What a long, strange trip it's been!

Hello Friends, it's good to have you here!

Well, summer is flying by and I realize I haven't been around here a whole lot, so we have some catching up to do! I spent the last week thrifting some spots I don't normally get to, so I have a lot to share.

My kids were at a day camp down in the area I grew up in, so after dropping them off at 9 am I got to check out all my old favorite shops. So I got myself a plan and made sure to hit the biggest stores first and then the smaller stores later on. (Camp pickup was 3 pm) Most of my good finds at the larger stores were Monday and Tuesday morning. After that, meh... it amazes me how some of these stores can be so huge (one must be close to 20,000 sq.ft- a former big box store) and have so little quality merchandise. Or perhaps that is just the age we are living in and the good stuff is getting harder to find (I know it!)

Anyway, on with the show!

This is my haul from that first big store on Monday and Tuesday mornings. As you might have guessed, it's mostly Pyrex. But I am super stoked about the blue Fire King Kimberly mug- I have a collection of one of each of these in every color and this was the last one I needed. It's taken me a couple of years to find one in the wild, and I almost resorted to Etsy a few times. 

The black Pyrex mug was one of about eight in the store- I only bought one, just to have (again) one in every color, but now I am wishing I had bought them all. They look amazing with my cinnamon colored ones and would be great for Halloween displays. Speaking of Halloween, the cat thingy is a flashlight but it is missing its innards. It's not very old either, but definitely has that vintage look, and for a buck, it cam home with me. The Terra bowls are part of my 'leave no Pyrex behind' strategy and will probably go to my booth. The Verde 443 is the start of a new collection- I just figured out that I have all the Verde fridgies, so now I must collect the bowls...sigh...

These were from my next stop. The opal hostess bowls were probably yellow at one time, but I can't find any trace of color. I'll hang onto them to mix into other displays- I have found that even though opal (aka plain white) Pyrex really doesn't do much for me, it looks great mixed into displays. The milk glass tumblers depict Jack and Jill tumbling down the hill. They are actually made by Hazel Atlas and were part of a children's dinnerware set. I can't really imagine the thought process that went into designing these for children. I know my kids would be wondering what the heck happened to Jack and Jill here...someone online referred to them as 'CSI cups' :)... but the sheer oddity of them was enough for me to add them to my collection.  

At the same store later in the week I found this awesome camp blanket. It is a really strange size- twin width but XXtra long. It came in handy already when we went to a chilly outdoor movie on Friday- we could wrap it completely around the three of with room to spare. I love finding camp blankets because they are beautiful and useful at the same time. I think I have close to 10 now, the only problem being they take up quite a bit of storage space, so I just keep piling them up on the beds. Who needs comforters?

These are my finds from one of my all-time favorite church thrifts. They get good stuff and they price it well. No $19 Pyrex here! The enamel bucket is so amazing, I have already adopted it as my housecleaning bucket. I feel like a Depression-era housewife... cool stuff like this just makes ordinary housework a little easier! (See my ironing post on this topic here) I also found an incredible vintage dress from about the same era in the store. I always wonder if things like this were donated by the same person.

This little child's tea set is so cute and perfect condition. Each cup/saucer set was just 75 cents! (Did I mention that I love this store?) The primary blue fridgie was $2.50 also. And yes, that is a Vera tablecloth! Once it gets a good Oxyclean soak to remove some yellowing, it's headed to the Etsy store.

I think I might be the only person of my generation (except maybe Mick from Everyone Goes to Micks!) who knows what that weird metal thingy is. I'll keep you in suspense about that until later! Lately I have been finding a lot of Ekco Eterna/American Tempo flatware, which is fine with me because it's easy to sell in my Etsy shop. The milk glass mugs are Fire King and Federal and are headed over to my booth. The beaker is my only Pyrex lab ware purchase- I will use it as a vase I guess.

 

On my way home from that store I stopped at a yard sale and picked up these pieces of Pyrex. The large yellow was the last piece I needed to complete another Primary set, since I sold the one I had in my booth last month. Last month's sales were amazing, so I am feeling really good about that part of my endeavors. I just found a snowflake 043 for my personal collection in my last post, so this one will go to the booth as well.

