A trip to Oakland last weekend for a triple play — a visit to the Alameda Pointe flea market, a trendy retro shop, and the Oakland Museum’s White Elephant Sale — ended with barely a thing for me. But for my friend, Dhelia, it was a treasure trove. And I enjoyed every vicarious minute — and the great bargains.
The highlight for us was the White Elephant Sale, a huge rummage sale in a giant warehouse benefitting the museum. We went last year and each brought a large oil painting. So fun! This time, we used the same strategy — arriving no less than two hours before closing on Sunday. That way we would get great bargains — and wouldn’t know what we missed.
As the photo shows, Dhelia nabbed a beautiful pair of faux bois chairs, a French term meaning fake wood. In other words, they look like wittled branches. (The funny thing is these really are wood, so maybe it’s more bois than faux….)
They were in immaculate condition, with cane backs. The price for the pair was $300, but because of the late hour, reduced to $150. With 15 minutes before closing, the kind volunteer said, “make me an offer.” I pulled Dhelia aside, whispered in her ear, and she offered $75. Sold! Now how much happier can a pair of girlfriends be?
Dhelia had already purchased a gorgeous, antique oil painting at 50 percent off the original price. With slight rearranging of her living room, the faux bois chairs sit behind a couch, looking out her french doors to the garden. Beautiful. 
Read the stories I wrote after last year’s White Elephant to take a peek at our purchases and what we did with them…
“We wanted to open it up with more light,” Hillary said. And she wanted it to be more modern, “but consistent with the principles of the house.”
The couple love clean lines and neutral colors. In the kitchen, they installed white Caesarstone countertops with translucent, white glass subway tiles, then added red-topped stools for a splash of color. They opened their home to the Rockridge Kitchen Tour last fall.
With Erin’s paintings, she artfully arranges Chinese and French porcelain, mid-centery Italian artglass, special Buddahs and other decorative pieces. She invites her friends and clients, who often are so inspired they want to bring home the entire vignette.
Then she saw it, an eight foot angel with golden wings, a long white robe and bursts of cobalt blue. Translucent. Brilliant. Mesmerizing. Once the adornment for a San Francisco mortuary, it was now stored in a Richmond warehouse. Lisa quickly realized it was too big for the bathroom, and, quite frankly, almost too beautiful for it.
After 15 years of marriage, Craig has learned to trust the fantastical vision of his artist wife. As usual, however, the vision would come with a price. The new home for the angel would be the south-facing bay window in the great room — and that would not only mean a new design concept for the room, but a major re-engineering of the bay window to hold its weight.
But Lisa had originally designed the great room that opens to the kitchen to have a retro David Hicks style with a geometric circle motif. And that would no longer work with the leaded glass window. So she has ditched the idea of using Kraftmaid kitchen cabinets that had a circular overlay as well as the splashes of hot pink she was planning in the family room furnishings.
Ashleen also wanted an antique, vintage feel. She asked her grandmother if she was willing to part with her crystal chandelier. “My grandmother took it off her ceiling,” Ashleen said.
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