DIY Planning Selling

Estate Sale Success!

It takes a lot of work to prepare and facilitate your own estate sale–way more than I anticipated! Now that it’s over, I’m writing this post from Mr. Snuggles, AC’s prized oversized recliner, because he is one of the few remaining pieces of furniture in our house.

Pre-sale Chaos

That’s right, the “estate” sale is over, and it was a smashing success! I wish I had done a better job of taking pictures and documenting all that led up to the big weekend, but alas, I’m a rookie blogger with lots to learn. (I’ll do better next time!) Here are a few pictures I did take, in an effort to capture the chaos that we lived in for the few weeks leading up to the sale.

Our island and dining room table were out of commission for a while because we piled them high with random things we wanted to sell. We filled our mantle with $1 picture frames and we had stacks and stacks of DVDs to get rid of.

So. Many. Clothes!

And clothes! Holy moly did I have a lot of clothes! Since I’m not going into an office anymore, my wardrobe is much simpler these days. I forgot how many dresses, blouses, and blazers I had accumulated. AC had her fair share of button-ups, suits, and sweaters that she hasn’t worn since 2020 (a lot of college basketball teams have taken a more casual approach to game day garb since the pandemic). Gathering and displaying all these hanging clothes in one place took some innovation…and two ladders, 3 metal bars, 4 zip ties, and countless back-and-forth trips to our various closets. In the end, we finished with this contraption!

Pricing

On Thursday before the sale, AC Facetimed her mom for advice on pricing some of our bigger items. Mrs. Caraway should teach a masterclass on “winning the garage sale”! She’s a pro. She maps her route the night before, arrives with the early birds, takes her time digging, and haggles like a pro! We were relieved to discover that our pricing was on par with, if not below, her suggestions. And you better believe we increased our prices on those items she priced higher than we did!

Estate Sale Day

My mom came up to help out, too. The morning of the sale, AC, Mom, and I emptied all the outdoor items we had been storing up in the shed and spread them across the backyard and the driveway. We did a final round to make sure everything was priced and we had a quick huddle to discuss how low we were willing to go on big items. Our first shopper showed up about 45 minutes early and we were off to the races! 

The day started pretty slow-I actually expected way more early birds than we had–but traffic picked up around 10:30. Then we had a steady stream of visitors until about 3pm. We publicized day one of the sale as a 9a-2p deal, but our latecomers paid off big time! From 2p-3p we sold our primary bedroom set (minus one dresser) and our dining table and chairs. 

Day 2 ran from 9a-noon and, again, our later visitors were the most lucrative! In the last hour of day 2, we sold my spin bike, an area rug, several pieces of decor, and our sectional! 

We ended the weekend about $2,800 richer!

Leftovers

Of course, we still had a fair amount of leftovers (mostly clothes). We posted a few of those on Facebook Marketplace and, lucky for us, our neighborhood was planning a community yard sale the next weekend so we dragged everything back out for one last hurrah. We had some repeat visitors and some new folks. Not as much traffic this time, but still came away with $200 in our pockets. That afternoon, we loaded up what was left and distributed the lot among several non-profits. 

We did end up selling a few of the big leftovers on Marketplace. All in all we made…wait for it…$3687! My goal was $2,500 so I’d say we did alright!

And now, we’re livin’ light.

Empty Living Room
Our house is empty now!

Until next time,

AC and Charli