My husband’s Grandma is moving from the home her husband (who passed away in 2005) built in 1955 in western Pennsylvania to a smaller home, so the family held a gigantic yard sale last weekend after consigning furniture and other larger items. Grandma wasn’t a hoarder but she hung on to just about anything with any sentimental value or usefulness, which means we displayed wares from the midcentury and every decade since.
For starters, she had over 300 Ball, Atlas, and a few Kerr Mason Jars in the garage in pint and quart sizes.
Matt and I bought a set of the classic blue jars, which Matt plans to DIY into a chandelier.
She still had these old apple cider jugs.
We had many collectors come early to pick out treasures like this almond joy box….
…classic storage tins.
…some old roller skates.
A sweet cookie jar that served countless batches of cookies to little reaching hands.
An assortment of vintage sewing patterns and vibrantly colored spools of thread. Grandma’s sisters stopped by and picked out a few patterns and bags of thread for their own projects.
Trucking and other lawn and automobile supplies that emerged from the depths of the garage.
Other inscrutable (to me) cooking utensils that are certainly antiques but probably very useful even now, if you can figure out what they’re for.
A wagon that found a new home for Matt’s cousin with twins and an old tricycle that Matt and his brother Brian played with when they were little. My girls enjoyed pedaling down the big driveway on it during the sale. (They even tumbled off one time just like Matt and Brian did.)
I love these vintage laundry baskets that Grandma still uses and, as with her other possessions, has kept in mint condition.
I couldn’t resist buying these old cameras from Grandma whether they work or not.
I took this box of Life magazines home too so I could make a more lucrative sale for Grandma. Plus, I want to look through them!
Before the sale started, Grandma gave me a beautiful collection of barrettes that my mother-in-law and her sisters wore when they were little. She thought Ana and Nadja may enjoy wearing them, but they’re so likely to get lost that instead, I think I’ll have them framed like butterfly specimens. That way, we’ll remember them as a keepsake from their own Grandmother’s childhood.
My girls will so miss spending time in their Great-Grandma’s house having “adventures” in the attic that their Grandma shared with her two sisters and exploring the sprawling three-plus acres just like their Grandma did growing up. I hope the house goes to a nice family who will keep it up as well as Grandma and Papap did all those years.
