Newport Shores' garage sale draws a crowd

Among garage-sale aficionados, there are garage sales and then there are garage sales. For those in the know, the Newport Shores garage sale in South Bellevue is one of the best.

The lakeside community, where even modest houses go for well over $1 million, allows only one garage sale a year. And the goods are often choice.

By 11 a.m. Saturday, Tim Harrison and Kay Johnson, of Bellevue, — "partners in crime," they called themselves — had filled their Subaru Outback to the roof with cooking utensils, games, candles, furniture, a guitar, a pair of toddler's cowboy boots and a black-velvet jacket printed with gold designs — "very Michael Jackson-esque," Harrison said.

"See these hand-embroidered linens?" Johnson said, smoothing her hand over a prize set of linens embroidered with gold flowers.

Harrison and Johnson said the prices were excellent, and they even found some items for free. But "You always haggle. Always haggle," Harrison said. "It may pay for your next cup of coffee."

Garage-sale season is starting to wrap up for the summer, and Newport Shores is one of the last big ones.

The Greenwood-Phinney neighborhood in North Seattle also held its neighborhood-wide sale Saturday, switching from the traditional date in April in hopes of better weather; more than 100 families participated.

In Newport Shores, Jon Tellefson was trying to sell a used RV for $9,500 ("Sell or trade," his sign said), a NordicTrack cross-country ski machine in good condition for $5 and a table full of clothes that his teenagers had briefly worn, then rejected.

"There's probably $2,000 worth of clothes on that table," he said, shaking his head over the flighty fashion tastes of teenage daughters.

Garage-sale aficionados "like this neighborhood because it's a little higher-end," said Tellefson, who heads the Newport Shores Yacht Club Association, the neighborhood's community club. His official title is "commodore."

For Newport Shores children, the garage sale is like a giant toy-swapping event, said Kara Wiper, who was manning a sale to benefit the Newport High boys basketball team. When her kids were younger, she'd give them money to find treasures.

"We'd say, 'You have $10 to spend,' and they'd come back and say, 'I found an aquarium for $5!' " she said.

Many of the serious shoppers come from outside Newport Shores, and this year, as always, they were ready to buy at 7:30 a.m., an hour and a half before the sale started, Wiper said.

On Saturday, the basketball team was offering rock-bottom prices for used CDs, golf clubs, a treadmill, a child's bed in the shape of a race car and a karaoke machine.

They'd received some mysterious donations, too, including a sushi maker — a device with gears and a hand crank. Just how it contributed to the sushi-making process, no one knew. But it was just $5.

A few blocks away, the women of the Terese Smith Howard Circle of the Seattle Milk Fund were having a good laugh over an unusual contribution to their garage-sale offerings — a pink push-up bra and panty set, festooned with red hearts.

By noon, the women had pocketed $50 for a set of brand new Christmas dishes and sold a lot of luggage. They hoped to make about $1,000 for the 100-year-old charity.

The Seattle Milk Fund is one of the area's oldest charities and focuses on awarding educational scholarships, mostly for single women in need, said Terry Dessert, president of the Terese Smith Howard chapter.

Garage sales may be the ultimate form of recycling, but it's probably also true that the same items make the rounds, year after year.

"Lots of this stuff," said Seattle Milk Fund member Sandy Cosse, "is stuff we bought from each other the previous year."

Katherine Long: 206-464-2219 or klong@seattletimes.com