Stove update #2

Hi everyone, things have been kind of crazy around here (it's deer hunting season- I am a hunting widow...). But I do have a stove update, since that's what I've been focusing my free time on.

I found a great place for parts and wire, and best of all it's local! Bergey's Electric in Hatfield, PA was a life saver for me so far. At the urging of my mother-in-law (the Bergeys are her cousins) I gave them a call searching for the right wire (heat resistant, right amperage, etc.). I highly recommend them, and if you're tackling a similar project, do not hesitate to give them a call: 215-723-5518.

I had not had much luck with the other local places I had called, so I was not expecting much. (Because no one actually repairs appliances anymore, they just tell you to get new ones!) I know some of the parts are available over the web, but I much prefer to support local businesses and it's so much nicer to deal with people face to face.

Not only did they have the right, OEM wire in stock, I had the owner and the appliance repair man there to help me get the rest of my shopping list. I needed the burner wires- they had the original spool wire there and cut it to my measurements- the heavier gauge wire that goes to the oven elements, the connectors, and also as a bonus, an original ceramic recepticle for the burner itself.

The burners plug into a ceramic connector which is wired directly to the knob. I had one that was cracked and they just happened to have an identical one on the parts shelf. And guess what? They gave it to me!

And here's the neat part- know why they happened to have that original part on the shelf? They were the original and only licensed Westinghouse dealer in the area. Chances are that they were the ones that sold my stove when it was brand new. The owner said that if I can track down the name of the original owner, they can probably locate the original bill of sale. Now, if that's not a reason to shop local, I don't know what is!

A hole where the heat should be

Here's the first stove update:

Egads! Major dissassembly. I've pretty much removed everything I could get off for a thorough cleaning and investigation. I've taken off the drawers, the burners, the chrome rings and all the back panels. (That 1946 GE radio is for listening to playoff baseball while I'm working- go Phils and Tigers! On a good day I can pull in WJR from Detroit.)

Thank goodness I have a garage to work in!

The door handles are going to get rechromed, and I'll be re-wiring the burners. Here's why:

Those tangled up wires are all dry rotted and brittle. Not something I want to cook on! 

Hopefully rewiring will be straightforward- I can clearly see where all the wires are supposed to hook up to and where they come from. As long as I can get the right wire this shouldn't be too hard. I have a little experience in rewiring and my brother is an electrician so if I get stuck I have some help. The burners themselves are not as bad as I thought they were- I am planning to put them same ones back in.

I'm hoping not to have to do much to the oven wiring- that looks pretty good from what I can see. I'm excited to get past the cleaning stage- that was pretty yucky!

Check one off the bucket list

Ain't she sweet?

As she sat in the seller's basement- obviously this is not my kitchen!

I have wanted a vintage stove forever. Certainly as long as I have lived in our current place -going on 9 years now. With the vintage kitchen I have, it was one of the biggest missing pieces.

But I had a modern stove that worked fine and was perfectly acceptable until recently. As a matter of fact, it still does work, it's just not pretty to look at. So this was the perfect time to start looking for the vintage stove of my dreams! I can have the luxury of taking my time with a restoration project, but still with the motivation that it needs to get finished and get put in ASAP.

Plus, it was relatively easy to convince my husband that we shouldn't spend so much on a brand new stove that I didn't really want anyway. I used my own money on this stove and will continue to do so for the restoration, which probably will include new counter tops, since this stove is 10" wider. (Thank you to those of you that have shopped my Etsy store- your purchases made this little project possible!)

So what did I get? A 1950s Westinghouse stove with double oven, three burners and a deep well cooker. I haven't figured out the exact year yet, but I'm guessing sometime around 1954-56. The double oven was #1 on my list of "must haves"; the deep well cooker, not so much. I don't yet know if I'm going to love it or hate it. But it does have plenty of "counter space", as well as two outlets if I decide I want to add an extra burner or two.

It works great- the knobs are super cool. They change from green backlit to yellow to red as the burner gets hot.

I do want to completely rewire the burners, and probably the oven elements, though, for safety's sake. And I have already taken some of the chrome pieces (door handles) off to get re-chromed. (We have always wanted to restore an old car, and this is kind of like my own version of that.) So it will be a bit of a learning process for me. Hopefully everything isn't too tricky to find and to fix; I really don't want to spend tons of money on professionals.

