Sale for the Pre-loved

Our 2 tiered, 4 roomed, circa 70’s designed abode is getting a long overdue makeover courtesy of my older and younger brother based in New Zealand and Canada respectively.

It was their gift to the entire family as destiny graciously repaid their hard work abroad.

The renovation that will redesign our old traditional, weathered wood house to a stylish, contemporary, concrete cavern will take 3 months to complete. That’s 92 days of organized chaos by a team of highly skilled contractors armed with heavy machineries wrecking their way through our house so that it can be completed before the bitter typhoon season.

2 weeks ago, we decided to pack. Thanks to my older sister who moved out years ago after she got married, my mom and all us who hasn’t left the nest yet plus our handy helper will now temporarily live opposite our house while the construction is in full swing.

One box after another, we slowly started pulling out and moving things into my sister’s casa. Then as we slowly empty the house that my siblings and I grew in, we realized that along with the architectural makeover, we need to do an interior design overhaul too as most of our furniture is as ancient as our house.

As we knew we will be leaving stuff as much as we will keep, my ever brilliant younger sister hatched a plan to profit from it. She suggested that we should have a garage sale for all things unneeded. She pointed out that a garage sale will take away all items due for an upgrade while earning enough cash to buy new ones. All unsold items will then be donated to charity or given to those who want it.

I second the motion. Everyone agreed.

A couple of days before the garage sale weekend, I rummaged through my stuff and started with my prized possessions.

Thanks to my dad to whom I got my penchant for paper filled narratives, my collection which I started in high school, is now over 200 tomes. I unceremoniously took them out of their shelves and carefully placed them in empty cardboard boxes.

Then I continued with my gadgets and moved forward with my clothes.

I sifted through my clothes choosing which ones are still worth wearing and which ones would go straight to the box I promptly labelled “For Garage Sale”.

By the time I’m done, I ended with 5 huge boxes. Half of which, was filled with books with one box for the weekend sale.

The box had some trinkets from my domestic and international trips, 2 pairs of tennis shoes, a handful of designer flip flops, some belts and clothing enough to decently fill someone’s wardrobe. The whole box can fetch us 2500 Php easy.

Fast forward to that weekend...

Day 1 started unusually early but the sale started surprisingly slow. We opened our make shift store at 8am. It took over an hour and one very frustrated sister before the first customer arrived. By lunch, my sister only sold 5 items.

Fortunately, the business picked up after lunch as more people flocked the front of our house like moths to a flame. Some used their best haggling talents while others just conveniently paid the price tag. Some were just there to see what the commotion was. My sister and my mom can’t keep up with the customers so everyone pitched in.

The things I shared were almost sold out by the time the first day closed. Mostly the buyers were twenty something, metrosexual men or seemingly straight guys that I can only assumed are flying under the gaydar.

There was even this very cute guy who was just visiting his friend from our neighbourhood who scribbled his number on the 500 bill he paid me as I completed a deal over a pair of shoes and a date right before we closed for the day. Of course, his number went straight to my phonebook while his bill went straight to the cash register.

The first day cleared almost half of the items we sold... pre-loved things we gave up to be loved by someone else.

The next day wasn’t as profitable. But overall, the 2-day, garage sale went well. With almost three quarters of what we put up sold, we earned enough to upgrade our old living room couch, buy a new washing machine and with a few extra bucks thrown in, a new dining table.

That night, we celebrated as mom cooked her special Kare-kare and Ginataang Bilo-bilo. That was the last time she cooked in our kitchen and the first time in a very long while, the whole family ate together.

photo here