Welcome to my new endeavor…a Blog about Estate Sales, decorating, travel, family, food & life! It’s called Janelle’s Journal. My career for 35+ years has been Estate Sales, but I’ve had other ventures and many other businesses as well. I love to write and I can spin a good yarn. Some of the stories I have are crazy….things you just can’t make up. I’ve had a very rich and blessed life that’s pretty interesting. I want you to get to know me and I want to get to know you. Let me know what you want me to write about and I’ll do it. I hope I can teach you something in the process as well. Ask me questions! Here are some of my favorite things
- Estate Sales…..that’s what I know best!
- Staging an Estate Sale….my favorite part
- Pricing an Estate Sale….the hardest part
- Crazy Estate Sale stories
- Decorating and staging your home on a budget
- Running a small business
- Building a brand
- Art – I love it!
- Raising 4 kids and working
- Adoption – 3 of my 4 kids are adopted
- Family & Faith
- Traveling the world
- Remodeling houses and rent houses
- Do-it-yourself projects
- Thrift shopping
- Fishing – I love it, I’m terrible and my brother is a Top Bass Pro – Alton Jones
- Food – If I did anything besides Estate Sales, I’d be a cheese monger
- Jewelry – my favorite thing
- Life goals
- Exercise
- Favorite recipes and meals
Some of you know me well, others don’t. If you do know me already it’s probably from Estate Sales, so as my first “post” I’ll tell you, briefly, how I got started in the Estate Sale Business. I went to Baylor and met my husband the first day of school. We got married a week after our Junior year was over. I’d graduated early and he skipped his Senior year and went straight to Baylor Law School. We were young, poor and happy. We lived in a HUD Housing Project during law school while I supported us working at the Power Company as a secretary. My degree was in Fashion Merchandising, but Waco wasn’t exactly a fashion Mecca in the 80’s!
After Bill finished Law School, we moved to Houston for his first job. I went back to school to get an Interior Design Degree. Soon, we bought our first house. My next door neighbor was in her 80’s and had done Estate Sales in Houston for 50 years. I’d grown up going to Estate Sales with my Mother and Grandmother and I was fascinated by my neighbor’s business. She was too old to do the heavy lifting, so she asked me to help her. I was hooked. I loved every minute of what she did and I wanted to follow in her footsteps.
We moved back to Dallas in 1985. A friend worked in the trust department of Preston State Bank. She asked me if I did Estate Sales. My answer was, “Of course I do”. I will be forever grateful to her for giving me my first sale in a small apartment in an “iffy” part of town. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was willing to learn. My Mother and I did all the work ourselves. One sale led to another and “The Empire Was Born”. Ha! I just wish it had been that easy.
There are hundreds of stories I can tell you about the craziness of the last 36 years in this amazing business. Unbelievable things that have happened in my life. Travel to some of the most exotic places in the world. Cooking great food. Family life. Decorating. Let me know what you want to read about, talk about and know. I’ll do my best to entertain you!
I love this!! Can’t wait to read more! 💕
HUMIDITAY! I just now saw this. You were the first comment ever!
Grab your sarong and we can be on the Fast Boat to Gili T or Gili Air in a couple of hours. I’ll meet you in Padang Bai….Pink Coco, G-7, toes in the sand! XOXOXO
Hi Janelle! We met a couple of years ago online thru one of your estate sales! (I purchased a couple of awesome William Spratling pieces). We also talked about Native American jewelry, so this is my question: I now look for Native American jewelry when at estates sales, auctions etc, and being relatively inexperienced in this area, how can I tell if turquoise is natural/real and if it has been treated or not??? Thanks for your help!
I totally remember that. The best way to learn about turquoise is to read books, handle the real thing and learn on the internet. I just finished two sales with hundreds of pieces of vintage Indian jewelry. It was all totally amazing. I can tell from experience, but I don’t know everything. They had some great old reference books on turquoise and I bought them. I haven’t bought a reference book in years. If you’ll email me at janelle@janellestone.com, I’ll send you the names of the books I bought. You can probably find them online. One of the books was printed in 1984, but it had all the marks that silversmiths used up until that point. Great reference book and I’d never seen it before.
Just a tip (I think I made this up) to tell fake turquoise is to tap it on your teeth. If it’s got a plastic sound, it’s either plastic or has been stabilized. Stabilized isn’t bad, but plastic is. Also, buy a jeweler’s loupe from Amazon and learn how to use it. I carry one in my purse and use it all the time to look at gold marks, stones, etc.
Hope this has helped. Email me!
