Back To School…Back To School

To prove to my daddy that I’m not a fool.  Wait…let’s start over…without a Billy Madison quote.  Here we go.  You know what’s scary?  Oooh…oooh…I know that one…sharks!  Or the Robertson family on vacation in Hawaii (not gonna lie…I’m currently sucked into the Duck Dynasty marathon that’s on A&E right now).  Nope…those things aren’t nearly as scary as the giant antiques mall that is located a stones throw away from our home…more like a two minute drive (or a stones throw if you literally have a rocket arm).  Anyway…it’s dangerous…on my pocketbook.  This past weekend I headed down to said antique store, the School House Antiques shop, in Brewer, ME.

It’s a big antiques mall that’s located in an old school house in town.  It’s pretty awesome and I always find a few things I can’t leave without (like the hula girl art that hangs in our entry).  Anytime that I’m trying to find a unique accessory or something unique or original for our home, something with a little character, this is the place I go.  So let’s go shopping, shall we?!  I thought I would take you around my favorite local haunt and show you some of the amazing things I found.

In one of the booths, I came across an old school Craftsman level for $24.

It even had the old, wood burned logo on it.  I almost picked this up to turn it into a shelf for the bathroom.  But I just couldn’t do it.  Sometimes, I can’t bear to mess with an antique and sometimes, the item isn’t terribly precious and I don’t mind hacking it up.  But this item was one of those “precious” items to me so there it staid.

Next up, the port hole…as in THE port hole!  Which was originally priced at $75 but the shop owner SERIOUSLY discounted it for me!  Yes…I couldn’t resist and brought it home.

I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been searching for a port hole for awhile but they normally cost upwards of $150 to $350!  So for $35 for this bad boy, I couldn’t resist and brought it home.

Near the port hole were also a pair of adorable sconces for $10.

Contrary to popular belief, you can really find some steals in an antique store.  Granted, there are some seriously expensive pieces ($2,500 for a pair of nightstands…$250 for a wicker stand) but then there are pieces like those sconces, which you could easily justify spray painting thanks to the $10 price tag.  Or pieces like this rough looking step ladder for $35.

Which I thought was a little overpriced but super adorable!  You can also find rustic-looking but newer, hand-made items like this set of “love” letters that are essentially giant Scrabble letters.

The set cost $12 and was absolutely adorable.  I could totally DIY that….easy.  Along with this little painted, bamboo box with a number “4” painted on the front.

It was a whopping $22 and was, in fact an old box freshened up with some paint.  I loved it!  But not the price.  And then, if I was in the market for a mirror, I would have totally been all over this minty fresh mirror for $24 like a thirteen year old girl over Justin Bieber.

It was so adorable…almost as adorable as those Target flats I’m rocking!  Haha!

In just about every antique store I step through, which is a decent amount since I’m pretty sure Maine has one of the highest occurrence of antique stores per capita, I find old prints of old, local buildings.

And this batch was CHEAP!  I almost picked a few up for $5 each but I don’t currently have a place for them.  Curse you small, few walled home!

I nearly DIED when I came across this GIANT star that I think is made out of old bead board.  It was probably about 4′ wide.

I could envision it hanging outside on the side of our shed, or maybe on an empty exterior wall of our house.  But at $79, this wasn’t meant to be my star.

But I did find my hat rack for $12 because everyone needs a hat rack, right?!

We’re in need of some towel hooks for our bathroom so I picked up this hat rack to play the towel hook role.  A little spray paint, I’m thinking white, and it will fit in just fined in our bath.

I loved this green lantern…mostly because it’s a “green lantern” like the comic book character.

It was $18 and this booth had a slew of them in all different colors.  They were old lanterns that the shop owner had freshened and fixed up and each one was absolutely adorable!

This egg crate for $30 was ridiculously awesome!

It’s again, one of those things that I LOVED but didn’t have a place for it.  It would look so cute in an old farmhouse kitchen on top of kitchen cabinets with a fern in it, or maybe mixed with old china in a hutch.  Swoon!

But enough gabbing about the awesomeness in the store, check out my loot!

I spent $60 and came home with a port hole ($35), hat rack ($12), a triple cast iron hook ($7), and an old wooden box ($6) complete with rusty hinges.  I can’t wait to show you what I did with that box!  It’s epic!

So that concludes our little antique store shopping spree at the School House Antiques store in Brewer, Maine.  You can check out our last antiques shopping trip at the Big Chicken Barn Antiques Mall in Ellsworth, Maine back here and here.

Pssst…So I can’t resist, I have to let the cat out of the bag (and see if anyone actually reads these little afterwards).  Our big announcement…Colby and I are working on opening up our own little Etsy shop!  After so many requests to buy iPad stands from us (seriously…we could have made HUNDREDS selling them by now) we decided to make a bunch of them and start selling them on Etsy.  I’m hoping to have the shop launched this week, but don’t hold your breath.  Timing has never been my strong suit.  But to make time in our already crazy lives for the Etsy shop, I’m going to try to cut back on the blogging a bit.  I know…sad.  But I’m thinking an every other day schedule with maybe an extra post mixed in here and there for good measure.  But we’ll see.  I love blogging and would stay up all night doing it if I didn’t turn into a giant grumpy pants in the morning.  Anyway…be sure to stop by later this week for a link to the new shop!