Estate Tales

Last week I attended an estate sale at what I'm guessing was a very interesting & cultured woman's home. She had all sorts of modern art & furnishings, unfinished sketches of her own, craft projects, and two entire bookcases full of old French novels.

I loved this huge canvas that was hanging in the living room, but it had already sold (not that I have any place to put it). It looks totally modern but was probably done 50 years ago.

I don't normally look through the clothing at estate sales, but I happened to notice the sleeve of this tunic sticking out of the closet so I decided to take a closer look. I'm glad I did, because it is beautiful, the quality is excellent, and it was my size. And did I mention it was $2?

Another interesting feature of this home were the huge fuscia custom rugs that covered the master bedroom & living room floors. The lighting was horrible in there so I wasn't able to photograph them, but I loved that someone had made such a bold choice for flooring. It's rare to go into an estate sale and actually like the overall decor. Usually it's just a lamp here or a dresser there, but this was a nice surprise!

New dresser

This might be my best estate sale find yet. I've been looking for a new dresser for our guest room and finally stumbled upon this one last week for only $50 (including the mirror). Needless to say, I was knocking down old ladies as I pushed my way to the cashier to buy it before someone else saw it. Ok, not really, but I totally would have if one of those broads got in the way:) A coat of shiny white paint and it will be looking fabulous!

I think I'll be sharing more great finds the rest of the week, there have been a few lately...

Pretty Butterflies

I discovered a few little treasures over the weekend, one of them being this brilliant blue butterfly specimen:

I plan to re-mount it on plain white mat board and place it in a larger shadow box frame. I've always liked how the grouping below is displayed, the blue & white contrast of this room is divine:

This single display is simple & pretty:

I must say that I wrestled with this purchase because I'm not big on using living creatures as home decor, but I rationalized by thinking that maybe this little butterfly had a long happy life and died of natural causes. It's possible, right?

* via desire to inspire, decor8