Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Note From Wanda

On our website, you can learn everything you need to know – well, most everything – about the television show, SIMPLE LIVING WITH WANDA URBANSKA, now entering its fourth season on public television stations nationwide. Join the Simple Living gang as we experience the “slow life” in Mount Airy, North Carolina, a town of some 8,400 people in Northwest North Carolina. Mount Airy is coincidentally the real-life hometown of actor Andy Griffith, but it was known as “friendly city” before Andy put it on the map as “Mayberry.” But we also travel the nation and globe in search of hands-on solutions to fast-paced, cluttered, eco-unfriendly lives.

In addition to giving you tips for simplifying your own lives and letting you behind the scenes from our production, you can browse the site and find basic information, actionable tips, view a photo gallery from our production and learn about upcoming events, and much more. Please make yourself at home here, and visit us again soon. Please send us your ideas for simple living, as well as ideas for the show. As always, let your PBS station know about your interest in our series and how it benefits your life.

Wanda's Diary

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Though I’m a yard sale afficionado, it’s been years since I’ve had one. But with Meredith leaving the Simple Living team and the town of Mount Airy and moving her family to a smaller home down Charlotte way, and her mother making changes in her own life and with my resolve to streamline my possessions in the Sunflower House, it seemed that the time was right. So last Saturday—official hours from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.—we did it. We had a yard sale. We sold potholders and pictures, rocking chairs and chatchkeys. We sold faded towels and an antique telephone. Tons of books and I even threw in a few pounds of cherries.

What a glorious sale it was! The real kind. The kind where people are moving and put out big pieces at small prices. The best yard sale is not the sort where people are professional yard-salers and hold them regularly, as a means of support, but the once-in-a-blue-moon variety like we had. Even better, it was a team effort with four players involved. Meredith, me, Meredith’s mother, Poppy, and my mother Marie all took part.

Yard sales are great because you can move through your clutter and cut your losses. You part with objects and place them in new homes. And you can raise a bit of cash in the process. My goal was to raise enough money to have one of my father’s 1960s Danish modern chair refinished to go with the one I had redone about three years ago. I want to refinish the wood and have custom cushions made, in turquoise, for my Sunflower House. This summer hopefully but definitely in time for the Christmas tour of homes in Mount Airy.

Meredith’s goal was to streamline for the new phase of her life and to use the “found money” for gas and relocation expenses. Poppy’s goal was to pick up some pin money for her needs—including feeding her voracious truck with gasoline. My mother’s motivation was to mix it up with the public and maybe unload some items. Of course, Mother easily managed to sell the sturdy metal frame lawn chairs she’s held onto since her move from the mountain into town. She is a recycler and had held out hope of getting the chairs restrapped (but could never find the replacement strap and finally gave up). They went quickly at $2 each.

I sold a few items that had come with the house—a particleboard microwave rack, some old blinds, an old showerhead (we’d replaced it with a new, water-saving type). Meredith sold pictures, children’s clothes, a wonderful Thomas train table and an antique sewing machine she’d been carting around for years. She was moving out of her “country” phase into a more urban aesthetic and so had to rid herself of roosters and the like. Poppy wanted to unload some plates, some nice furniture and collectable dolls.

A couple of observations about yard sales. People invariably cart of stuff that amazes even you. The seller will never guess what will go first. What you believe is a surefire seller may disappoint. Meredith was flummoxed that no one bought her top-quality car seat. I couldn’t believe no one wanted my side chairs or Drexel end tables in mint condition. People also come asking for specific things. A man came in and asked, “Do you have an American flag?” Several asked Meredith for children’s table-and-chair sets. The beauty of yard sales is customers finding treasures and sellers divorcing themselves from the price of things. When you stop calculating what you paid for something, you’ve truly gotten into the rhythm of the sale. Let it go: $3, $2—whatever the buyers offers. A quarter is as valuable as a $10 bill. It’s the transaction that counts. It’s the recycling of the item, the carting it off so it can find new life somewhere else.

Inevitably, we picked through each other’s “junk” and had to have some of it. (I got Poppy’s plates; she got my Queen Ann fold-down table; Meredith took some of Henry’s old cleted shoes and an old Central American oil painting presented to my father in 1959.) Finally, we called a moritorium on acquiring each other’s stuff—at least until after the customers had picked through everything. By that time, we were all so stuff-overloaded, we couldn’t imagine acquiring another thing. It was akin to Thanksgiving stuffing where you’ve eaten so much that the thought of one more bite is actually painful.

At the end of the day, we counted our earnings, and I came out the top earner with $338; Meredith, not far behind with $280; Poppy pulled in $230 and Mother could add $8 to her billfold.

After the sale was over, Meredith—tapping a well of energy that amazes all who know her—went home, loaded up the moving truck and headed out of town with her husband and the three kids and what remained of their possessions. Poppy and I looked at all the leavings of the sale and decided there was still enough loaded into a part of the basement to have another one in the fall…. Something we’re contemplating…. It’s either that, or cart it off to a local charity. Boy, it was a great day!

Diary archive

Tip of the Day

Thursday, June 26, 2008 - Throw a yard sale

Get together with some friends and throw a yard sale. You’ll meet new friends, unload some stuff and stumble onto some “found money.” And go to one! You may find a treasure. They’re an American tradition and they’re fun.

Tips archive