Secondhand Lighting & The Garage Sale on Steroids

I’ve declared 2011 as The Year of the Secondhand Lighting. Why? Because we have acquired five secondhand lighting fixtures within the past 4 months. If you’re feeling like one of my argumentative students, you might take this opportunity to point out that it should, therefore, actually be “The 4 Months of the Secondhand Lighting”…but that just doesn’t have a ring to it. Plus, I don’t like argumentative students. This lack of ring is probably the same reason why the star-nosed mole didn’t make it into the Chinese New Year rotations. Year of the Rabbit…Year of the Dragon…Year of the Star-Nosed Mole? Not so much. (I wouldn't recommend googling said critter, by the way, unless you like creepy deformed things.)

Anyway, of the five ridiculously cheap new-to-us light sources that we’ve acquired, you may know of one of them: this lamp.


Of the remaining four, three were picked up this past Friday at the Garage Sale on Steroids. Seriously, it’s in a 14,000 square foot building. It’s like a giant thrift store minus the outrageous prices and the weird smell. (You know the scent I’m referring to, the one Yankee Candle won’t be snatching up anytime soon?) Here’s a picture I found online from last year:


No joke; it’s an annual event benefiting the local Ronald McDonald House and it is massive. We went last year, houseless and clueless, and were totally overwhelmed. I exercised restraint this year, however, and shopped with purpose (as opposed to shopping with no discernable plan or path, which Rick frequently accuses me of as he attempts to follow me around the mall), leaving only with the aforementioned lights and two small ceramic planters for some succulents I picked up this summer. The last thing we need around here is to encourage my hoarding of useless items that “Have So Much Potential."
So at this Garage Sale on Steroids, we got this chandelier for our upstairs foyer. Gingerbread was too excited about it to pose nicely.


We also got this never-been used ceiling lantern, possibly for our downstairs foyer.


I decided that this super retro tension pole lamp had the potential to be cool, and for only $4, it wouldn’t hurt too much if I was wrong.



This pair of sconces was only $3 at a regular old non-beefy yard sale this summer. I’m thinking future master bathroom.


They all need a coat of spray paint to make them my style, but the fact that it is so easy and cheap to change these things is exactly why I love shopping for second-hand stuff so much. We only spent $38 on all of them.
Oh, and then there was this Goodwill lamp, the sight of which made me immediately regret not bringing my camera along like a weirdo. If you can’t tell from the bad cell phone picture that I had to settle for, I’m standing next to a my-size floor lamp complete with sculpted dolphins, coral and a mermaid fin bottom.


I’m not sure that even spray paint could save that aquatic beast.

So it’s the Year of the Secondhand Lighting for us…what is it for you? The Year of the Pillows? The Year of the Painted Furniture? The Year of the Ocean Lamp on Steroids?