I love estate sales and rummage sales. I look at them as little treasure hunts. Stores today all carry the same homogenized merchandise, but you never know what will turn up at a rummage sale. I like older, vintage items, which are usually better made than what is produced today. For some reason, I have a soft spot for old scissors, which are always all-metal instead of being made with plastic handles. Black or blue-edges enamelware trays are also high on my list. I was in a thrift/vintage store in Westby last year and came across a blue-rimmed enamelware photographic development tray. It is a small shallow tray with a spout formed at one corner for pouring off photographic chemicals. It was only $2, sits on my dresser, and makes a unique place to put my spare change.
At estate sales, my first stop is the garage or basement. I am always on the lookout for old or interesting tools, and the oldest items in a sale are usually in the basement. My most recent find was in a garage. As I entered, I noticed a stack of old plastic pots and seed trays, and next to them was a large seed starting/plant stand. It is about 5 feet tall, 4 feet long, and 18 inches deep, with three levels of fiberglass trays. The trays are not quite wide enough to support a seed-starting tray from front-to-back, so the stand might have been used for established plants. The stand also had grow lights for two of the three levels.
The price was higher than I usually spend at such sales, but it was the last day of the sale and everything was 50 percent off. The stand, with markdown, was less than $100. One new grow light is probably $100. It was a good deal, and the perfect thing to help consolidate our seed starting work. I bought the stand, rolled it out to my SUV, and found that it would not fit. Going back to the garage, I found some wrenches on a shelf, and borrowed them to take the stand apart. Fortunately, the stand was well-made and the bolts came out easily.
Our basement is a walk-out, with a south-facing sliding glass door. While the stand it large, it will fit perfectly in front of the fixed-glass portion of the door. This will also allow us to move our seed starting operation from the living room windows to the basement. The stand is also on wheels, which makes it more movable than our old setups. Seed starting season is only 3 months away, so we will see how well it works soon enough.
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