Estate sales, furniture markets, and exhaustion!

What a weekend! My Mom came into town and we went non-stop until Sunday afternoon and I was exhausted! Mom scored some tickets to the Furniture Market in High Point. It's one of the biggest furniture markets in the country and you have to be associated with a vendor to get in. My mom is friends with Jill, the designer/owner of Salmagundi and she graciously offered us tickets to come see what the furniture market was all about. It is very overwhelming!

Before we got on the road to High Point we stopped at an estate sale in Durham. Mom is always looking for vintage clothing at estate sales for her etsy shop Vintage Runway. She found out about this great estate sale in Durham so we stopped by and she found some really great shoes and clothing. I am still new at estate sale-ing so it took me a while to get warmed up but I did find a fantastic stool for my make-up vanity. I had been looking for something like this for a while but the ones I found were not in as good of shape and twice as expensive. Score!! It's on a long list of projects that are currently halfway done in our house.

After stopping for some breakfast we made it to High Point by 10 AM and had no idea what to expect so we found Jill's booth among all of the buildings and thousands of vendors! Here's Jill with all of her furniture! She designs these amazing eclectic pieces. I think her little tuffets are just adorable! If you're interested in finding out how to order anything you can click here for her website!

Mom and I did not feel nearly as official as we look here with our passes. It's a pretty big deal to get into the furniture market. Many vendors are only selling in bulk to professional buyers. When we would walk around people would ask us who we were with and how our business was. We'd refer to Salmagundi and then mumble something incoherent and run away. It was kind of akward but very cool to see all of the booths and designs for next year. We thought there might be more opportunities to shop for our own houses but we quickly realized it wasn't what most vendors were looking to do.

This is about the time I told Mom she was blowing our cover.

 Aren't these cool? It's teak tree roots and then the glass is blown over the roots to so it melds around the wood. They were amazing!

We tracked down a place for lunch called The Factory and enjoyed an overpriced salad and caffeine to keep us going for the rest of the day.

This is my favorite thing I found and I probably would have come home with it if it hadn't already sold. How amazing is this driftwood horse? The vendor was so great and I have his card to order one in the future. This is the medium size...you can see the large on the wall in the background and there was a smaller one. I think it would be such an awesome statement piece in the house and allude to my horsey background. Derrick didn't hate it either and actually seemed open to the idea which made me SO excited!! It's on our list :)

After wandering around and feeling more out of place by the minute, Mom and I decided we could happily check furniture market off our bucket list and decided to head home to catch part of the NC State football game and the finals of frisbee nationals (on ESPN3 yeah!).

Next morning we were up bright and early for another estate sale. We were certain it was going to be picked through but when we got there we couldn't believe that there was still so much great stuff. Mom really lucked out with tons of great vintage clothing and, her biggest score of the weekend, an amazing mid-century table and chair set at an insanely discounted price.

We only hit one snafu. We had finally puzzle pieced all of the chairs, piles of clothing, and two rocking horses into the car with the plans to come all the way back for the table when my car wouldn't start. I may or may not have accused Mom of parking it in such a way that the battery drained. I don't even think that's possible. Sorry Mom :) The lack of breakfast and unexpected 2.5 hours at the estate sale may have made me a bit hangry. After a relatively seamless jump start we made it home and got lunch which considerably improved my mood. My mom is so easy going she doesn't typically respond negatively when we (me, dad, and both brothers) get hangry. Thank goodness for her.

We managed to get the table on trip two and somehow, with Derrick's help, got everything in the highlander for Mom's trip home. To say that Dad was surprised when Mom pulled into the driveway is probably an understatement.

So anyways....estate sales are awesome! Anyone in the Raleigh area want to be my estate sale buddy!?!?