So, did you guess what the mystery item was? 

It's a UHF TV antenna from the early days of broadcasting!

 Of course, we don't need them anymore, but I have a place for it on my TV-quarium!

Two of the most amazing things I've thrifted in a long time

Hello friends, I just wanted to do a quick post on two things I've thrifted recently that are too amazing not to show you. I know many of you are inveterate thrifters and don't need to be told that scores like these are not everyday occurrances. I go to thrifts almost every day but rarely do I come out of there with stuff this good. But I do go often because 90% of the time thrifting is all about being in the right place at the right time, and if you're not in the place at all, that amazing piece will be going home with someone else.

(And I would be a happy camper indeed at this point if I could thrift myself a brand new camera...bear with me because my ancient camera has not been working that well and making blogging in general very difficult!)

Last week I wrote about some of my good thrifting luck and promised to show you the non-Pyrex finds. Well, these are the big things, and later I'll get to the small things.

Thank goodness I have kids or I would have a really hard time explaining why I bought this amazing chair.

Because I totally would have bought it even if I didn't have small people to fit in it.

It is a vinyl upholstered rocking chair, in amazing condition- not a rip or scratch on it. It was more than I usually like to pay at $25, but still, I fell so hard for this I probably would have paid more. I can just see a kid sitting in it in the 1950s watching cartoons or TV westerns. And that is exactly what my kids are doing with it today. Aren't those little diamond details amazing? (and amazing that they survived the years intact!)

And speaking of Western, I found this vintage 1920s Navajo rug in a thrift store! For $20!

I have wanted one of these for ever. I looked for a long time several years ago when we were decorating our living room the first time (see the current look here) before not finding any in my price range. It is huge too, about 4x6. Problem is, now our decorating scheme is more 50s modern/kitsch than the rustic/western look it was before. So I don't know if I will keep it or sell it to finance a new camera. What would you do?

Tour of Chez QT- our Living Room

OK, so I've been talking about this for a long, long time. And then I proceed to blabber on and on about thrift finds and Pyrex.... Well, now it's finally here- the living room reveal!

Last year we (OK, me) decided to revamp our living room. Part of this was by necessity, in that we had to move our entertainment center and some other furniture up to our mountain cabin, so we would have living room furniture up there. And it was also necessary to bring up some of the beautiful mid century modern furniture I had stashed away in the basement!

So here is the only "before" shot I could find- the plaid sofa left over from my husband's bachelor days kind of epitomized the entire room. The coffee table got a MCM makeover, which you can read about here.



I did not paint or really change the overall color scheme. Our walls are kind of a terra cotta color and the sofas are still olive green, although they are new and more modern-looking. The rug is the same burnt red color that used to match the drapes, but then I found these amazing deadstock pinch pleat drapes which you can read about here.

So, to start the tour, you come in through our original 1960 three-paned mahogany door. At one time we almost changed it to a more modern door, but I am super glad we decided to keep it. The wood is beautiful; it just glows.

The oak cabinet is a reproduction of a vintage ice box. It doesn't really match the style of the room anymore, but we do need the storage for videos and records. (Yes, records- as you will see I have many radio/record players in this room.) That is a 1946 GE tabletop radio next to the atomic lamp and the two amazing Rosenthal candle holders I got from Dana over at Mid2Mod! The B&W photo is a family piece, as are a couple others in the room. All the photos are B&W because there is plenty of color elsewhere!

On the right of the door is a little nook that is the perfect size for this 1946 RCA console radio. The front flips open, as you can see, to reveal the radio dial. The record player is under the left side of the top. That is a vintage weather station (Bakelite thermometer/ barometer) on top. There is a round mirror up above (see first photo) and I would eventually like to have a hanging modern ceramic light (W. German style) here, but haven't found the right one yet.

To the left of the door is the main living space, with the large window and large sofa backing it. The other sofa is a loveseat, which we had to special order from Rowe, because apparently no one buys loveseats anymore. They just buy a big sofa or sectional and two Lay-Z-Boys, I guess. That is the same coffee table I posted above, it just looks a lot better now with hairpin legs and a Dansk Kobenstyle enamel piece on top!

