Slow Week, But Projects in the Works

The family had a great weekend at the local auction. It happened to be located in my in-laws neighborhood, so we parked there to hang out for a while and walked over to the sale. The in-laws and my parents both came to the sale, which was really fun! My parents are auction regulars, they picked a few things (mom grabbed an almost-new Kirby vacuum for $15, nice!) and my Dad was able to get the item he was there specifically for, a really nice shotgun (a 20 Ga Browning A-5, Belgian, absolutely mint) for a good price. My Father-in-Law, who doesn’t typically go with us, grabbed a few small items he could use and then scored HUGE with a snowblower for about 1/3 of the usual price. Pam and I got some nice items for the house, she picked a neat antique wash basin/pitcher for $5 and we finally found a refrigerator for our garage in really great shape for $100. It was an awesome “personal” sale day, we all made some great scores and had a wonderful time in the sun. The boys were their typical popular celebrity selves, checking everything out and being the cutest things at the party. 

My Grumpy Auction Team

The project progress, however, was a little slow. I bought a couple small items, but nothing exciting. Except maybe one thing, but we will have to see how that settles out…

I’ve been looking for a little bit of a “middle” step in the 100Kproject, something beyond just buying and selling things since that’s limiting my options and scale-ability, but I don’t have quite the money to start producing/selling real products like I want to (see our review of the first month). Looking around at things close to me, I think the natural “in-between” from finding value (buy/sell) and creating value (building/selling products) is adding value. Finding something with some value, fixing/enhancing/creating with that thing, and then selling it for an increased value.  

I started with an attempt last week, I grabbed some cast-iron lawn furniture (typically a pretty high-dollar item) that had legs broken off for pretty cheap ($25). I offered to split any profits with my little brother if he could weld them back together (he does welding for fun!).  He’s making pretty good progress, and I hope to be able to get them sold in the next couple weeks.
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In addition, I’ve been thinking about building different wood furniture/decorative items, especially out of reclaimed wood. I enjoy building things and these types of “distressed” or basic quality wood furniture is pretty trendy, and Pam wants me to build some things for our home anyway. The issue I was encountering is the somewhat large upfront investment for the lumber, as quality reclaimed lumber looked like it was expensive (and new lumber was even more!).  The upfront investment was a little worrisome, but my biggest concern was that the cost of the wood would limit my flexibility on price... meaning I might be stuck on some expensive work if I couldn’t sell them! 

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​At the end of this auction, they were working through a carpentry workshop, and there was a huge pile of scrap/reclaimed wood in the corner with a neat wooden box I thought would look nice in my future basement. A lot of it was scrap, but there looked to be some pretty nice pieces as well, some old weathered decking/etc… And I really just wanted the old wooden box. 

The auctioneer decided to sell it all together, which pretty much meant I wasn’t interested because of my limitations on storage and budget. I was interested in watching it go, however, to see what the price was and maybe I could offer to buy the box and a few pieces of wood from the winner and get started on trying out the furniture building idea. The price started at $200, but the auctioneer couldn’t get any bids. Just like the boat motor, he kept going down and no one was interested (the pile of wood did look like a lot of work!). I finally shook my head and held up one finger, bidding $1. I figured at least it would get the action going, and then I could maybe talk to the winner and get a couple pieces of the wood for cheap or even free. Low and behold, no one else bid, and I bought the entire pile for $1… Oh crap.
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The following three hours were a sequence of brief panic, humorous reflection, desperate calls for help, borrowing my dad’s trailer, and a decent amount of work from my family. I picked a great day to also buy a refrigerator! A large part of Sunday was sorting the wood, getting rid of the junk and saving the most useful pieces for the project. The rest of the day was spent cleaning and re-arranging our entire garage to accommodate the new refrigerator and a large stack of reclaimed, weathered wood. 

This week will be looking into designs that I can build, and see if I can’t turn this windfall of material into some value. I already received an order for a side table from my Sister-in-Law (thanks Natasha!), so maybe I can build one for her soon.

Another interesting adventure, hopefully I’ll have a profitable update later this week! Remember to follow us on Twitter for more updates, and if you are doing any internet shopping on Amazon, shop through the links on this site to help support the project!

Thanks everyone, the journey continues!