Yesterday, Mom, Dad, and I went to an auction at an 18-room mansion in Lynchburg Ohio (near St. Martin's and right next door to Chatfield College.) It was an old brick mansion with Italianite tendencies (at least I thought so) and three stories high. Personally, I thought the basement was the best part; it was a warren of little rooms with stone walls, just like the basements I dream about. :)

Anyway, so we all got to traipse upstairs and down and explore, which was very fun. The house itself needs some work, of course, but seriously--the porches off the back would make great sleeping porches in the summertime, and although it would cost a mint to heat in the winter (baseboard heating currently) it's still for sale at $185,500. (Although they do have an interested buyer.)

The auction was packed full of good stuff, but there weren't hordes of people there (It felt crowded at times, though; there was a lot of stuff at this auction.) The prices were decent enough, I think; some things went for cheap, but then again--how much do you really want to carry file cabinets down three flights of stairs?

The Wurlitzer Baby Grand piano went for $400, which was a steal, but moving a piano is hard work, too. Mom and Dad bought a mahogany highboy chest of drawers; I bought a large glass candy jar* and a small box of some refrigerator dishes and two old teapots. ($12.50 for the candy jar and $12.50 for the box, most of which will be sold.)

I really didn't see much else that I really wanted; I bid on one of the stock pots, but they went for $50/each, and they weren't that great. I wanted one of the other teapots, but missed that one--oh well. I liked a green-upholstered parlor chair, but I didn't have any place to put it, and it went for $40, which was a decent price, but still. No place to put it means no place to put it. I didn't buy any of the bookcases, either. And no tables, either! :)

There were no looms, thank goodness. The only sewing stuff were some odds and ends and spools; I didn't stick around for those. There was an old Singer sewing machine, but I have one of those, and it went for too much. And we left before they got to the linens, which is probably a Good Thing, because I didn't need to bring home a box of napkins, tablecloths, and stuff like that.

It was very cold in the morning, but I wore my new blue sweater and my purple coat, and I was quite comfy. By the end of the day, I had ditched both the sweater and the coat, although it was still really too cool for short sleeves.

It was a bit of a tiring day, though; I was pretty wiped out when I got home last night.



*and really made a group of (kind of b*tchy) ladies mad that I got the jar. The auctioneer was selling a section of stuff for the highest bid (boxlots, mostly, you chose which lot or item you wanted) and one of the ladies asked if that meant the jars, too. There were boxes of canning jars under the table; the auctioneer took their question to mean they were talking about those jars, and told them no, that didn't mean the jars. Only they meant the big jar and another jar; they weren't happy when I got it for $12.50. Heh.


EDIT: I almost forgot to mention the library rooms. There were two rooms on the third floor that were the 'libraries' of the house, I expect, although the books that were left after they donated most of them to the local library for a booksale (upcoming) were nothing much at all. One narrow little room had bookshelves along one whole wall; the other had bookshelves along one wall and a really big pink cabinet. I liked the pink room best. All of the books leftover were mostly textbooks, nothing special at all. There were no book people at the auction.

Comments

Unknown said…
Weren't you thinking about doing Buy-Nothing Lent again? Did you decide against it?
Jennifer said…
Yes, I was, but with everything that's been going on family-wise, I've decided to stick with the 100-days project (at least the cleaning and auctions part of that) and go from there.

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