Monday Thrift Store Scores

....Here i am at the buzzer, breathless and hoping to post this before Monday is over!

Xmas in July ~ literally! This was thee HUGEST shelf elf I've found to date; he's probably 8" sitting.... The plastic canisters I've been using for craft junk, as there was only 2 and they have minor cracks down the back. But I love the clear windows.

 Royal Haeger Virgin Mary planter. I love how this is all white and so smooth, yet in real life like this photo, the shadows show the details. I'm not even particularly religious. The Ferdinand Bull is another very smoothly cast planter, with airbrushed like coloring, and a dent in his head (for a pipe? maybe he's an ashtray?)

 I know you all don't think I deserve anything else Hall-Mack, given what I fell into with this house, but we don't have any of the recessed t.p. holders and it's IN THE BOX NO LESS. It's being saved for the main (blue) bathroom for when we re-do it. (not re-do it in the sense of gutting it, rather adding more Hall-Mack to it and replacing a crappy paint job on the amoeba shaped vanity with formica and chrome). This was actually an estate find that Partner-In-Crime was educated enough to grab! :)

And the grand finale... these were a Goodwill find. The whole set for $3. I nearly fainted. It was one of those things where I walked around the store clutching them for dear life for fear that someone would steal them from me because I was just dizzy from the find. I NEVER EVER thought I would find these in a thrift or even estate sale. Granted, I have the set that I bought on Ebay (when that guy in Illinois or wherever flooded the market with them a few months ago) but we have 2 doors into the house, so .... I don't feel guilty. Plus Rejuvination are coming out with their repros soon so everyone will have a chance to have some! :P

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Well there it is! A Monday Thrift Store Score post from me! Look in  the sky for pigs flying and check Hell, for it's surely frozen over tonight!  The sad thing is, there's more but I left my camera at the store for Etsy photos.

Did everyone come out safe and relatively unscathed by Hurricane Irene? I hope so! We are fine, my county got hit a little bit, there are tons of trees still down and streets are blocked, still. But we never lost power or had any flooding issues or anything. Whew. Did anyone else on the east coast experience that earthquake last Tuesday? That was crazy! I got such a kick out of it because I never thought I'd experience an earthquake like that, ever. I was getting tattooed at the time it hit (!!) and it was so weird, it lasted over a minute and the building didn't shake like I thought it did in an earthquake ~ it didn't shake from side to side, rather the floor seemed to be going up and down. I don't think we'll get anything that hard again for 100 years so I'm still thinking it was pretty awesome to feel.

Ok this was a pretty decent blog entry considering..! Thanks for sticking with me during the lull!

xo

stacey

All-consuming store function to end soon

I mean it! I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I finally have 2 very reliable, responsible and kick-ass ladies to run things daily and returning to my old life should commence within a week or so. Don't get me wrong ~ I LOVE MY STORE and wish I could stay there all day, every day... but other responsibilities have to take priority. Case in point: my dogs are quite resentful about being alone all day and have begun to act out in very bad ways. My laundry to-do pile is officially up to my hip, and the contents of my fridge are down to an old cantaloupe, some restaurant take-home and a potato.

There was a short but sweet article about us in Daily Candy Philadelphia:

Which is exciting. We are on our 4th floor re-stock, and 3rd front window display. This one is featuring our Starkey Labs Egg chair, and here is the only photo I have of it (from instagram):

Starkey Egg Chair, Herman Miller Office Chairs, potted plant in a HUGE Hull planter. :)

Maybe one day  I will remember which day is Monday and show off the thrift finds I've kept. It's hard not to keep some of the things that Mike has been finding. Especially when it's original leather sling butterfly chairs, and Scarpa sofas. *bites palm*

Well I've laid around long enough, as much as I want (need) a nap, I have to shower and run some errands. Again, I hope to return to more personal blogging soon, including home revamps, thrift finds, and scans.

xo
stacey

It's been a while - I miss all of you!

What I wouldn't give to have those lazy mornings back ... the ones over the winter and springtime where I could sit in my pj's well into the morning, and have coffee while catching up on you lovely bloggers. <3 Regardless, 3 months of hard work, sacrifice and a few bumps in the road and this is the result:

(Taryn my everfaithful employee, a true godsend let me tell you)

These photos were taken prior to our official opening and before I had a chance to unpack all of my smalls etc. It's much more stuffed, now. :)

Now, I'm not trying to brag but I will tell you all this, we opened our doors on Monday, officially. Today is Wednesday. As of today, most of the larger pieces are GONE and have been replaced with fresh pieces. Yes we sold them, and our heads are spinning over the sheer volume of people who have come in, armed with tape measures and cash. We have barely advertised, yet we have people waiting at the door when we open, people walking in when we're trying to close, and people telling their friends to come by and then meeting their friends there so that they can geek out over what we have.  The neighborhood is perfect for this type of store, the businesses have been super nice, helpful and excited over what we're selling.  The residents are a mix of young families, young hipsters, and gay couples with (clearly) great taste. Some people come in and just pull up a (Heywood Wakefield) chair and talk with us while we work about... well ANYTHING. Everyone is all so nice and I wish I had more time to actually spend there as it's such a fun place!! Taryn said her shifts are the quickest 10 hours she's ever had and she seems quite happy to be there. I will sing her full praises sometime soon; she is incredibly smart and helpful and rather sad that everything seems to be selling itself, she doesn't have to keep her selling skills honed... :)

I will take more photos soon, as the front window with the teal chair is pretty much revamped since almost everything in it has sold. We have an authentic Starkey Labs Egg Chair with working speakers to display starting this weekend ~ and a set of 3 Thonet chairs etc. Truthfully, the climate of the neighborhood isn't that of purists or label-whores. They just care about the quality and uniqueness. However, we couldn't resist the iconic lure of the Egg Chair.

It's been so long since I've had more than 3 hours of sleep a night, I've been a stressed out, forgetful, scatterbrained WRECK but after today, seeing the almost the whole entire floor change after only 3 days of business, well I feel like I can breathe now. A little. :)

The store of course has the basic web presences:

www.era-atomica.com
facebook

and a twitter that i'm actually forgetting the name i used on it (told you - scatterbrained and tired!) but it's ok, nothing really to see there at the moment... we've been too busy to promote! Crazy!

Ok I really need to get to bed. I wish I could read my blog feed but there's no way, I'm falling asleep on myself. I hope everyone is doing better than well and  I will try at catch up tomorrow.

x0
stacey