Janelle
Congrats Janelle on starting your blog. You will love this part of your career, too.
It took long enough, didn’t it?! I hope you are doing well. This is definitely a new chapter but I love it.
XO
Janelle,
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your first journal post! You cannot go wrong with all of your different discussions…your followers will look forward to your posts! I remember your story of you and Bill in Waco at BU…fond memories!
I wondered how you were going to work your business during the pandemic. You have found a way!
Best to you,
Debra Sibley
(Former Wacoan & BU)
Baylor and the HUD Housing project! Those were the days….40 years ago! I wouldn’t change a thing!
I’ve been to your estate sales and it is fun.. Looks like you have had an interesting life! Bring it on.. would love to listen to your yarns..Cheers!
There’s never been a dull moment in my life! I think it’s the way I’m wired. I’m not having fun if I’m not busy.
I’ll keep writing. Thank you so much for the encouragement!
Janelle
I find you interesting and like to hear about your crazy estate sales and fishing. I follow your estate sales religiously.
Hi Ernie! Thanks for following my sales. I will write a blog soon about crazy stories. There are so many I could write a book. It’s stuff you just can’t make up.
My fishing “talent” (Ha) comes from my little brother. He’s Alton Jones, a Pro Bass Angler. His son, Alton Jones, Jr. is also a Pro and doing very well this year. I love to fish but I’m not very good at it. I need to have Alton give really good fishing tips.
Janelle
I cant wait to hear more. I love going to estate sales and would lobe to work one, but I am so busy, I can never find time. Juanita
Thank you Juanita! Estate sales are so much fun to do. I have an incredible crew. My son, Wen (27), works with me full time. He has to hang out with his mother everyday, but we laugh all the time. Some of my crew has been with me more than 20 years. We’re all best friends. I’ve had friends ask to work sales and quit after the first day. Everyone thinks we go in and just put price tags on everything. We don’t. We totally re-stage the houses, clean, shine, polish and research. We are basically house cleaners for the first week or two of setup.
I’ve got a MONSTER sale in 30,000 square feet on July 17, 18 & 19. Sign up for emails on my website, http://www.janellestone.com and you’ll know the specifics on the sales. This sale has a lot of every category under the sun. I hope you can come!
Love this Janelle!! Excited about this next sale too. What the biggest sale you have ever done, the most valuable sale you have ever done and what’s your best/favorite story from a sale??
OMG…I’ve done some monster sales in 37 years. I started this business when I was 24 and I was so young I can’t believe anyone trusted me to sell anything of theirs. I don’t love the wrinkles that come with age, but I do like knowing what I’m doing…finally! I’ve had several sales over $500,000. Anything over $100,000 is considered big. Dollar-wise, the biggest sale I ever did was in a 3200 s.f. house in a random part of North Dallas, believe it or not. Long story, but it was amazing. I got a criminal citation for opening a retail store in a residential neighborhood. I hadn’t done anything wrong and it really did belong to one person. It was just incredibly amazing, expensive stuff. I’ll write about that one in a blog sometime. That would make an interesting read.
I could write a long book about the crazy things that happen at sales and things that I find. We’ve had arrests and assaults from people fighting over items. We’ve had thefts and arrests during a sale. One time I really did find a skeleton and 3 skulls in a closet. One time I found a newly dead pug dog in a freezer. It goes on and on. You just can’t make this stuff up.
Thanks again…you’ve given me some great ideas!
Janelle
Hi,
Absolutely fascinating !!! Janelle, what fun to read your
Journal!
Fondly,
Lucy McRae Vollet
Hi Lucy! Thank you for saying it was a fun read. I’m going to do part 2 soon. It will get more specific and have some really great pictures. I have 83,000 photos on my phone…the hardest part is find the pictures.
Hope I see you soon. With all that’s been going on, all I’ve been doing is working setting up estate sales that may never happen. Ha!
XO
Hi! Would love to see your advice on starting small business. Estate sales…what you think the future of antique malls are…Best places to find comps for pricing. .. AND any of your listed topics!
I could write a 100 page paper on the ups and downs of starting a business. Luckily, mine was so long ago and I was so young and dumb, I didn’t realize it would ever really become a business. I still wonder how it all happened and became a “real thing”.
I will write about starting a small business, the responsibilities and the ups and downs. Will you email me at janelle@janellestone.com and I’ll give you a list of my go-to sites for comps? That’s what we do all day everyday and we’ve gotten good at it. You have to be right on the money to get items to sell. The internet has been the biggest game changer for my business. It’s wonderful but also hard because customers come in knowing the value of everything they collect.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Janelle