Shopping with. . . Country Living's Sarah Gray Miller

By Sara James Mnookin
April 23, 2010

Sarah Gray Miller, Editor-in-Chief of Country Living magazine, is a self-professed “eBay fanatic.” The Natchez, MS native, who founded Budget Living magazine and previously edited O at Home and special editions of In Style, regularly trolls the online marketplace for everything from statement furniture to vintage clothing to personalized gifts. She has stocked both her West Harlem apartment and her gingerbread Victorian in Athens, NY, with a unique, but certainly appealing, brew of clean lines and kitsch and is not afraid to throw down a sizable bid on a twenty-foot motorboat.

Miller, still a country girl at heart, recently took a moment to share some of her more inspired purchases with The Inside Source. Among them: a collection of books with "Tony" (her husband's name) in the title and a giant fiberglass goat, which presides over her dining room in her home upstate.

The Inside Source: You’re a busy woman. When do you do most of your eBay shopping?

Sarah Gray Miller: Sometimes I sit down with a bottle of wine and just start trolling through the vintage section.

TIS: What are some of the favorite things you’ve found on eBay?

SGM: In my house upstate, the living room sofa is from eBay. It’s carved, ornate, and Victorian and is actually my favorite piece of furniture I own. Matthew Haly [of custom furniture company The Furniture Joint] refinished it. The fabric, called Tuuli, is by Marimekko, and it is covered in these branches that are stark and beautiful. When my husband picked it up from the upholsterer, about five people stopped him and asked, “Where did you get that sofa?”

The dining room table is also from eBay, the sideboard, lots of decorative accessories, including a white ceramic bust. In the city apartment, our sofa is also from eBay.

I love the site for presents or things that are really personal. My husband’s name is Tony, and I’ve gone into the books section and put “Tony” in quotes. And so now he has a whole collection of Tony books: “The Temptation of Tony,” “The Tony Scrapbook.”

I buy lots of Mississippi-related things. I have a movie poster from “The Gambler of Natchez” and another from “The Shameless Belle of Natchez.” I like giving framed sheet music with someone’s home state or hometown in the title. I find that people always love that. I also love things that are unintentionally funny, so something with a monogram that’s PMS—it just makes me laugh.

And then I’ve bought lots of vintage clothes, including my favorite Dingo cowboy boots from the '70s with a little bit of a stacked heel. I got them in the late '90s and still wear them all the time. They were $10—the best pair of shoes I own. They’re extremely flattering. I’ve loved them hard and rough, and they still look good.

TIS: In terms of your clothing purchases, what do you usually look for?

SGM: I always love going into the vintage clothing section and just tooling around. There’s no rhyme or reason. I’ll buy designer things. I’ve found a lot of great things from late '70s and early '80s designers, like Geoffrey Beene and Bill Blass, who aren’t necessarily that collectible yet. My favorite Bill Blass is a red cotton pique cocktail dress that’s backless. With jewelry, I tend to buy things in lots.

I’ll also look for things within in a certain era. I only buy stuff that’s really cheap, and ending within the next 24 hours. When I’m looking at things that are ending quickly, the price is basically what it’s going to cost, so I’ll bid really low. And then I don’t watch obsessively.

Not all of it fits, and not all of it is great, but if I’ve gotten 20 dresses for $200, and if 12-15 fit, it’s still a huge bargain. And I’ll bring the rest into the office to giveaway.

TIS: What’s been your biggest eBay purchase to date?

SGM: Probably the boat. It’s a 1965 Crestliner Runabout. We take it out on the Hudson. It ran like a charm for the first two summers. Now it’s sitting in my yard. I’ll probably have to go back on eBay and find a good used outboard.

TIS: I’d hate to see the shipping bill on that purchase.

SGM: With the big stuff, I only look at what’s nearby. Most of the furniture, I really try to look within a certain mileage of my zipcode. I did have to have a sofa trucked down from Maine, but even after the shipping and refinishing it, I still got a fantastic one-of-a-kind sofa for the low-end price of what most people pay for a mass market one.

TIS: What are you shopping for right now?

SGM: Lately, I’ve been on a bit of a kick with old apothecary bottles, also these highball glasses from the '60s with a Name Your Poison theme. One says strictnine, another cyanide. I’m collecting those. I always love Mississippi stuff, probably because I’m just so homesick.

I get into these weird word association things with eBay. I’ve got a whole collection of creamers shaped like animals. Not just a cow, which is obvious, but sheep, a goat sitting down in full costume, a hippopotamus, an elephant. I don’t even know what I was looking for originally, but I suddenly learned that there were creamers shaped like animals, and I became obsessed with them. They’re just the most charming things.

That’s actually how I found my goat. I was looking for creamers, and up popped a giant fiberglass goat. It was the oddest thing, but I had to have it. I had him shipped, via the Greyhound bus, and he sits in my dining room upstate.

TIS: Wow, you do have a lot of stuff. Have you ever sold anything on eBay?

SGM: No, and that’s what’s so ridiculous! Even when I go into a traditional antiques or junk shop, by the time I get to the front, they’re like, “Are you a dealer, do you have a tax ID number?” Nope, it’s all just for me.