JUNE 2019 // CHARLOTTE 75
NICHOLS ONCE FOUND a house with
brand-new “as seen on TV” items for sale.
“I got the Liberator—it’s a ‘marital aid’
wedge pillow, to um, get in di erent angles
and positions.”
Settle chimes in, “I collect them myself.”
Nichols continues, “That big wedge pillow is now a bumper
in my garage to stop my car.” He smiles and shakes his head.
“It’s repurposing!” Settle says.
Another time, Nichols lucked out at the yard sale of a New
Balance rep. “The CEO wore size 9-and-a-half shoes, so they
made all prototypes in his size,” he says. “I probably bought 20
of them at $8 a pair.”
Settle once found an orchid viewer at an estate sale. “I didn’t
know what it was when I bought it. It looked like a birdcage,”
he says. “During the Victorian era, you’d put an orchid in there,
and it had a revolving magnifying glass. I bought it for $15.”
He used it for one of his art pieces, but when he looked it up
online, it was priced at over $200.
Bonk has had luck nding musical instruments and sports
equipment in yard sales all over Myers Park. “A lot of aban-
doned New Year’s resolutions,” she says. “It’s fun for kids
because they can try things out at a lesser risk, and you don’t
have to invest so much in a hockey stick or guitar.”
And just last month, Nichols found a book of poetry by
William Christopher Stevens that included the author’s signa-
ture. “I Googled it, and found out it was the pen name of (talk
show host) Steve Allen, but he signed it with his real name. It’s
worth a couple hundred dollars, and I paid a quarter for it.”FOR SETTLE, shopping garage sales is as
much a social activity as a treasure hunt. For
Nichols, it’s architectural voyeurism. “I love
seeing the insides of those older homes,” he
says. “They built this life, and you see all the
hobbies they had. It’s a privilege to buy that stu because it was
really special to somebody.”
For Bonk, it’s about reducing her carbon footprint. “I’m
a big believer in not buying new stu ,” she says. “People
assume it’s a cheapskate thing, but I’ll always be the rst to
say, ‘I got this at Goodwill.’ I want to normalize it a bit more.
It’s OK to reuse things.”
And for me, it’s fortuitous. On a recent Saturday morning
at Starbucks, I mentioned to Mr. Marty that I was looking for
a secondhand booster seat for my son. Two hours later, he
showed up on my doorstep and handed me a booster seat that
he’d found for ve dollars at a garage sale around the corner.
He said it was divine intervention.
I said I owed him a co ee.(Left) Bonk
hoists the
glass top to a
mid-century
modern coffee
table as Settle
trails behind
with the base.TAYLOR BOWLER is associate editor of this magazine.THE
PAYOFFTHE
FINDS