All-neighborhood garage sale celebrates 15th year

Fifteen years ago, a group of 40 Troutdale households in the city’s Sandee Palisades neighborhood joined forces to hold a collective garage sale.

Since then, the sale has tripled in size, with 130 homes taking part last year. That’s a quarter of the 530 homes in Sandee Palisades participating.

Lisa Noreen, the mother of this enormous endeavor, says the sale has helped neighbors forge even closer ties while creating an event that’s become synonymous with Sandee Palisades and the city of Troutdale.

“It’s a great way to meet neighbors and get rid of what isn’t needed, used or wanted,” she says.

Ironically, when she launched the sale in 1999, she didn’t have anything to sell other than coffee to early bird shoppers.

Lisa and her husband, Dennis, had just bought their home in Sandee Palisades after moving from Red Wing, Minn., which hosts a neighborhood-wide garage sale.

Part of why the couple moved to Troutdale is because the town reminded them of Red Wing, where Dennis grew up,

In fact, before moving out west, the couple sold their house — yes, their actual house — during their last garage sale in Minnesota.

When the couple got settled in Troutdale, Lisa put her professional background in marketing, public relations and branding to work, setting up a similar sale in her new neighborhood.

The neighborhood’s contained layout makes it ideal for such a sale. It’s centered on a wide loop, criss-crossed with through streets and accented by cul-de-sacs. With two ways in and out, it’s easy to park and walk around while shopping the sales. Two parks offer restrooms and shade.

Even the neighborhood children take part. Not content with simple lemonade stands, they set up mini storefronts selling coffee, Costco muffins, hot dogs, candy and other snacks.

Lisa and Dennis’s two daughters, Peyton, 12, and Annika, 9, have grown up with the event. When they were little, Lisa had to coax them into selling their excess stuffed animals and toys. Now, they’re eager to make some money and are more enthusiastic about parting with their things. Only now Lisa finds herself nostalgically picking items out of their for-sale pile and stashing them in their keepsake bins.

Karen Schaaf, a local real estate broker who has sponsored and helped organize the event for five years, says holding the sale the same weekend every year — the Friday and Saturday before Father’s Day — helps people remember it, so they come back year after year.

“It’s a tradition” for shoppers and sellers alike, she says. “If you move into this neighborhood, you’re gonna have 1,000 people milling around the streets with all your neighbors’ stuff out for sale.”

And it’s a tradition now associated with Troutdale, Dennis says.

“When I tell people I’m from Troutdale, they say, ‘Oh, do you know about that garage sale? I love that garage sale.’”

Yes, he’s familiar with it, he replies, sparing them the details on how he and his wife started it. “It’s kind of humorous.”

One neighbor, Emma Larsen, bought her house in Sandee Palisades six years ago in part thanks to the annual event. The first time she ever came to the neighborhood, it was for the sale.

The next year, while looking for a house to buy, she noticed one for sale in Sandee Palisades. Arriving at the house for a walk through, she realized she had bought a tricycle there. She subsequently bought the house and has taken part in the annual garage sale ever since.

As for the annual event’s success, Larsen attributes it to the neighborhood’s compact area, which offers convenience and a wide assortment of items. So much so, she calls the event the shopping mall of garage sales.

Lisa recalls one year when friend and neighbor Stacee Josse sold her out-of-town husband’s ugly lamp and table left over from his bachelor days.

When Josse wasn’t looking, one of Lisa’s friends bought the items for $20. “She was so excited with the $20,” Lisa says.

What Josse didn’t know is that Dennis had hidden the table and chair in his garage. Three years later, when the Josses finished their new house in Eagle Creek, they received a surprise housewarming gift.

“Her shocked face was awesome,” Lisa recalls. “Her husband was so happy. She was not.”