Let's Go Hunting

Surprising but not that surprising: everyone who works at Bound shops second hand.

Thrift stores, estate sales, garage sales, and the occasional (sometimes questionable) roadside find. It tracks, right? Because at Bound we believe good marketing mirrors real life, and there is nothing more real than digging through another human's treasures.

Most people know their way around a thrift store. An estate sale, though, is its own beast. Enough friends have told us they find them intimidating. The crowds, the lines, the unspoken rules, the vague sense that everyone else knows something you don't. So we finally decided to write it all down. Please enjoy our handy little guide, including the hottest tips from your favorite coven of trinket lovers.

First, the finding.

EstateSales.net is our go-to for tracking down the good ones nearby. Most listings post photos ahead of time, which is worth a scroll. You'll get a feel for whether this is a house full of mid-century furniture or a house full of Precious Moments figurines, and both have their audience.

They drop the address the morning of the sale. Unless you're Jessica with her suspiciously elite account, in which case you get the intel early. What a life she lives.

Then, there's the timing.

This is its own strategy, and it's the thing most people don't realize going in. Everything is full price the day a sale opens. Usually 25% off by day two or three. And by the final day you're often in name-your-price territory. It's not a guarantee, but it's kinda the rhythm these days.

So before you go, decide what kind of trip you're on. If there's one piece in the photos you'd be genuinely heartbroken to lose, go on day one, and be ready to pay for said dream object. If you're there for the hunt, and want to be surprised, go whenever, and let the discounts do the work. Trying to do both is how you end up standing in someone's dining room holding a bunch of shit you don't need while trying to do a math problem you didn't sign up for. Can't say we haven't been there though... so no judgement.

Anywho. Whichever day you pick, go early on that day. People line up ahead of time for the juiciest sales, and by hour two the good stuff has already left in someone else's tote bag.

A few things nobody tells you.

1- Bring your own bag, and make it a big one. You never know what you're going to find, and hold tables are NOT marked safe. Related: don't put it down. If you're holding something and you're even a little unsure, keep holding it. Estate sale math is simple: the second it leaves your hands, it belongs to someone else.

2- Bring cash and a card. Most places run Square now, but not all of them, and cash is still the better negotiating tool. Small bills, ideally. Nobody has ever talked their way towards a better price with a card reader.

3- Bring a tape measure, and know your dimensions before you leave the house. The most common estate sale heartbreak isn't losing a piece to someone faster than you. It's getting a gorgeous dresser home and discovering it does not fit through your door. Don't ask us how we know. It's still too painful to talk about.

4- Pee before you go. Most houses do not let you use their bathrooms, and they often leave the doors open anyway to display beauty products, bathroom decor, and jewelry. Cruel, but that's the game.

5- Wear real shoes. Basements, gravel driveways, steep old staircases, and in a lot of these houses, a truly heroic amount of dust.

6- Leave the front room. Everyone crowds the living room and the dining table because that's where the sale company stages the pretty stuff. The basement, the garage, the back bedrooms, the shed = now that's where the actual treasure is hiding, and there's almost never a line.

and 7- Decide ahead of time whether you're willing to wait. That part is entirely between you and your estate gods. If you're down to wait, wear sunscreen.

And the big one: be kind.

Somebody lived here. More often than not they've died, or moved into care, and the people running the sale are family, or they're working for family. Don't badmouth the furniture where anyone can hear you. Don't lowball on day one. Don't treat the house like a store. You're a guest first and foremost.

That goes for the house itself, too. A lot of these homes are about to hit the market, and it's genuinely not uncommon to ask about it. Plenty of people have found their home this way. Just ask gently, once, and let it go if the answer is short. You never know who the owner was to the person you're asking.

That's the whole thing, really.

Take the lamp.

Be nice about it.

Repeat.