Couple turns junk to treasure

Pickin’ on the Prairie returns for its sixth edition this weekend at Past Blessings Farm in Orchard Prairie. (COURTESY / Past Blessings Farm)

When junker Brenda Buckingham looks at an old piece of furniture, she uses what she calls her “after eyes.”

“I see things not as they are, ugly and old, but as how they could be,” Buckingham said.

That concept is what propelled the former graphic designer to start “picking” or “junking” 15 years ago. “It’s like a treasure hunt, with an element of suspense about what you’re going to find,” Buckingham said.

Turning trash into treasure for resale on eBay and at rented garages turned out to be a lucrative enough side business for Brenda and her husband Ron that they started the vintage market Past Blessings. After years of hauling their wares to different shows and venues, they started dreaming of finding a farm with space to host their own shows. The couple went all in on the primitive concept and lifestyle in 2010, buying acreage among the fields of waving wheat in North Spokane’s Orchard Prairie, and renaming what was known as the old Cutler place as Past Blessings Farm.

In the yard surrounding the yellow 1898 farmhouse in which they are residing and renovating, the couple host the Inland Empire region’s largest outdoor antique and artisan market. The show they created, Pickin’ on the Prairie, is now in its sixth year, growing from 21 vendors when it started to more than 80 today, with another 20 that had to be turned away due to space constraints. A $5 admission fee gains visitors access to booths of boho and Western jewelry, signs, Montana West purses, rare books, shabby chic furniture, vintage fabrics, and lots of “junk” to pick through/Audrey Overstreet, SR. More here (subscription).