Yard Sale…

Let me begin by saying that when I decided we would have a yard sale, I had NO IDEA what that really “looked like”!  I knew we would find an indoor place to have it, and I knew that we would ask people to donate things that they would like to get rid of, and I knew that I was going to have to have A LOT of help, but I never knew how much our God would show up and provide!

First, I knew I would need an indoor place to have the sale. After checking several places, nothing was panning out.  Then, one night I call my friend, Sarah, who’s husband is the pastor at The Orchard Church, to ask her who to call about renting a place where their church used to meet.  We talked for a few minutes, then hung up.  Hardly anytime later, Sarah called me back and said, “Meredith, we want y’all to use our church to have the yard sale.  You can use the building, the parking lot and you can have availability to the church the entire week.”  Can you say ANSWERED PRAYER??  I was so thankful, but I had no idea how perfect their church campus ended up being for the sale.  I worked in the church every day during the week, which was such a blessing.  Then, it poured down rain Friday and Saturday, so it was wonderful that everything was INSIDE so I didn’t have to worry about the weather!  I cannot thank Pat, Sarah and The Orchard Church family enough.

Okay, then onto people donating items.  YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE AMOUNT OF STUFF WE GOT!  Oh my word…it was seriously overwhelming!  Never underestimate what people can dig out of their houses…ha!  We had collected a lot of stuff prior to the drop off days, but things started pouring in throughout the week.  Tons and tons of things!  It was so exciting!!!!  And, yes, we priced every single item with the exception of clothing, thanks to the suggestion of my friend, Stephanie.  It took an army….and speaking of, God provided that too.  I cannot even express my gratitude to my friends and family that spent HOURS, YES HOURS, helping me.  Unloading, sorting, pricing, organizing, staying up late and getting up early…they did it all.  AND they had smiles on their faces and encouraging words on their lips the whole time!  God has blessed me with unbelievable friends.  Unbelievable! 

I took lots of pictures, but not nearly as many as I would have liked.  I wish I would have done a better job of this, but to say that we were all busy is a huge understatement! 

Another person I cannot thank enough is my sweet husband.  I was gone EVERY night last week until late.  He had the stomach virus, but was able to keep the girls so I could work at the sale.  I’m thankful for his patience and the patience of my girls.  I’m sure Myla is very excited that the “lard sale”, as she calls it, is over!  I’m also thankful for my mother-in-law, who kept the girls Friday and Saturday, and even spent the night “camping out” in the den with Myla on the air mattress!!

We started taking things from our garage to the church on Tuesday.  I was actually there on Monday to set up bunches of tables to hold everything.  As you can see, our van was LOADED down!!  We made several trips like this.  The poor girls look lost in the van…in fact Myla was behind the table on this particular trip!

Selah had no idea what was going on!  Poor babies had a tough week being out of their routine and being away from Mommy!

This was on Thursday during the organization!  The room in this picture is the churches sanctuary.  I wasn’t even planning on using this room initially because I had NO IDEA how much stuff we would be getting.  Needless to say, we eventually realized we were going to have to open this room up and utilize the space.  It’s a good thing we did, because it was practically full.  It ended up being an extra blessing because of the POURING RAIN that came down on Saturday.  Everything was inside, thank goodness!

The pulpit area became our mini shoe department.  Shoes eventually came out several rows deep from the stage!

This is the churches foyer where we had the home/kitchen goods as well as our “holiday’ section and purses.  HA! I’m telling you, we had our own little department store going on!

Another shot of the home section…..keep in mind, this was early on.  We got so much more stuff…it was CRAZY!

Another home goods area shot!

This was the extension of the foyer with the linens and holiday section.  We eventually had to add another table to the right of these tables, and the ground ended up being covered with mats, rugs and more Christmas stuff as well as an overflow of purses!

This is looking into the sanctuary from the foyer into the clothing section.  We had so many clothes!!!!!!  The way we sold them was that you could fill a Wal*Mart sack for $5 or a garbage bag for $12.  I bought a roll of 84 garbage bags, and while we were packing up the left over clothes to donate, I RAN OUT of garbage bags!  A lot of FULL garbage bags were sold!

The toy section….this was eventually OVERFLOWING!!  The chairs behind the tables were covered as well as the ground all around the table!  Kids that came in were in paradise!

Me and Holli being silly LATE on Thursday night!!!  Someone donated some ancient cell phones…probably around a 1994 model.  They were huge!  It was hysterical!  They also donated some beepers that we were sporting on our waist bands!!  We were a little delirious as it was nearing midnight, and we had been working all day!

The furniture section…I wish I had gotten a picture of it right before the sale.  Christina and Holli set it up to look like a living room!  It was so cute!

This was on Friday afternoon.  You can tell the toy section was getting more full!

This hallway served as our baby section!

This was later on Friday…stuff galore!!

Another picture of the sanctuary getting full!

Christina working hard…I COULD NOT have done this sale without her.  If I was at the church, she was there too.  She, along with many others, were my lifesavers!

Christmas section

Purses and bags!

How cute is this banner that my sweet friend, Hilarie, made!  I was so excited to hang this up so people would know exactly what this sale was about!

Here are Holli, Katie and me testing out my self timer on the camera!  We had been out putting up signs around town advertising the sale.  I had spent HOURS on all of my signs, and I was so proud of them.  Well, the wind and the rain were too kind to them, to say the least.  Oh well!

So thankful for these friends.  This was midnight after putting out all of the signs!

Read for the preview sale on Friday night!!!

As people walked in, this is pretty much what they saw!  Both of the doors on the other side of the room led to other parts of the sale!

Katie and Sis Sis selling the raffle tickets for the Chick-Fil-A gift card and the birthday party at Holli’s sweet tooth!

These pictures are pretty rough of me (that’s what getting hardly any sleep and wearing no makeup will do), but I wanted to document. This is me and my sweet, energizer bunny Mom.  She was SO MUCH HELP!  She would teach all day, then come help me at night.  So thankful for her and my step-dad, Frank!

Me and Katie

Me and Michael

People shopping on Saturday morning

More shoppers!

Sweet Grace drew for our raffles….we figured she was a good choice since she couldn’t read the names and potentially “cheat”!

Don’t you love her Africa shirt!!  She thinks that Myla is getting a baby named “Africa”!

Whew…that was a LONG post!  What a crazy week and weekend this yard sale was, but it was a huge success.  Despite the pouring rain, we had a lots of shoppers and we raised a total of $3,750!!!! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We’re going to get this baby HOME!!!!!!

If you are thinking of having a yard sale and need some pointers, feel free to email me (meredithmeurrier@yahoo.com).  I will be happy to help.  It was quite the undertaking, but I felt like it went smoothly with a lot of planning and hard work!  I will be happy to help in any way I can!