The Great Glebe Garage Sale: Greetings Greatness

In follow-up to my recent post, Things to do in Ottawa on May 24: Neighbourhood Sales Whipped into a Frenzy:

Musical Mondays presents,

The sound of music always fills the air during the Great Glebe Garage Sale.

Chip trucks, performers, people, dogs, boxes and sale stands lined all the roads. From left to right all I could see were bobbing heads and all I could smell was roasted chicken and french fries.

It was Saturday morning and I took to the streets much later than anticipated at around 9:30am. I had planned to make my way to the Glebe much earlier (7am) so definitely missed the best bargains of the day.

All the sexy antiques and vintage wonders were scouted and SOLD signs were everywhere. I ran to the outskirts of the neighbourhood (where it would take people longer to walk to) and found it be much more up my alley but still had no luck finding that “one of a kind piece” I had to have.

So the moral of this story for me was [along with some considerations I added]…

Always get to a big sale early if you are looking for specific items or rare finds;
If you are not prepared to take home a purchase on the spot (due to size of object etc.) make sure you have a phone or piece of paper handy where you can right the address and phone number of seller down on. Suggest you can leave a down-payment and pick it up later. Most people don’t mind if you do same day pick-up.
Going to the outskirts of a neighbourhood sale isn’t a bad idea. The sellers may have untapped resources and be more thirsty for visitors;
Since driving and parking is a nightmare in these scenes it is either better to park there early as possible in the morning (or even the night before) or simply get your car closer to the end of the sale and get ready to go through all the curb-side leftovers. Side note: I also noticed that people driving around looking for free things missed out on some of the things I found when walking ex. people didn’t just put stuff to the curb they can things on their porches with FREE signs too. A drive-by with windows up sometimes clouds your vision.
Prepare for the weather! If it is really hot or raining this could impact the well being of what you bought or may want to buy. Just keep in mind you will be out for a couple of hours and what you buy may be subject to this.

A little later in the day I made my way to a parking lot filled with goods when it started to rain pretty hard. Lucky for everyone, myself included the rain was short lived and only came by for a visit for a few minutes at a time. I took refuge at FarmTeam Cookhouse where I ate a yummy wrap in the meantime.

At the end of the day I went through a bunch of free boxes and scored some free books, knick knacks and used clothing. One of the hard cover books is all about heavy duty tools and will be put it to good use when fixing up my next groovy find in need of a repair.