You can see my favorite photo of FDR and a 48 star US flag there on the left.

Here is a detail shot of all my vintage planters on the window sill. The two on the right are German ceramics, which I collect.

The leaded glass cabinet was inherited from my Grandmother- she had it removed from a house they lived in long ago. It was built in, so some of the sides are a little rough- which is cool with me. I have a couple more radios and vintage electronics in there, as well as my collections of tiki mugs and cocktail shakers on top. They are up there out of harm's way, because normally this room is full of my kids' toys and books. (I had to get up so early to take these photos, before they came down and filled it with their clutter, LOL!) And another radio on the left at bottom, a Zenith black dial chairside.

Continuing around the room is my famous TV-quarium in the corner. It's a 1950 Motorola that I took the guts out of and put an aquarium inside. The clock is a George Nelson repro, and the owl TV lamp with glowing eyes is a fairly recent thrift find.
 

In place of our giant entertainment center we brought up this 1958 Motorola HiFi console, which had belonged my husband's parents. It has the perfect sleek modern vibe and is a great platform for my light up globe and another vintage TV lamp. On the left are two W. German fat lava planters that actually match. I found them separately, almost a year apart. One thing about this living room, almost nothing is new. The only things not vintage here are the sofas and the TV.

If you would keep going at this point, you'd be in our kitchen. I've done a post about that here, although things are significantly different now that I should probably do another post on that! Oh well, stay tuned I guess!

Thrift Crawl 2013: "This is F#$@&%'n Awesome"

Well, not really that awesome... I don't know if it's that song, or the economy or what, but I remembered why I don't like to go thrifting on Saturdays. The stores were packed and pretty picked over.

It wasn't all bad though- hitting 7 stores in 6 hours over 65 miles is never going to be a total bust. :)

For those of you new to the PIT, every year around my birthday (March 1) I take a whole day and do nothing but shop thrift stores. I try to go to ones I don't normally get to, so it's kind of an event. In general,  don't need any more "stuff"/gifts (though I did get a neat-o espresso machine from my parents, which I love) so all I ask for is a day "off" from being a mom and go out on the road for the whole day. I call it my annual Thrift Crawl, and try to get to as many stores in a day as I can.

This year, I had a few things on my want list- Pyrex, which is my latest obsession, vintage clothing, camp blankets, and anything vintage/industrial. I was successful in almost all the categories, except the vintage clothing. The stores I went to seem to have an incredibly high turnover- there was a lot of empty space on the racks/shelves, so I imagine anything vintage gets snapped up immediately. That's OK, though, I have tons of it in storage- I probably have less than half of my current inventory listed in my Etsy shop. (And, as always, I will remind blog readers that you are all eligible for 20% off your purchase with coupon code PIT20OFF.)

I was a bit disappointed in the Pyrex selection- collecting it must be getting really popular, because I hardly even saw any. Most of my haul came from a single store- apparently the others were picked over before I got there. I did see a fair amount of Fire King (even some Peach Lustre and Gay Fad, which were really tempting, but the condition wasn't perfect so I passed) and the ubiquitous Glasbake.

I didn't see any Pyrex (with the exception of a badly dishwashered red 501 fridgie) until my fourth stop. It took some digging, but I unearthed this Federal Eagle mug. The condition isn't perfect, but I love mugs and have never seen this one before, so it came home with me.

Finally at my 6th stop I found some good stuff. A Butterfly Gold butter dish for $2.50- mint condition. I initially thought I might sell or trade it, but now I'm thinking I might try to collect all the butter dishes. I knew that I would find a butter dish after I went out and bought one (Butterprint) on eBay a couple weeks ago! Well, I'm not complaining- only wishing I had bought the Old Towne butter dish I passed up a couple months ago.

I also found these cute red casseroles- they are so tiny- 10 oz! I posed them next to the butter dish, because they are almost the same size. They'll be perfect for individual servings of broiled seafood and the like, if I can bring myself to use them- except for a few scratches from storage they look like they've never been used.

