It’s just shy of 9 a.m. on Saturday.
The weather is crummy, but it’s peak garage sale season, and Tacoma resident Marie Willman has work to do.
“We’re headed to South I street first,” Willman says, glancing at the folded newspaper sitting between her and passenger Christine Kade. “And then Madison (Street).”
Kade grabs the paper and reviews their plans for the day. Willman has an appointment at 11 a.m., so today’s garage sale tour will be short, but two of the sales don’t open until 10 a.m.
“A lot of the time, people open early,” Willman says, maneuvering her large white van through a narrow alley.
Hopefully, that’s the case today.
THE HOBBY
For many, garage sales are an excuse to sell some junk and make a quick buck.
But for Willman and Kade, garage sales are a number of other things: a hobby, an occupation and an endless opportunity to make someone else’s trash their treasure.
Willman said she started going to sales about 10 years ago. “I started building birdhouses,” Willman said. “So I was always looking for used lumber.”
Every Thursday morning, Willman and Kade start looking up garage sales in the paper or on Craigslist.
They also look up estate sales on Sundays – when everything is half price.
Kade said the sales generally start up in this area when the weather gets better. The prime time for sales is midsummer, Willman said.
“Normally, it has been a lot busier in past years,” Willman said. “People have been putting it off (this summer), but it is starting to pick up.”
The sales usually die down around the middle of September.
Willman said she and Kade make it to between five and 40 different sales each weekend, and generally stay in the North End of Tacoma.
However, they are often led astray by signs on telephone poles.
Note to yard sale hosts: Take down old signs. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a house, and finding no sale.
Another pet peeve? When people don’t actually want to get rid of their stuff and price it higher than normal.
“It’s not even worth bartering with those types of people,” Kade said.
Willman said there are no particular streets that are better than others, but there are a few annual sales they attend.
And Kade said it is amazing how many people host sales year after year.
“A lot of the time,” Kade said, “we find ourselves saying, ‘Oh, we’ve been here before.’ ”
THE OCCUPATION
Willman originally started making the birdhouses as decoration for her own and her friends’ gardens. But what started as a weekend art project grew to be much more.
Before Willman knew it, she was scouring sales for old furniture, headboards and benches, and refurbishing them to fit her needs.
When she realized that her decorative pieces could turn a profit, she and Kade decided to host an annual garden décor show.
The annual garden show and sale, which the pair host every June, now boasts a mailing list of more than 800 people.
The garden sale, features an eclectic mix of lamps, iron trestles, sewing machine bases, marble tabletop, and concrete urns that Willman and Kade have repurposed for use in a garden.
Willman said she makes a new decoration each year. This year’s project was a decorative flower made out of old glass dished found at garage sales.
Each flower was made of four or five different sized pieces of glassware with a candy dish or shot glass as the center.
Of the 54 flowers she made, 52 were sold the day of the sale; the remaining two are in Willman’s garden.
Kade said in the past she has taken rings from whiskey barrels and made orbs for her garden. She has also painted old wood benches and other furniture.
She also looks for old-fashioned cribs to sell. She currently has one in her backyard and another inside her home.
But gardens are not the only place Willman and Kade have taken their obsession.
Following the success of the first garden show, Willman and Kade opened a store on Sixth Avenue called “Trash to Treasures,” where they expanded their collection of garage sale goodies to the home.
They no longer have the store, but they have a few former customers whom they keep in mind while shopping.
Willman said their major focus now is buying things for themselves or for friends.
“The hunt is what makes it fun,” Willman said.
YOUR TRASH, MY TREASURE
Willman said she is constantly looking for items in the “French country” style to decorate.
She completely furnished her five-bedroom North End home with items she found at yard sales.
Willman started furnishing her home with yard sale buys after moving from a more contemporary home in University Place seven years ago.
She didn’t think the contemporary furniture meshed well with her 100-year-old house, so she began incorporating garage sale pieces.
Willman said the living room was the most difficult room to decorate.
Why?
“Finding the right pieces (of furniture) to make three different sitting areas,” Willman said.
However, the house continues to be a work in progress.
“I have re-done the living and dining rooms twice,” Willman said. “I got tired of red paint, so I changed it to a lighter color.”
Willman’s favorite room in her home is the sunroom at the back of the house. The glass room features wicker furniture, a big screen television and curtains from floor to ceiling.
A shelf that borders the room also serves as a showcase for some of Willman’s favorite collections: salt and peppershakers, teapots and colorful water pitchers.
Willman said her husband has been very supportive of her habit and helps her move the heavier pieces
“Every week, he (comes home and) doesn’t know what else will be new in the house,” she said.
ON A DIME
Willman said part of the fun is finding something for 25 cents that you might pay $25 for at a retail store.
“We save so much money shopping like this,” Kade said.
But garage sale hopping is not the only way the two have found the goods.
She and Willman often drive around Tacoma, and scope out the free stuff people have laying in their yards.
“We have stopped trucks before,” Kade said.
They have also leave notes on cars full of things they want which read: “If you are going to the dump, please call.”
As Willman and Kade leave a sale on Union Avenue, they see a house with two glass rounds leaning on a tree in the backyard.
Willman has been looking for glass rounds for weeks, so she stops the van and knocks on the front door.
Ten minutes later, she returns with the two glass rounds in hand.
“I am so excited,” Willman said.
She paid the homeowner $5. She plans to place them on top of a round, concrete planter she has in her garden.
“Everything I buy is a great buy and a good find,” Willman said, “because I like it, so I get it.”
Willman said when she ran the store, she would look for certain things to resell. Now they just focus on what they like.
“It just has to grab you,” Kade said.
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