On a whim, and mostly looking for something new to do, Chad and I headed East this past Saturday to attend our first live auction in Sulphur Springs, Tx. Stumbling upon the Bright Star Antiques website while looking for interesting finds on Craigslist, I was immediate struck by the sheer VOLUME of AWESOMENESS they had in store! From amazing apothecary drawers (which I'm DYING to own one day...hint, hint Chad Kelley.. ;) to the most random folk artsy thing you could think of.. it was an experience for sure.
Apparently it was also the 4th anniversary of this particular auction house and they had over NINE HUNDRED "lots" or items to auction off and over 200 people in attendance. To celebrate, they even provided "lunch" to pacify the hungry crowd as the auction went on for hours. The barn auction started at the butt crack of dawn (7am!!) and the gallery auction started at 10am and was expected to run til at least 4:30pm! Craziness. (We didn't last that long...)
We DID last until about 2:30pm though...but decided it was time to go after we ACTUALLY WON! our first bid (Cue the INSANE adrenaline rush as we had a face off with some lady in the back of the room that kept driving the price up!!). Chad said he saw the hunger in my eyes....lol...and said we needed to leave before I ended up bidding on some random concrete lawn sculpture of a crazy squirrel ;) If only we had more money and more space in our tiny little Prius to come home with bigger things! Oh well.. there's always next time...
YUUUUUUPPPP!!! ;)
Jam packed! An interesting crowd of old and young folks filled the room...
This beauty went for $1,500. A steal considering similar things are sold at Restoration Hardware or Pottery Barn for double that amount. Just wish we had an extra $1,500 bones laying around. :/
Wa, wa, waaaaaa... Next time, he's mine!
Yuuuppp.....yuuuuppp....yuuuupppp.. pretty interesting to watch these guys work. :)
These would make AWESOME lights over a cool wooden table.
We loved this guy... except it was one of the last things to be auctioned and we left before we could see how much he went for.
Cool, old school coffee box
Love these old furniture carts. They had several.... Just wish we had a need for it.
Would make a cool coffee table. :)
RANDOM!
We were actually outbid on this guy. We stopped bidding when the price got over $200.
This guy probably went for a couple hundred bucks! The most random, off-the-wall things went like HOT CAKES, where larger, more substantial items went for less. Not sure what that was about..
Cool, old Elevator Indicator panel!
This light was AWESOME!! Another lot we didn't wait around for. I'm sure it went for hundreds.
Looked really cool all lit up in the gallery. :)
A bolt of French fabric they said. We thought it could've made a cool table runner.
Not for over $600 though. Too rich for our blood.
Our PRIZE!! I've always wanted an old wooden trunk like this.. :)
Part of me is just proud that we FINALLY got up the courage to actually bid on something
Winning was just a little added bonus! :)
I couldn't convince Chad that these chairs would look cool in our restaurant. :/
Cool, Old Safe... that they actually had the combination for. :)
Love these old drawers... :)
Didn't wait to see how much these hanging lights went for either.
Great, great light idea for the restaurant though... Might have to recreate ;)
And these wire baskets went for like a $100 each too.
Would make awesome lights overhead as well...
This drawer unit was cool.. just needs a little love.
Love this old theater light :)
Taking our new purchase home :)
Oh yeah and we were happy to find an old price sticker on the side (from another antique shop I guess) that was selling this for THREE TIMES what we paid for it!
Woo hoo to getting a good deal!! Until next time... :)
