Posted by debodun:"I had two Eastlake caned seat chairs out last year with a $35 each price tag. A couple of young bucks stopped and offer me $5 for BOTH. I told them where to put their $5. Sometimes a person will ask if I can do better on the price, so I say "Certainly!" and make it a higher one." That seems a little extreme, and combative. I don't expect young bucks to know about antiques. But even more so, I don't expect most sellers to understand that the antiques market has taken a serious down-turn. When I have had sales, I was never insulted by the amount that someone offered, but how they make the offer. Saying "I'll give you..." is an insult, Asking "Can you do better?" is not. I don't know the persons circumstances, perhaps $5 is what their budget should allow? Or perhaps they are poor negotiators, and have watched too much of that Pawn Stars fake reality show, and have picked up poor haggling habits -thinking they have to start low to get the best price. When I had a sale it was stuff I wanted to unload -that was the objective. So, I priced it to sell. I was a picker and sold to dealers and I had a shop for a while, and did the flea market route -so I had an idea of what dealers would pay. If I had 20 pairs of Salt & Pepper shakers and marked them $2 a set, I would have an idea of what I would do for the lot, so if a dealer picked out the 8 best pairs and asked what I could do on them, I'd have a figure in mine mind, I might even tell them before they asked "If you're getting that many, you can have all 20 for $1.50 a pair, that'd be 30 bucks". My main rule with sales was that I would try to leave a little wiggle room for serious buyers. I could waste my time and take the stuff to several different antique dealers, or wait for them to come to me and save gas and time. I also price things 'each' and in multiples, so with a stack of identical plates I'd hang a sign. The price difference may even seem a little ridiculous. "Plates $2ea or 10 for $5". People thought they were getting a great deal and didn't feel a need to haggle, I already did it for them. But inevitably, someone was going to ask to pay $4 for 10. I wouldn't get mad, no. Some folks feel it doesn't hurt to ask, so they do. I would pretend that their math skills weren't too good and I'd say "I'm sorry, you can buy 2 for $4, or the best I can do is 10 for $5", if their math was really poor, and they had to ask again, I would repeat the same thing, "No, 2 for $4, 10 for $5" The crip-crap that I really didn't want to box up again at the end of the sale, I always priced like that. If you are only going to buy a couple of plates, your wasting my time, if you are going to buy a stack, I'll give you my best price up front. If people feel like they are getting a deal and had a good time they tell their friends. And if I had an item that no one was paying much attention to, but I really didn't want to pack up again, I would come down on it the first day, or the first time some weird young buck picked it up, looked at it and said "cool" "It's marked $10, but you can have that for $5." But my main rule was I came down on multiples and big purchases. If someone collected $40 worth of junk and didn't even ask to haggle, I might give them a discount at the till anyway -again, because they will tell their friends. "Oh, I had that marked $10? You're buying so much stuff, you can have it for $5." See why people wanted to be on my mailing list? For the most part, on the high end and antique items I didn't come down until later on in the first day or on the second day. But if I had a couple of hot items at a very good price, like beautiful Eastlake caned seat chairs for $35, I expected folks to want to haggle before they bought them. It makes them feel better. So, I might price them at $40 ea, and if some young bucks said "Will you take $5" I wouldn't be insulted, I would give them my come down price "tell you what, $70 for the pair" If they made a counter offer and it was the beginning of the day, I would tell them "I haven't had them out very long, and I was planning on going half price (or what ever) tomorrow, if you come back tomorrow and they haven't sold, you can have the both of them for $40." The next day I might change my mind and not even put them out, or if the young bucks come back, tell them "someone offered $50 for the pair yesterday before I closed and said they would be back with the money this morning. I told them the first person to pay me $50 today will get them, those folks haven't come back yet, so if you want to snatch them up, you can have the pair for $50 right now." But I usually kept my word, If I quoted a 'tomorrow' price, I sold it for that the next day. And if it was for an item I just wasn't sure what kind of interest there might be for it, I would say, come back tomorrow, I am going to mark everything down tomorrow, we can wheel and deal then. If it was an item that every early-bird dealer and collector picked up and asked what I could do on it, I knew it would sell eventually and I might even re-tag it higher after the first few hours, so I could come down half off the next day or later in the day. If it's marked $12, and every dealer offers $6 after I say I'll come down to $10, then I would mark it up to $20, so the next dealer to ask, I tell them "the best I can do is half price." Sometimes it sold to a collector for the $20 or $15.

I had an Asko pair and even when the washer was replaced it never worked properly. I know there was an issue at the time with their board. Upgraded to Miele, which was excellent with excellent service. Sold house, leaving the Miele pair. Priced Asko again vs Bosch as I needed a washer that plugged into the dryer. I didn't want to go with Asko due to previous poor experience. Plus Asko's water level is much lower than Miele. Asko was almost price of Miele -- no way I consider it worth the price even though Sub Zero is now distributing. Went with Bosch 500 set and I'm very happy. Was worried about performance in comparison to Miele. Machines are different as Bosch has fewer cycle choices. But Bosch has a heater, I can get a wash at/above 140C and it has done a great job for me. Don't miss the Mieles really.

I was born in the mid-60s and grew up in small town mid-America. When I was little I shared a bedroom with my brother and sister. I only got my own room when everyone moved to college or moved out of my parents' house (I was the youngest). We didn't have air-conditioning. On hot summer nights, we slept with the windows open and a fan running. We didn't have cable tv. We had an antenna and could only tune in two stations (ABC and NBC) on a black & white Zenith. My parents didn't get a color tv until I was in college. My parents had a party telephone line that we shared with a neighbor. We owned a rotary phone. My mom sewed a lot of our clothes on a Pfaff sewing machine. I remember going to the fabric store to pick out patterns and materials. I learned to type on an old Royal Typewriter that was probably made in the 40s. My mom had a Christmas list and typed her letters to go in each card. I collected the Christmas cards we received and kept them in a special purse, and played with them. I also remember playing with vintage paper dolls and failing miserably to make new clothes for them. We had one of those old refrigerators that was difficult to open (what do they call those latches that old refrigerators had?). My mom got milk and eggs fresh from the farm until I was 6 or 7 years old. We rode in the car without seatbelts, and rode our bikes without helmets. We spent a great deal of time playing outdoors and roaming the neighborhood with no supervision. Everyone knew everyone in our small little town. We didn't always lock our doors. It wasn't really necessary. I remember listening to music on my brother's 8-track player. We had a car with an 8-track, too. Albums were around, of course, but then it was cassette tapes which were replaced by CDs. My husband and I still have many of our old cassettes. In the summer we went to the drive-in movie theatre. Before the digital age, I would buy maps whenever we went on a trip and kept them for future use or as keepsakes if it was a place we probably wouldn't visit again. It's been a long time since I've posted here. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

I agree that you don't really see curtains in kitchens much anymore. The trend has been bare windows or shades/blinds for quite awhile now. I think curtains tend to feel more "retro". In the right kitchen, this is the right look. What does your kitchen look like? Post some photos. Is there something you don't like about the look of your curtains? Is it just the pressure of seeing many kitchens without curtains making you feel it's not right? In the end, if you like your curtains, then they belong there.