great armchair and ottoman for the future beach house for $35, plus a pair of great-looking faux bamboo Chinese Chippendale armchairs. And to cap off the long weekend, I found a pair of vintage mahogany four-poster twin beds on Craig's List--$50 for the pair. My basement is full, my fantasy beach house is nearly furnished, I'm a happy camper. Now, it's back to THE FIXER UPPER. I actually wrote five pages yesterday, to atone for all that outta control junking.

Labels: Junking

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Brimfield goodies

For those of you who asked (and those of you who didn't) here's a photo of Maisy's Daisy at Seaside Sisters, decked out with all the Brimfield treasures I carted all the way from Massachusetts. If you look carefully you can see the reverse painted mirror with flamingos on the back wall, the large yellow McCoy flower pot, the amazing plant stand with original turquoise art pottery flowerpots on the far left, and the sweet painting of roses on the far right. My daughter Katie and friend Susan Kelleher (she's the Seaside Sisters madam) helped load it all in and make it look artistic. So now, it's all ready for you junkers to take home. Have a happy, safe, Memorial Day weekend. I myself have some more junking to do in the morning. And over the long weekend, I plan to do mostly nothing, except cook some ribs on Sunday, for family and friends. And after Monday? I SWEAR BY ALL THAT'S HOLY THAT I WILL RETURN TO WRITING THE FIXER UPPER. Really.

Labels: Junking

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Six Flags Over Brimfield

I have a new happy place--and it's called Brimfield. Last week my friend Beth and I set out upon the great American junking journey, driving from Raleigh, NC, all the way to Brimfield, Mass. in a rented white cargo van, which we quickly nicknamed Chester, for reasons that are too politically incorrect to go into. On the New York portion of the trip, Brunhilda, Beth's GPS unit, routed us through the George Washington Bridge and Manhattan, which was unbelievably scary. But we made it--with Beth driving the whole way. Monday night we checked into our motel room in Auburn, Mass, and Tuesday, we got up at the butt-crack of dawn--4:30 a.m. to drive the 20 minutes to Brimfield, where we were delighted to survey a full five miles of farm fields full of antiques. The Brimfield Antiques Market is the largest outdoor market in the U.S. We started Tuesday at the daylight opening fields--Crystal Brook, Shelton's, Quaker Acres. Beth's first score was the most charming oil portrait of a little blonde girl in a pink dress. We named her Clarissa, and she was really a head-turner. I can't even remember now what my first purchase was, but I quickly purchased a collapsible rolling cart to hold all my treasures as I trolled the fields for goodies for me--and for Maisie's Daisy, my antique booth down at Seaside Sisters on Tybee Island. The Brimfield publicists claim that 5,000 dealers sell at this market, and I can believe it--along with about 10,000 shoppers who come from all over the world. We saw great antiques from New England, the Southwest, Europe, everywhere really, and lots of stuff we don't normally see on our junking forays around the South. As I told a friend, Brimfield is my Disneyworld, my Six Flags, my Coney Island. My favorite purchase was the hot pink screen door that I hope to someday use for my virtual beach house. I also bought five pairs of shutters with great blue-green paint and crescent moon cut-outs also destined for my someday beach house. I bought two great blue chenille bedspreads, a wonderful yellow grandmother's flower patch quilt in a sunny yellow, a sweet little pine dresser with mirror, a forties mirror that has a reverse-painted flamingo, a pair of blue-green lamps, a folk-art children's toy Noah's ark with hand-painted animals, an Ohio Art child's tin litho sand shovel (I collect these tin litho sandpails and watering cans), a yellow McCoy flowerpot, a cool barkcloth dust-ruffle that's destined to become cushions for a rattan armchair, a sweet child's chair in beachy turquoise, and yes, to Beth's chagrin, a six-foot wooden folk-art Uncle Sam whose moveable arms once held an American flag at the entrance to a Maine hunting camp. We slowed down our assault only for potty breaks--yes, I actually used a porta-potty--and lunch. Brimfield has a wonderful food court, which is situated in the courtyard of a 50s-era motel, called, fittingly, New England Motel.

Beth opted for lobster rolls the first two days, and a full 2-lb. lobster on our last day. I sampled sausage and peppers, and a fantastic sandwich called a Pilgrim Roll--fresh roasted turkey breast with cranberry sauce on a yeast roll. We also tried out the apple crisp with ice cream and hand-cut french fries. Excellent junking food. At the end of our first full day we were just barely able to drag ourselves back to the motel, hit a chain restaurant for dinner, shower, and then to bed by 9 pm. Wednesday we were back in line for the 6 am opening of the New England Motel field, followed by Heart-of-The-Mart at 9am, and Hertan's at noon. I think New England Motel was my favorite field, but really, I think I found treasures in each field I shopped. One of the best things about Brimfield is the people. The dealers were unfailingly nice, willing to bargain, and just plain cool. We chatted with strangers over lunch and in lines, and everybody was really lovely. The weather was unbelievable most of the time, morning temps were in the low '50s, so we bundled up in jackets and shawls, but by the afternoon, it had gotten sunny and warm--in the low '80s. We did have a little rain on our last morning, Thursday, but that lasted for only about 20 minutes. My final tally of purchases numbered around 46, and I spent just about what I'd budgeted for the visit. On Thursday, after a final lunch at New England Motel, we reluctantly headed Chester South for the trip home. and yes, we're already planning our next Brimfield excursion. Shows are also held in July, but we've decided that will be too hot. Maybe September, if I finish my new book on time.

Labels: Junking