These footed bowls are Fire King. I wouldn't have bought them individually, but as a group I really like the colors. For only 50 cents each, they are mine. I'm guessing there was at least one more, probably red or brown, at one time to make the set.

This is the first Tiki mug I've found in a couple of years. I have a decent size collection, but acquired most of them a while ago. This rum barrel is from the Kona Kai, Philadelphia's only Tiki bar of note. Check out the following photo- wish I had could have gone there!

This is an old tin from the 30s. Judging by the label on the bottom and the great sports-theme graphics, I think it was for deodorant. I hesitated because the price was $1.50, and for something like this it seemed high. But I'm glad I got it just for the graphics, and I think it will be the perfect size for hair pins on my dresser- definitely an upgrade from the old mug they live in now.

This is quickly becoming my favorite find. It's a ceramic owl TV lamp. You can see how the light comes through the holes in the body, and the eyes also glow. It was only priced at $3.50, which is really low for the store I was in, and for TV lamps in general. When I took it up to the register the girl there said she had just put it out- right time, right place for me!

Not shown are another camp blanket- a newer, mostly acryilc version of the pink one I picked up a while back, and an industrial office in/out letter rack, which is pretty cool looking and I will have to take a photo of  another time. All in all, it was a fun day!

It's beginning to look...

...a little like Christmas around here. We've started putting up decorations, and have a few new items this year. I found some really great holiday items over this past year, and while many of them went into my Etsy shop, I saved a couple for us.

Here are some of the newer vintage items around Chez QT:

A pair of bottlebrush trees and a little flocked deer on top of my TV-quarium. I should now say that this is my "prize-winning" TV-quarium, LOL, thanks to the good folks over at No Pattern Required, one of my favorite blogs. Unfortunately, the TV-quarium will have to be moved somewhere else next week, as this is the place we put our Christmas tree.

One of a pair of vintage stockings I'm using as decorations around the entrance to our living room. I make the white pine garland myself every year- over 25 feet. It's very easy; I should do a tutorial one of these days.

I found four of these bakelite and cardboard window candles at an estate sale this summer. I have other red window candles and I needed a couple new ones- these are perfect. They are also nice and heavy so they don't have to be taped to the windowsill. (Don't you hate that? LOL)

I have some new blow molds also- the two angels were 99 cents each at Sine's 5&10. Really. This store still has stock from the 50s and 60s and has never changed the prices over all these years. Instead of putting them up in the living room like last year, I decided to put them all in the downstairs window. I don't know if I like this or not, but we'll see. I do know that I need at least one more, because groupings of odd numbers look better. See how I can rationalize another collection? :) This is why I have more stuff than space.... heehee!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway! Now that we're up to 100 followers, it's official- game on! Get your name in by Friday, and at this point you have a pretty good chance of winning!

A Little R-n-R part 2- the goodies!

Okay, now that I got that last post off my chest it's back to the fun and frivolity! On our 10th anniversary get- away post last month, I mentioned all the great antiques stores we stopped at in Adamstown, PA. Since I am so cheap, most of the time when I go into an "antiques store", it is purely a research project. As in, how much can I get for my stuff if I put it in my Etsy Store, and laughing at the prices some folks will pay.

But there are always a few bargains to be found, I guess, and particularly when you are faced with So Much Stuff! Don't get me wrong, there were things in there I wanted to buy, but I just don't have the money to spend $1200 on an amazing lithographed tin toy from the turn of the century.

My outift for our 2nd day out- wide legged sailor jeans, saddle shoes and  my 49er.

So what did I buy? Well, since selling vintage clothing has become my business, I naturally looked those racks over pretty carefully. And those of you of like mind and taste will probably agree when I tell you that most of the older stuff I saw was either in poor condition or had a sky high price tag. There were plenty of newer items from the 60s and 70s to be had more reasonably, but those just aren't my style. And on a trip like this, I buy for myself- I can't make enough money re-selling things that are on the high side to start with.

So I found this gem of a handmade day dress:

It's never been worn, has the original belt and I loved the cute cotton print fabric. But at $15, it did have one flaw: all the buttons melted when it was pressed! They aren't melted onto the dress, thankfully, just into flat disks that are no longer functional or pretty. Eventually I will find some nice vintage buttons and replace them all before I wear it next spring.

