The Sadness of Shopping

When my husband and I purchased our first (and so far, only) home, I furnished it with thrift store finds from a repurposed buffet in the living room to a round table in the corner of the bedroom, a sofa for the rec room, and an assortment of lamps and other objects.

Over the past week I have scoured local thrift stores to furnish my newest acquisition:  a large vacation rental property which I will be closing on in the next couple of months.  I need cheap items to furnish it because I won’t have enough money to buy new.  What did I find in those thrift stores? 

Where once there were entire large sections of floor space devoted to furniture, now there is almost none.  Where once I found great looking, quality lamps, now there are only a few worthless ones.  And the shelves in those stores are filled with junk.  People I see are shopping only for clothing and children’s items. 

And that makes me sad.  Sad at the vast aisles of other people’s once carefully purchased clothing.  Sad that I’m seeing the end result of the treasures they paid top dollar for at some department store.  Sad that much of my mother’s carefully acquired items and my own with one day be worthless.

Where has all the good stuff gone?  My husband attributes the dearth of quality lamps and furniture in the thrift stores to the economy.  He says that people are keeping their useful items.  But, I know that’s not entirely true.  I see furniture in garage sale listings and auctions at a much higher price than I would have paid at a thrift store.  And, maybe that’s the answer.  People are selling everything outright rather than giving it to the thrift stores. 

If any of you have things to sell cheaply or know of someone who does, please let me know.  I hate wasting my time attending garage sales that don’t have what I need.  I need lamps, end tables, decorative items (I’m especially looking for black metal and wrought iron).  I need things that are durable, preferably wood and metal rather than glass and ceramic.  (I just won an end table and wooden lamp for about $5.00 at an auction, but that is an anomaly.)  In the future I will need a dining table or two and outdoor furniture.  So, keep me in mind when you or someone else thinks of disposing of things in the next couple of months.  

 

 

Picture By Sparklingdawg (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons