Natch

This screams mountains to me.!

 I was flipping through my latest issue of House Beautiful one of my favorites the Entertaining issue and got to this article.  It is a Stanley Dixon home in the Mountains of North Carolina is Cashiers.  Absolutely beautiful. 

And then I flipped the page....

it is so ingenious the editors believed  it deserves a two page spread. (excuse the bad scanning)

Natch....a full spread on the Fatabulous Idea....who would think of something so AMAZING????  Who you say....ME!  THAT is EXACTLY what I wanted for my island.  I don't have proof, of course, because it was in my head and explained with much waving of the hands and "you know, like a gate leg table, it drops down when not in use, but adds seating, would be great for entertaining, bla, bla!"

When I was designing my island I wanted it to function like a gateleg table and was told that was a terrible idea....it wouldn't work, yada, yada .  Guess who was the first person I showed THIS picture too?  My husband of course...the first naysayer....I am still trying to track down my cabinet maker.  (he was wonderful by the way, he just didn't get my stroke of ingenious.)  Maybe I should have tracked down Stanley Dixon first...Oh vell. It is a little bit of consolation that I DID have this idea that ended up in House Beautiful, even if it never came to fruition!

Have a fabulously creative day, and when you have that light bulb idea...GO FOR IT, knock those naysayers out of the way...!!!!

Another way to shop for the home.

For those of you that saw my guest post yesterday over at Cottage and Vine you saw my Henredon Chartreuse Wing Back chairs....found at a Thrift Store.

Those lamps in the back were scored for at an auction. 
I plan on painting them and changing out the shade, but until then.

The Rosenthal White China was found at an estate sale for a song!

I have always loved to shop Thrift Stores and flea markets..... and recently have become an auction and estate sale junkie!  Did you know about auctions??  If you don't you should!  It isn't for the faint of heart it takes time... a lot of it.... but the reward is great.  I am still coming off of my auction high from this weekend.  There was a local antique store that was going out of business, beautiful french, swedish, and english antiques that they had collected over the years...they would travel over seas and bring containers back.  Anyway, they are retiring and needed to unload...lucky for me and many others.  Anyway, I went to the preview on Friday and was blown away. The PREVIEW is where you go and see what you might like to buy.  They have a catalog and I just list what I was interested in, because there were over 700 lots. (the list for this one was LONG!)  Having gone to auctions before, I thought 'this stuff is going to go for way more than I can afford'...but it will be fun to go anyway. 

thinking I really like the birdcages...and the trunk under them...beautiful, no?

a sucker for silver...this is silver plate, but the copper is showing thru and is just beautiful.  If you find silver plate this is the kind that you want.  It is still quite heavy.  Not meant to be mine unfortunately.

a picture of lots of the items....

 So I woke up and got to the place at 9...when I arrived, I thought to myself  'did I get the date wrong?' there were only a handful of cars...normally there are boatloads of people.  So I walked in to find that yes I had the right day, but there just weren't many people that were there, must be football.  Good for me, bad for the sellers.  They started the auction and I had to restrain myself...everything was selling for much less than I would have thought.  By 12:00 I had scored 3 things (been outbid on quite a few others...) and ended up with a carload...

I am still stewing about this one that got away...

Isn't this Beautiful???  Evidently others thought so as well, I was outbid:(

and this, foiled again....

So here are my finds.....Drumroll please...............................

I have not taken these out of the car, and I have the table too! I love the patina and worn seats.

 And here are some pieces that have found a home, for the moment at least.

These 3 beauties...why do I need magnifying glasses???  But I thought they were pretty together.....the clock I got at another auction a few months ago, and the mirror at an estate sale.

a pair of the beautiful painted french chairs with black ticking covers.

There are a few other things that I will be posting about soon
.

Auctions are certainly a fun place to get a good deal...it does take a while to score the deal because you could sit around all day for your one find and still be outbid. Or you could drive an hour to an auction that is awful! But it makes me super H-A-P-P-Y

So take note and remember that auctions and estate sales are another great place to find beautiful and unique pieces for your home, you just have to do a bit of legwork.

I plan on selling some of my finds so if you are interested in any of them please zip me an email gretchenopgenorth@gmail.com.

Have a great day.