My next find was blue and white also. I recently became an official Pyrex collector, and besides the primary color set, I have been working on a Butterprint mixing bowl set. I had bought the large 444 last fall at a Goodwill ($2.99) and hadn't really found anything else cheap and in great condition (my two priorities, in that order!) But at one of the antique malls I found a little booth of only Pyrex and Fire King, and they had the 441 there for only $4. (There were actually quite a few booths with glassware and kitchen items; some were so spectacularly staged I could have lived there- wish I had my camera to share them with you.)

The 442 was at the booth as well, but not in as great shape, and for $6, I think I can do better eventually. The thrill of the hunt is really why I'm in it, anyway. 

And my final purchase was totally one of those splurge deals, for something that I would normally laugh at my own stupidity for paying the price, if it weren't so gosh-darn perfect:

I bought a set of rabbit ears for my TV-quarium. Late 40s/early 50s RCA antenna, with bakelite base and red tips on the antenna. It is so perfect, that for $18 I didn't think twice. (The other item on top of the set is not a radio, it's a UHF tuner which came with the original TV for $1. I have a couple TV lamps that I'm playing around with as well; still haven't settled on the perfect 'look'. But the rabbit ears are definitely staying!

A Little R-n-R, part 1

Last week my husband and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. While that's unbelievable in itself (has it really been 10 years already?), what might be more surprising is that we have never taken an overnight trip on our own, without kids, in seven years. So it was high time to remedy that situation.

Once Grammie was settled in and taking care of the kids- bless her, it's not easy to get a 3 and 6 year old off to school in the morning- we set off on a little trip to Lancaster County. Our itinerary was to spend Thursday shopping in Adamstown, PA -the antique capital of the world- and stay overnight at an old hotel in Lititz. Friday we would spend some time in Lititz, then make a stop at a farmer's market on the way home.

Pennsylvania's Lancaster County (aka "Amish Country", for those of you in parts far off) has always felt like home for me. My family has lived there for generations, since the mid-1700s. My grandmother lived in Lititz for much of her life and I spent many happy weekends there visiting. So I wasn't exactly the usual tourist (something there are lots of, this time of year), but it was a little different to actually be there as a hotel guest.

Adamstown is a little over an hour's drive from our home. But it was well worth the trip to do some shopping at all the antique malls and stores there. We spent hours poring over the booths at the Mad Hatter, Pine Hills, Adams Antiques, and others. I bought some goodies, which will be part 2 of this post!

We ate lunch at a great brewpub, the Union Barrel Works in Reamstown. It's a little off the beaten path, but well worth seeking out. The food and the brew were incredible! We had originally planned to eat lunch at Stoudt's in Adamstown, but they are not open for lunch during the week. Quite a few of the antiques shops in Adamstown are also not open during the week, so plan your visit accordingly. It wasn't a problem for us, because there were plenty of other places that were open- more than we could do in a day!

This was my outfit for the day- a Lilli Ann knit suit with a 1940s collegiate look (the skirt is pleated, hard to tell in the photo) and saddle shoes. It was the perfect outift- quite comfortable for a day of shopping.

Then it was on to the General Sutter Hotel in Lititz for our overnight stay and dinner.

Our room was beautiful- nice and roomy with antique Victorian furnishings. It was just our style; we don't really enjoy the corporate hotel chains, and try to stay in places like this whenever possible.

I loved the "TV lounge" just down the hall- it was really a library/sitting room for the guests. I was daydreaming about how to turn this old "portable" TV into an aquarium....

We ate dinner there as well; the food was out of this world. I had a NY strip with an Asian soy-ginger sauce, and my husband had crab cakes. We dressed for the occasion- my dress is the first piece of vintage clothing I ever owned. It's a black velvet wiggle dress with the most incredible beading detail around the neckline and front pocket. I think it dates from the mid-late 1950s. It was given to me in high school by a friend of my mother's who knew I needed a black dress for a concert. Needless to say, this dress is a little over-the-top for concert attire, but still one of my favorites for dressy occasions.

