A day of thrifting and antiquing in Pigeon Forge, TN

I shared in my P52: Shadows post last week that my husband and I had long weekend getaway to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg, TN last weekend.  We met up with another couple who are friends of ours and had 3 fun days of double dating!   My friend Molly, loves Goodwill and yard sale shopping as much as do, so we had already planned to check out ALL the thrift stores in the area while there .

So Monday morning the husbands headed off to the Smoky Mountain Knife shop and the wives headed off to find some thrifty treasures.

I had been scoping out the area as we drove in and knew there was a Goodwill and a local thrift store right next to each other so we hit those first.

That Goodwill was the dirtiest, oldest, junkiest Goodwill ever!  And their prices were outrageous!   The thrift store wasn’t much better – I don’t think we bought anything at those stores.

But I also knew there were several antique stores (turns out 5 within 2 miles of each other!) so we thought we might check those out.

Neither one of us exactly have a “antique store budget” but sometimes you can find some yard sale prices in an an antique store – it just takes some looking!   We kept our eyes peeled for booths that said “50% off”!

Before I get to our finds, let me show you some fun thing I saw:

Lot and lots of glassware!

I had my eyes peeled for some turquoise glassware to add to my dining room and I loved these pieces but they weren’t in my budget.

Crates and baskets like these are a huge thing right now for organizing stuff in your pantry, magazines, blankets, etc.  We saw quite a few but none at the price I was willing to pay.

Huge mirrors like this are a great find!  The frames are usually plaster or plastic and easily paintable.  The mirror I used for my outdoor self-portraits is almost identical to this but I got mine under $10 and this one was much more expensive.

Lots of tin cans, enamel ware.

We walked in this store and thought, “Wow, too glitzy and glamorous for our yard sale budget!”

See this candy dish- it is an antique King’s Crown ruby candy dish.  My mother-in-law has some of this glassware passed down from her mom and she loves it.  I found the identical candy dish at a yard sale this past summer for $10 and gave it to my mother-in-law for Christmas (Shhh….our little secret!  Don’t tell my MIL that her Christmas present came from a yard sale!)

Price at this antique store – $59.99!

I was in love with all the milk glass!!  it was everywhere!  Some very reasonably priced, some way overpriced!

LOVE!  Can I just take this whole cabinet home??  Of course, I don’t have anywhere to put it all

We stopped in a little crafty home décor store and we both loved these cabinets!  They were handmade and very rustic looking with just basic wood,  but the doors were all old windows!

I loved the black cabinets!

One day, I might get inspired to try to make one of these cabinets.  I just loved them.

This entry table or potting bench was unique too.  See what the back part is made of?  An old door! The top looked like it made me made from the back of antique child’s desk and the bottom part was the other part of the desk.

This store turned out to be our FAVORITE store and the one where we both bought baskets of treasures!

We walked in and both looked at the crystal chandeliers and said “This is another store that is going to be out of our budget.”  But we looked around anyways.   Turns out up those stairs was a gold mine of a booth!

See that price on that bottle – $0.10!!  Oh yeah, yard sale prices!   And this booth was FULL of stuff and prices like that!

We were literally crawling around on the floor digging under tables to find stuff!  Molly posted a picture of me to prove it!

$2.25 for milk glass cups when we had been seeing them for $20+

$4.00 for pretty candy dishes, instead of $59.99!

A milk glass lamp for $12.50???  (I think it was damaged but I can’t remember.)

This frame was HUGE (and would have been awesome spray painted white or a fun color!) and only $2.00 and I just about snatched it off the wall.  But then I saw the damage on the corners (see in the bottom left corner)?  Wasn’t sure if that could be repaired so I left it.

So what did I buy?

Here were my finds from the “bargain booth” at the antique store…

Frame – $0.50

Urn – $2.00

Milk glass bowl – $3.00

Bag of HUGE bay pinecones (I had been wanting some of these) – $1.50

Antique carnival glass bowl – $4.75

Found these pieces at another store.  Think the small one was $2.00 and the large milk glass bowl was $5.00.

We also found one last thrift store as we were headed to meet our husbands before lunch.  It was one of those junky, dig through piles, kind of stores but they had TONS of stuff.  And nothing was priced so you could negotiate the prices (love that, although Molly was a much tougher negotiator than I was )

Lamp with shade – $2.00  (LOVE this lamp!  I had been looking for one just like it since I saw Laine’s gorgeous white lamps and $2.00 was an awesome price!)

Pictionary game – $3.00

Taboo game – $2.00

Red chunky knit scarf – $1.00

Has anyone tried recovering a lamp shade?  The shade has a really heavy duty metal frame, but not sure how to go about recovering it?  Might just scrap it?

Molly went home and used a lot of her finds to decorate her Valentine mantel.

The tutorial to her $0.50 heart wreath is here

Such a fun weekend!  Fun fellowship, shopping, thrifting, crafting, games, and more!  Oh, and by the way – the husbands spent much more than our thrifty finds at the knife store!

Have you had a fun thrift shopping day recently?  If you have posted some fun finds, link them up in the comments so I can pop over and see!

{cj}