Rug Auction

The Navy Ball committee hosted a rug auction this evening and we have a house with big rooms and hard wood floors, sooo guess who had to attend?

The auction was late breaking and not well advertised, so I assumed there wouldn't be too many people there and I was right.  A whopping 10 bidders showed up to bid on 50 rugs.  Now if you hauled all those rugs over and are spending your evening hoping to make some money off 10 government employees you are going to sorely let down.  The first 7 rugs came up and no one even bid on them.  The auctioneer got to the point of saying what will you give me for this rug.  Rug #8 was one I was interested in.  I am a HORRIBLE bargainer.  It totally stresses me out and I am happy hearing a price and deciding yes or know.  Of course since no one was bidding I had to shout out my price- UGH and Yikes.  I did it hoping he would just take it but of course I'm thrifty (really cheap) and it was too low for him.  He countered and it was higher than I wanted so I asked him to set it aside until my husband showed up.

Fred and the girls showed up and while a few less expensive rugs were up for auction, Fred jumped right in and finally some rugs are selling.  By the end of the evening it's time for the big ones (which we need for these big rooms). Of course we know these will be higher priced, but luckily a guy showed up who is really smart about rugs and sits with us so he gives us some good guidance of what they are worth.  In the end we bought the signature rug of the evening and got it for a pretty good deal and then also remember that's Singapore dollars, so now it's a bargain in US dollars.  Fred decides he's having fun and asks the auctioneer to come back to the other rug I liked and he bargains a bit and settles on a deal.  I think I am going to need to bring Fred on all my shopping trips that might involve bargaining.

Obviously, an auction is designed for the seller to make money, but with 10 people there it was just individuals bargaining in front of each other.  At one point the auctioneer started high and worked his way down until our neighbor bought a rug for $100.

Buying the featured rug of the evening set us up as the big spenders of the night and we ended up coming home with 3 rugs and 1 tapestry.  See our beautiful new rugs in the pictures below.