By SUZANNE MOORE
PLATTSBURGH -- Margaret Garrand's staging area is her family-room couch.
That's where her yard-sale merchandise is accumulating, price stickers affixed.
"First thing," said the Turner Court woman, "is to have everything clean. No buttons missing; no rips or tears."
"And not broken," emphasized Garrand's sister, Therese Dudyak, who with Sylvia Brown organizes the garage sale at Lake Forest Retirement Community every year.
"Tip-top shape," Brown said.
That's just the start. There's a recipe for a successful yard sale, say the voices of experience, one that has simple ingredients but takes a lot of work.
PRESENTATION KEY
Garrand, who holds at least one sale each spring and another in autumn, starts at least three weeks ahead. She collects items in her home that she finds she doesn't really need, goes through her wardrobe. She invites her daughters, grandchildren, other relatives to add merchandise -- sales with stuff from multiple families draw bigger crowds.
Her husband, Jerry, isn't the biggest fan of the activity, but willingly sets up the tables in their two-car garage, carries out the goods.
Presentation is key, Mrs. Garrand said, speaking from 25 years of yard-sale experience.
"The tables are covered with tablecloths or sheets -- it makes everything nice-and-clean looking."
And she organizes according to category -- mens, womens and childrens clothes hung separately and with sizes together; housewares, books, toys in arrangements of their own.
"You don't just throw everything on a table," agreed Dudyak.
PRICING CRUCIAL
It's vital that prices be marked and visible, the ladies said. They include the initials of the seller, too.
"We keep our tags separate for each person, so we know exactly what each has sold," Mrs. Garrand said.
Pricing is crucial, Dudyak noted.
"We don't put the prices high -- you don't want to be taking it back home if you want to get rid of it."
And people shop yard sales for bargains, she added, especially now, with the cost of gas pushing up the cost of living.
"You want to make something out of (the sale) and give someone else a break -- that's the way we look at it."
The Lake Forest sale brought in about $1,400 two weekends ago.
"We've had better years," Dudyak said, "but we didn't have a lot of big items. "A nickle, a dime, a dollar take a lot to add up."
Some participants keep a bit of their proceeds and donate the rest to Lake Forest's Sunshine Fund, which residents use to buy cards and flowers to cheer up those who are in the hospital, to buy plants for the communal flower garden and for other kinds of expenses. Some pitch all their earnings into the fund, which was the catalyst for the first sale eight or nine years ago.
Mrs. Garrand researches the value of items in catalogs then sets her prices. Sometimes, she marks them down on the last day of her sale.
POINT THE WAY
A sale won't succeed if no one knows about it, and Mrs. Garrand, Dudyak and Brown all said they advertise in the classified section of the Press-Republican.
"I keep my signs from year to year," Mrs. Garrand said.
She used to include her phone number in the newspaper ads, but doesn't do so now unless she has a very specific item for sale, such as a bicycle.
"Or you get bombarded with phone calls," she said.
It doesn't hurt to showcase certain items in an ad, Mrs. Garrand continued.
"When you advertise children's clothes and sizes, that attracts people," she said. "They look around and usually purchase other things as well.
And a well-organized sale advertises itself for next time.
"I have a lot of repeat customers," Mrs. Garrand said.
HARD WORK
She plans to hold her next sale the second or third weekend in July. Dudyak and Brown, who will donate their leftovers to the Veterans Administration and local churches, were taking their time clearing out the four garage bays their enterprise occupied.
Sale weekend is fun, Dudyak said, with five or six other residents helping, with all the coming and going of shoppers.
"You see a lot of old friends and your regulars," she said.
But all the same, anyone undertaking a sale needs to understand that the process, from preparation to that last price markdown, takes a toll.
"I'm still recuperating," she laughed.
E-mail Suzanne Moore at:
smoore@pressrepublican.com
