The recycle hunt pays off for Melody Jenson

MOSES LAKE - Here's the recipe.

Two pieces of broken granite. One clock and one mirror, purchased at garage sales. A few pieces of wall decor, a couple of baskets, from garage sales.

Add one pedestal, the work of a student in the woodshop, painted and with a piece of the granite added to make a table. Add two new chairs in a tiger stripe. Accent with a big safari bulletin board, made from four smaller bulletin boards.

Mix them together, and it's a safari-theme office at Moses Lake High School. It reflects the philosophy of its occupant Melody Jenson, secretary for the Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center. Johnson said she loves high-end look, and that - with a little creativity - it's possible get it without paying the high-end prices. Although it will take a little work, she said.

"I like nice things, but I like bargains," Jenson said. The way she bridges the gap is through garage sales.

"The hunt and the bargain," she said.

Take the kitchen shelf, and the shelf over the back door. "I love a shelf with the architectural look of chunky corbels," she said. (A corbel is a specific type of shelf bracket.) The costly ones, the ones that are $75 to $100 apiece, fit her idea, she said, but not her budget.

She found the right style, if not the right color, at a garage sale for $3, she said. The color problem - they were silver and they needed to be cream - was solved with a little paint, she said.

"My motto is, if it's meant to be I'll find it," she said.

"My front door is from a garage sale," Jenson said. So is the chandelier over the dining room table, and "all my (living room) drapes are garage sale." Almost everything in the guest bathroom is from a garage sale - towel racks, decor, even the sink cabinet. That was "brand new, in the box," she said.

And then there's the Cadillac she bought through an estate sale, which served her family for years, she said.

She likes her house and "the many treasures" she has discovered on the yard sale trail, she said, both locally and around the state. "I rotate stuff in my house," she said, switching out lamps, decorative items, linens.

But the garage sale method does require some work. Jenson said in her experience, the good stuff, the stuff she wants, goes early. So Jenson and her garage sale buddy have to be there early.

"When garage sales start, we go every Saturday morning. We are up and out of the house by 6:30, 7 (a.m.)," she said. Sometimes they buy, sometimes they don't. "We might go out and find nothing."

But they always explore the possibilities, she said. "We don't usually do drive-bys. We usually stop and look. Because one man's trash is another man's treasure."

If she sees something she likes, she might buy it anyway, she said. "I look at it and think it's got potential. Or there are possibilities down the road," she said.

Jenson said she sometimes purchases stuff even if it doesn't have a place in her house, or might have some flaws. "I'm not opposed to the challenge of fixing things, if I think I can repair something," she said. Flaws usually are fixable or add to the item's character, she said.

"Everyone has great stuff. They're just done with it," she said.

Multi-family sales can offer some pretty good opportunities, she said. "Neighborhood garage sales are great," she said.

"Garage sale heaven," Jenson said of the Columbia Basin. She checks the garage sale notices in the Columbia Basin Herald, she said, and uses that as the basis for the weekly search. But there are plenty of good garage sales around the region, and Jenson said she hits those too.

Jenson is a licensed cosmetologist and longtime jewelry designer, who sold her creations under the name Cha-Cha Beading. That familiarity with design helps her turn her finds into the look she wants, she said, and she has helped friends and coworkers with their design challenges. She "has a passion for design, decor, being creative and keeping things organized," she said.

Stuff that has been rotated out or never quite found a place goes into storage in Jenson's - yup, her garage. "My stash that I start for next year," the garage sale she has every spring, she said. Usually it's a group effort among friends. "Last year there were 16 of us."