“When I was seven, I started going around with my grandmother and my mom to different garage sales. I didn’t realize it at the time, but they were going around to these garage sales to resell things at a huge sale over Labor Day weekend.
Having that sale with my grandmother that weekend, I realized that this was profitable, fun, and everyone looked forward to Jean’s barn sale. She lived out in the middle of nowhere, had a big barn and she would set up throughout the entire summer.
But as a teenager, you move away because garage sales aren’t cool. You just don’t want to be caught there as a 15 or 16-year-old.
But then I graduated from college, got a job, and moved back to Saginaw. My partner Jim fell off a ladder and suffered a compound fracture. He was a subcontractor, so he couldn’t do that kind of work anymore. We started going to estate sales and auctions, and he started reselling on eBay full-time.
Our house just became full of the stuff we were buying, so he said, ‘Hey, let’s go look at a couple of spaces. Maybe we should open up a place and see how that goes.’ And so we did in December of 2013 and here we are!
I also started hanging out with my mom again. For me, antiques have been more about family time than collecting. I love to collect, don’t get me wrong, but it’s really about spending time with my mom and connecting with her.”
- Jennifer McKendree, owner of Court Street Antiques
Court Street Antiques is located at 1214 Court Street, and is open Monday through Thursday 10AM to 5PM, and Friday and Saturday 11AM to 5PM.