Halloween at Chez QT, 2011

These last few years I have really been getting into the Halloween spirit, and decorating up a storm around Chez QT. I think it is one of the few holidays I enjoy as much, if not more, than my kids.

Since my kids are so small (6 and 3) I try to stay away from the blood and gore, monsters and such. They're too young for that sort of thing. I focus instead on generally creepy things, like bugs and naturalistic/decayed things. I'm big on groupings of slightly weird objects as well, like last year's display of stopped clocks (up again this year).

My kitchen sideboard. It's nice to get out some silver and not polish it for a change, LOL. The pumpkin on a candy dish pedestal is a real pumpkin from last year that we hollowed out down to the skin and dried in the oven. It's basically ever-lasting now, and filled with faux leaves. 

I love bugs this year! The branches are curly willow from my brother's tree, spray painted black. We used a lot of them all over the house.

My son found these skulls in the woods- one is a fox and the other a coyote.

More curly willow stuck in a fat lava pot with a mum. This is probably one of the best shots of the new TV aquarium, with its new test-pattern backdrop. (Why I couldn't get a decent shot before, I'll never know...)

I love this idea- reminds me of something out of a magazine. Normally I have cornstalks on the front porch, but ours were all ratty after the hurricanes and not fit for display. Thank goodness for the curly willow! (And did I ever mention how much I love galvanized stuff? The bucket is an old sap bucket I trash picked from a dump in the woods ;) 

Jayson grew all of our pumpkins in the garden this year- it was a very good year.

Also note my Halloween blowmolds, all lit up and happy at night (like some of you are, I'm sure, LOL)! I put orange flicker bulbs in the front carriage lights also- that is such an easy, cool effect, I wonder why more people don't do that.

And finally, RIP Dracula...

While it looks nice and sunny, I turned around and snapped this picture of the cold front coming in!

If that's not scary, I don't know what is!

Living in a Fishbowl

Well, I finally finished my TV-to-fish tank project. For those of you who are long time readers you may remember that I had a 1950 Motorola TV that I bought at a yard sale. It never worked, but the cabinet was nice solid mahogany, the speaker cloth was fine, and I knew it had potential.

I took the guts out of it- that picture tube was heavy! It had a few scratches (OK, gouges) and water marks on the top, so I had to refinish it. After my coffee-table makeover project earlier this summer, I knew this would be fairly easy.

Here's the 'before':

And the 'after'. Came out pretty well! I also restored the knobs with a little elbow grease and some black marker to color in the dial numbers (remember those? LOL).

But that was the easy part. The hard part was finding a fish tank that fit inside and that covered the whole porthole window. I finally found one at a yard sale this weekend for $3. It's actually a hermit crab tank, but it fits great and has a cover. I had trashpicked a filter pump and aerator from our neighbors and two seascape backdrops, so all that went inside as well. At some point I want to find a large black and white still from a vintage TV show to use as a backdrop, so it looks more like the TV is still playing a 1950s show. 

I had to buy some lighting for inside the tank. Since there is very little headroom, I decided to get a string of rope lighting and attached it to the inside upper edge. It's not real bright, but it does the trick- it was more important that the lights didn't get very hot.

We made a shelf out of plywood to fit on the rails that held the TV chassis and slid the new tank in.

It's hard to see, but we have two fish in there- Gomer Pyle and Barney Fife. One fish is white and the other black and white. My son is a huge fan of the Andy Griffith show, so hopefully we'll find a B&W photo from that show that we can use as a backdrop. (We lost our best fish, Nemo, earlier in the week, so he never made the move. RIP, Nemo.)

And lit up at night, with a Helmscene 3D TV lamp on top. (I must have taken 100 pix trying to get a good one, and this is the best of that lot. My camera stinks!) That is a vintage ad for the 1952 version of this TV on the table next to it. I used that for reference when putting the knobs back together.

Nov. 2011 update: I changed the background to a vintage test pattern, and added period rabbit ears and a UHF tuner:

It is definitely cool, and I think just about anyone with an old TV could do it, if I could!