Oprah is Selling Off Her Furniture and You Can Buy It

Julie Miller



Oprah's furnishings before, and in Oprah-sealed boxes after.
Oprah's furnishings before, and in Oprah-sealed boxes after.

Media billionaires are just like us-only instead of hosting garage sales in hopes of affording a full-home Crate and Barrel makeover, they host lavish furniture auctions with proceeds generously going to charity.

In order to accommodate an interior-design rehaul of her 23,000-square-foot Santa Barbara estate, Oprah Winfrey announced this week that she will auction off her West Coast home's contents, with the proceeds going to her leadership academy for girls in South Africa. Intriguingly, Oprah decided to redecorate not after evaluating her true self in one of her magazine's many tutorials but after an interior designer pricked her insecurities with a harsh yet business-savvy neg: "This house has nothing to do with you." (Winfrey consequently hired the interior designer, Rose Tarlow, the Los Angeles Times notes.)

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Instead of showcasing all of her gilded mirrors and marble urns on 1,000-thread-count sheets on her Montecito lawn in the yard sale of our dreams, Oprah will cede selling responsibilities to Kaminiski Auctions, which will hawk her furnishings on the grounds of the Santa Barbara Polo and Racquet Club on November 2.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

"The auction lots will include hand-wrought iron panels from her staircase estimated at $4,000 to $7,000, a green and white plaid George Smith couch valued at $3,000 to $4,000, a Louis XVI chest valued at $30,000 to $50,000, and Louis XV armchairs in hand-embroidered yellow silk upholstery valued at $20,000 to $40,000. The Winfrey collection also includes artworks by Allen Stringfellow, John Kramer and Clementine Hunter."

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Items will be posted online next Friday. In the meantime, if any Los Angeles-based readers are interested in carpooling with your blogger to the free in-person preview, between October 30 and November 1, please message us below.

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