We have survived our first house showing. Over the last month I was working hard on fixing the house up for sale, but for one of those weeks we took a vacation. It took me awhile to get to this post but I wanted to do it right. One place we stopped was in Round Top, Tx. I've never been there for the antiques market and I'm not sure if I'll ever make it back since we're considering moving to far, far away land.
Round Top itself is an interesting little...hamlet. Not sure I would call it a town. The population is 90. During the antiques market it can grow to 250,000. If I was an actual resident I would probably rent my house out and just leave town. The biggest business we saw was the bank, which is pretty large for a town of this size. I'm guessing they have a big vault for storing all the antique market cash those guys are raking in.
We were there one week before the mad rush. We managed to snag one of the last hotel rooms, 30 miles away!
This is something I highly recommend. Bring a wagon! Or a cart. There is so, so much walking. Forever walking. Having a wagon puller who works for cheap comes in handy. For perspective, we were at about the midpoint for this section. There's an equal amount of section behind me. The red and white tent is a halfway point, so there's more past it. Then there's at least 10 more of these rows. This comprised half of one venue. There are other venues stretching for 25 miles and on both sides of the road. Every booth we saw was taken.
With only one full day spent here we barely even scratched the surface. Maybe that's a good thing for our first time going.
Not everything here is actual antiques. There a real mish-mash of everything from high end to I-know-you-brought-that-from-the-dollar-store. So you have to be very discerning about your purchases.
I'm taking a pic of the metal see-saw. You might not be able to see it at first with all the other surrounding metal work. If I wasn't moving I would have bought this.
Beautiful, beautiful dishes. I thought it was a sure thing that I would come across some Homer Laughlin pieces, and I did, but it was the wrong design. Otherwise, you can spend hours sorting through dishes.
Some people sold only silverware and others sold things they made out of silverware.
Many booths were jammed packed with every kind of knick knack and bauble you could think of.
Don't forget to bring your hat, or you'll be buying one.
Just not this one.
See what I mean? Definitely not antique. Very silly. If you need a pole dancing frog in a bikini, I will not judge you.
I'm not sure the seller even knew what this was. I did. It's an old piece of healthcare equipment. It would have been used in caring for respiratory patients.
There was also the creepy. This booth won hands down as the creepiest. We couldn't walk away fast enough. Some times you just get a vibe.
So let's go back to my house, because I bought some things to show you.
The number one reason I went was to buy quilts. Actually I was hoping to buy quilts but I had no idea how much they would be. I learned an inexpensive lesson on being patient. The more we walked around the more we noticed there were several, if not lots of, opportunities to buy the same or similar thing. I kid you not, I saw a quilt at one booth for $80 and we drove down the road and someone had it for $20. This particular quilt above is a king size double wedding ring with some scalloped edges. I could have left the whole market after buying this and been perfectly happy. In fact, I did run a little because I was sure they made a mistake on the price and were going to come after me.
I found this other quilt, which is full size, and has some hand stitching and scalloped edges. It is the perfect couch quilt for pulling around you in the morning and drinking some coffee.
This chair was my first purchase. I have forever been needing a chair to go with our desk but couldn't find one which was narrow enough. It can't be more than 17 inches wide. I took my measuring tape and it was 16 1/2 inches! It's a nice solid chair which I bargained down to $20. This is definitely worth it since I've been looking for 6 months for a chair.
Love the harp back design. The seat fabric...meh
Maybe covered in this fabric? This is some vintage fabric I bought for my daughter, who loves all things Paris. Except this Paris fabric. She doesn't like it.
I think making a skirt or apron would be nice.
Above, I mentioned not forgetting your hat. Naturally, I forgot mine. I
searched high and low but nothing appealed to me till I saw this little
beauty. The seller was really nice and told me it was made with some vintage lace from an old wedding dress. I thought this was a great idea. She also bargained on her price.
In fact, most sellers expect you to bargain. If you don't, and I didn't a few times, it makes the whole sale go kind of awkward. My daughter even bargained on a pair of little earrings from $2 to $1. It was the cutest thing to watch. She thought she was being a big business woman and the little old lady was just happy to have someone come by and talk to her for a little while.
I bargained a little on this. There were some all metal washboards with no wood for a few dollars less, but I really wanted this one. So I looked at it, held it, held the metal one, walked away. I did this several times and the seller finally said, "Would you just make up your mind." Not really, he gave me the cheaper price on the one I really wanted.
Last but not least is a little everyday necklace. Certainly not vintage but a lovely trinket with blue ribbon.
I hope you enjoyed this brief tour of Round Top. The next antique fair starts March 20th, 2015. Some venues are not open during the whole fair, most are free (we even got free parking), some charge admission and parking. Some venues, like Big Red Barn, have additional shows year round. I'm posting some links below in case you're interested in more information or pictures.
I'm sharing with:
