Style Envy

I don't know about all of you, but sometimes I get a really bad case of house envy from looking at others' blogs. Perfectly put-together homes with consistent styles get me every time. Those homes also tend to be the polar opposite of what mine looks like - a carefully curated museum exhibit, rather than the museum storage room! Makes me want to sell everything on ebay and start fresh!

My house is such a hodge-podge of styles, sometimes I fell like it's everything and nothing all at the same time. I'm not sure if I could even limit myself to one particular style of decorating. But if I could, I would have a whole house of mid century modern decor. Or maybe vintage industrial. Or maybe cottage chic.... I guess that's the problem, really, I love it all!

Literally, I have all these styles and more in various rooms of my 1800 square foot house:

Shabby chic/cottage style:

Rustic Adirondack:

Mid Century Modern:

50's Atomic

40's cute

Art Deco:

At this point I think I'm too set in my ways and too much in love with all my stuff to ditch everything and start over. A lifetime of collecting vintage items will do that, I suppose. But it still doesn't deter me from dreaming about owning and furnishing a 1950s Eichler, or a 30s Frank Lloyd Wright, or an industrial loft, or....

What about you? Can you stick to one style or is it a mishmash?

Thrifted Thursday: 1950s atomic storage stool

As I noted in my previous post, I have been doing quite a bit of thrifting lately. I went to some of the usual places, and also one of my favorite places that I don't get to very often. It was there that I found something I've been looking for for some time- a vintage storage stool!

I love the upholstery; unfortunately it is vinyl and the top is cracked. I'll have to replace that some time. But the rest of it is in great shape. As you can see it matches my great trash-picked MCM black and white chair. I paid $10 for it, and I think that was a pretty sweet deal. 

Trash Picked Tuesday: Pyrex!

I'm thrilled to be a member of the new Pyrex Collective III- here is a post I wrote for that site yesterday. Hop on over when you're done here and check it out!

I have been using Pyrex all my life, of course, but mostly the clear stuff. And as much as I love the colors and patterns... well, we all know they can't go through the dishwasher. And as a stay-at-home entrpreneur ;) with two small kids, I am all about the dishwasher.

So while I collect Pyrex to display and use (carefully) I often find myself relying on those pieces that are clear or just plain white for everyday use, and dishwashing!

And since I am also all about frugal living, I try to buy my pieces as cheap as possible. I prowl the thrifts, the yard sales, the flea markets, etc. for Pyrex.

There is nothing I like better than finding cheap Pyrex, except, of course, finding free Pyrex!

I nabbed these two cuties outside of one of my favorite thrifts, on the "Free" pile! I don't know how or why they got there, but heck, I'm not complaining! I will get lots of use out of the divided dish- I have a primary yellow one in which I usually bake a chicken leg or two on one side with the stuffing on the other. I also make my own bread every week, so the loaf pan will sure come in handy. It has the old style scalloped handles. The loaf pan has a few chips around the rim, but nothing that makes it completely unusable, while the divided dish is pristine. Not bad for being free!

                                                                                                            

Trash to Treasure: Kustom Bathroom Scale

This is another one of those projects I have had hanging around forever! Just like the TV-quarium project, I have had this old bathroom scale on the back burner for years. Literally, like 10 years. 

It had been a wedding present to my in-laws back in 1960. After a while it got too rusty and grungy to be in the bathroom and they had it sitting in the garage. I asked if I could have it, since we have a pink and black bathroom and it would match. I knew it would take a lot of work to get back to being usable, so I just stored it in the basement for a -long- time.

For all those years, my main concern was that I wasn't able to find the "correct" vinyl to restore the treads- pink textured with sparkles (!). I would have settled for just plain pink upholstery vinyl, but I could never find just the right shade to match the tile and the pink paint I already had.

Then I saw a great bathroom scale restoration done by the folks over at the Hepcats Restorations blog (thanks guys!) using black step tread material, and finally had my lightbulb moment! I didn't have to find original vinyl, I could do something a little different.

So we disassembled it, peeled off the old vinyl and stripped the paint.

The back got a coat of Rustoleum textured matte black and some new rubber feet. 

The top got several coats of pink paint. Notice the strip of original vinyl on the right, and how closely the pink matches! My husband used to be an auto body tech, so he did the prep and painting- much better than I could have done!

I masked off the shoulders and a strip on the front to leave the original chrome. Then I smoothed out the edges with a little pinstripe. Cleaned up the dial and painted the wheel and the "Detecto" emblem with black. 

Since I was going to be able to cut the tread material to whatever design I wanted, I decided to have a little fun with it and do a flame pattern. I did need to cover the holes in the top, so I had to take that into account when cutting the treads.

So here it is! Another item crossed off the to-do list, and a fun weekend project. Might even make stepping on the scale enjoyable!

Indoor Activities: Easy and cheap tabletop garden

I thought I'd take a moment to show off an easy indoor project for those of you craving a little gardening fix in the middle of winter. I'm totally in love with miniature worlds indoors, be it dollhouses, or terrariums. And while I didn't have the skills or materials to create a terrarium, I did have this great collection of stuff that we could put together in a tabletop garden.

This is such an easy project, I let my kids do it. (Well, most of it; I'm kind of OCD about the messy factor, so I did the dirt part...). I used an outdoor planter that was shallow and wide. This was a cast off from one of my aunts, so it didn't cost anything. Since it doesn't have any holes for drainage, we filled it half way with gravel I scooped up from the road (why pay for fancy river rock that no one is going to see anyway?). I added a couple scoops of topsoil, and then placed the large items.

My son found the large fossil rock at the river this summer and he added a couple pieces of turkey tail fungus and pinecones for variety. We also dug a few tiny ferns up from the woods.

I had a sad miniature palm that was barely hanging on; only a few tall sections were still growing, so I put those in the planter for a bit of height. I bought the pink plant new for a couple of dollars at the grocery store. Any small scale plant will do, but I liked this one for the bit of color it added. 

We peeled up some moss from the yard and used it to cover all the remaining dirt. Every few days I just add a bit of water to the plants and spray the moss with water from a spray bottle. My kids added the army men, which I think came out pretty cool- kind of an homage to jungle warfare- without being too kitschy! 

Blog Roll Updates!

My daughter, the future librarian!

I am reducing clutter, virtually, for the New Year. My blog roll had become quite cluttered, with over 250 blogs I was following. So, I went through them all, and deleted about 60 of the ones I no longer read or haven't been updated in the last several months. Hopefully no one will take it personally if I deleted myself from their follower list!

Also, if you are a follower of my blog, I do try to follow yours if you have one. Let me know by leaving a comment sometimes, if I am not on your list! And if you know of a worthwhile blog to follow, please leave a comment below and maybe that person will gain a few new followers from here. Generally, I try to follow blogs that are updated at least once a week, and contain something of interest to me, whether it is vintage lifestyle, sustainable living or decorating. I intensely dislike blogs that exist solely for product or individual promotion, so don't even bother suggesting one of those.

I am also considering what types of new posts followers most like, so leave a comment if you would like to see more or less of the following: collecting, history, thrifting, projects, or anything else I might have forgotten!

Thrifted Thursday: Tons of stuff!!!

As I mentioned before, I have been doing a lot of thrifting lately. For pure tonnage in the thrifts, January and February are probably the best time to shop- a lot of people are decluttering for the New Year! I also have the added incentive of having to outfit a new kitchen at our cabin. I've been buying the usual clothing for the shop and also have been shopping for kitchenware for the first time in years.

Since it's been about 10 years since I really had to buy kitchenware, I have the opportunity to establish a new vintage look. And since this is a cabin, I'm going for a rustic, Adirondack style with lots of enamelware and cast iron. I love, love, love enamelware as it is, so the opportunity to buy more and to put it to use is really exciting to me.

I'm going to try to do the whole place without buying anything new or plastic (save the odd piece of jadeite green Tupperware). I think the entire contents of the wire basket cost me about $10. I bought the crinkle wire basket from an Etsy seller, and that was probably the mot expensive thing I've bought so far at about $20.

I got a pair of these sheets for $1 each, and I am thinking about turning them into curtains. Or I might move them into the store...they are really pretty.

This suit I originally bought for the store as well, but after I brought it home, I realized it would fit me. It's brown nubby wool with flecks of red and purple, in mint condition (and only $10!). It's so classic I am having trouble dating it (I'm thinking 1980s does 40s?). I love the cutouts on the collar and the placement of the buttons. It fits me like it was custom tailored, and I have already worn it once!

I found my first pieces of confetti lucite also- these two bracelets and the earrings below. Too bad they don't match- they were found at 2 different stores. The bracelets were $5 each and the earrings were $2.

These boots are about as close as I can come to Uggs, which I refuse to wear. They were brand new, still with the $60 Kohl's tag on them. I paid a little more than I usually do ($15) but they are suede and I needed something like this. They are really warm!

This last one is probably my biggest score. I needed a tea kettle for the cabin, and was looking for one of those old, classic aluminum ones. But then I saw this enamelware one for $6 and was sold.  It had never been used. Not until I was in line at the register (and realized how freakin' heavy it was!) did I notice what was on the bottom...

Score!