‘Rummage, Remnants and Resale’
For several years, Mary Linden Ragains and her husband rented places in Florida, but kept losing the rental units. So they decided to purchase their own place here on Pine Island. But with a monthly mortgage and condo fees, they couldn’t afford to furnish this home at retail prices. So Ragains challenged herself to see how little she could spend by refurbishing secondhand items, mostly purchased or found on Pine Island. She kept track of the costs incurred and jotted down how she conjured up the ideas for her projects. Pretty soon she had a notebook full of ideas and prices. Hmm, she thought, would this make interesting reading? Maybe she could turn it into a full-length book. And that’s just what she did.
“RUMMAGE, REMNANTS and RESALE: From Secondhand to First-class Dcor” is a decorating book that shows how Ragains furnished the approximately 2,000-square-foot areas of her home for less than $2,000 worth of secondhand items purchased at rummage sales, garage sales and resale shops and using remnants of fabric, lumber and paint. She devoted a separate chapter to each room of her home and included before and after photos along with instructions on how to replicate her ideas. She listed the items purchased, what they actually cost and what she might have paid for them if bought at retail prices. Plus, she found lots of free stuff while “dumpster diving” and picked up discarded items lying alongside the road. Ragains considers this the “greenest” way to furnish a home. She saved many items from going into landfills. And saved a lot of greenbacks in the process.
Islanders and visitors can purchase a personally signed copy of the book Saturday, Feb. 11, during the Blue Crab Key community sale at Building E. Blue Crab condominiums are located at the end of Marina Drive north off Stringfellow Road. Copies of the book are also available at Island Conclave Fine Art Gallery, 5101 Pine Island Road, Bokeelia, where Ragains’ watercolor and colored pencil artwork is exhibited and sold. The book is also available online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
About the Author
In her first career, Ragains developed marketing campaigns, created promotional materials, wrote training manuals and coordinated trade shows and events for the contract furniture industry. Now in semi-retirement, she combines her business acumen, her artistic skills, her love of home decorating and her penchant for bargain shopping to create comfortable and attractive environments for clients, friends and family.
For more about the author or her work, visit www.RaglinToRiches.com.