Thrifty Thursday

I'm calling this Thrifty Thursday because I scored some great finds last week on my Thursday jaunt to Goodwill. I am not calling this Thrifty Thursday because I am starting a weekly segment where I show you what I scored every week at thrift stores (complete with linky party thing). I do not visit thrift stores weekly or even monthly, I just happen to have found some great things all at once making up for my lack of thrift store shopping in recent years. And Thursday is the day that Goodwill puts out all their new shipments. (You did know that Goodwill doesn't just sell stuff that gets set out behind their back door every night, didn't you? They send that stuff to a processing center and then it gets redistributed all over the region. Kind of like the citywide garage sale in Clyde ;)

So, in conclusion, it's Thursday and I have some stuff to show you from a thrift store. Thrifty Thursday.

Oh, and did I mention that the total of all this awesomeness was less than $20?

This post is really for my mom, but I know a lot of you will enjoy seeing it because you've heard me talk about it so much.

Recently, as in yesterday, my mom and dad closed on the house next door to us. It's a lovely little cottage, mom has already dubbed it her "stone cottage", that was built in 1939 and has charm oozing out of it. Actually, I say that quite literally because the man who built this house collected colored glass, marbles, found objects, etc and placed them all over the outside walls in the mortar. My kids joked that they would have a running game of "I Spy" there's so much to look at.

Fossils

Sweet little trinkets

Apparently you can pick up this house by it's handle!

The objects seem to be concentrated around the windows and doors.

A spooky blue chicken head.

Pretty red flower.

Carnival glass.

There's a lot of chunks of colorful molten glass.

Petrified wood.

The builder included the date he built it in the wall.

The front door.

Tuba guy.

Beautiful shell.

Little mirror so visitors can check their teeth before they knock!

Scotty dog.

Fragment from a china cup.

Looks like milk glass.

More molten glass.

Some of the glass items were busted a long time ago by some little boys that lived here.

I took lots of pictures yesterday because I wanted to make sure that there are lots of before shots of the inside and I just thought it would be nice to have an album of pictures of her little getaway. It would make a great little coffee table book in her city house. Maybe I'll do that. Mom, disregard that last statement. Forget I even said anything. ;)

The front door.

The front room.

(My children are starved for attention)

The dining area.

The back bedroom.

The one and only bathroom.

The front bedroom.

Yes, it has a fireplace in it. It used to be a part of the main living area.

Back door in the kitchen.

Kitchen

Another great thing about this house is that it has an old stone garage with an apartment above it. For years I've wondered what it looked like up there. It's always looked so inviting to me. I never had the courage to ask the owners if I could take a peek, but once we asked them if they'd consider renting it out and they said it wasn't livable. It might not be as bad as they claimed, but it does need some work. It's simple and bursting at the seams with potential, though. Like everything else on the property.

Garage and apartment.

Entrance to the apartment.

It's just a simple room with a closet and a bathroom,

but it has windows on three sides so the

light in there is gorgeous!

View from the apartment to the house.

Mom and the previous owner talking about the history of the place.

Rickety old staircase.

The garage smells just like my grandpa's in upstate New York. It's a musty/motor

oil smell and I love it!

This is an old iron headboard that is arched over the well.

The windmill. It needs oil so sometimes at night when the wind is blowing, you can hear this eerie squealing sound in the air. It freaks the kids out but I kinda like it.

This is really the only part my kids care about. As far as they're concerned,

my parents bought a place that came with an indoor basketball court/skating rink.

They already have plans for this building.

It's definitely big enough!

Oh look, I wonder who their neighbors are?

I'll be updating every so often to let you know what she's planning and what's being done. I love a good before and after! We'll also be looking at all these pictures and marking them up in photoshop to see what the options look like. I may not have much experience in the area of design, but surely I have something to show for all the design blogs I regularly read!