I will keep everyone updated on the progress, and hopefully you all will be as interested in this as I am! In the meantime, enjoy this c.1960 commercial for Westinghouse appliances featuring the cast of I Love Lucy.

Pyrex Done Deal.

Alright, OK, you win!

Behold- the primary color mixing bowl set. I went back this morning and paid $30. They are absolutely mint, with no scratches, chips or marks at all. I know they're very early because they have that deep shape, plus they are thicker than the more modern primary bowls. They have the earliest mark on the bottom, the kind that says only "T.M. REG." and "U.S. PAT. OFF" in a circle around "PYREX", with no numbers.

I had almost talked myself out of them, but all of you that commented have such great taste that I knew I had better listen to you guys! :) Plus, I knew if they were still there today, she'd be in the mood to deal. I think the price is pretty good, and I will be listing some other Pyrex in my Etsy store to make some room on my shelves for these. 

I guess that makes it official. I collect Pyrex. There, I said it. ;)

I actually went to another estate sale today to look at a vintage stove (with double oven!) and will know late tomorrow if they accept my offer on that. Hopefully I will be 2 for 2 this weekend!

Flea Market Friday: Salad Days and Pyrex (This post brought to you by the letter K)

Those of you with more than a preschool education may be wondering why I've posted this Friday update on a Thursday. I'll get to that later.

I happened to stop by an estate sale today after dropping my daughter off at school. Those are the best times to go shopping- on a weekday when I have no kids along!

I picked up this 1940s wooden salad set in mint condition for $4. It has the wooden bowl with hand painted veggies, salad tongs and six bowls. I have been wanting one of these sets for a long time; as a matter of fact, my mother has one. We grew up using it a lot as kids, and it always makes me a little nostalgic. I figure that I will eventually inherit that one, so I hadn't bought my own.

But when I saw this one, I couldn't help myself. It has literally never been used! And my mom's is all chipped up and worn. Plus the little old lady selling the stuff was so sweet, and we got to talking... and I had to have it. For $4 I think it was well worth it. Now I just have to clear some space on my shelves! That is after we use it tonight, probably the first time it will have seen lettuce in 60 years.

I also bought this metal letter for my daughter Kate, which originally was a medallion for a screen door. She is three, and yes she is learning the days of the week in preschool this month. I'm probably going to put it on her bedroom door.

I had actually been to a yard sale at this same house a few months ago (where I bought this galvanized tub) and left it behind that time. I regretted not buying it since then. For 50 cents I should've bought it the first time. When I got a second chance at it today, I didn't think twice!

And that brings me to second chances, and why I'm posting this on Thursday instead of Friday.  Also at this estate sale is a set of Pyrex primary colors mixing bowls. They are in great shape, and have the earliest hallmark at the bottom, from the 40s. The lady wants $45 for them. After hemming and hawing, I decided to leave them there. I have lots of bowls, including a couple Pyrex mixing bowls, like the large yellow one from that set. I have never felt the desire to own the complete primary color set, although the colors do appeal to me and they are so iconic. I do have some other primary color stuff, like fridgies, but I buy them to use, not to complete a set. I hesitate to call myself a Pyrex collector, although I do own quite a bit and really love it. (They just take up so much darn space! :)

However, the bowls are in such great shape, and I know it is a good price. I think I could probably go back and get them tomorrow for $35 or $40. If I buy them I would not sell them; I would use them, though I may sell some other pieces to make room and might just about break even eventually.

So what do you guys think? Should I go back and get them if they're still there tomorrow?

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!

Flea Market Friday: Beacon Blankets

A few weeks ago I was able to right a childhood wrong by going to a rummage sale. Well, that might be a little bit of a reach. But I was able to recapture a childhood memory of sorts, and pass it on to my kids.


When I was a kid, we had a blanket that we used for taking to picnics, outdoor concerts, etc. It was very colorful and had a southwestern motif. We used to call it the "Indian Blanket". Eventually all that toting around took its toll and we lost it somewhere, never to be seen again. Of all the things we misplaced over the years, that blanket is probably the one thing we remember most. 


As I grew older and more obsessed with collecting, I realized that the "Indian Blanket" had been a Beacon blanket, or "Camp" blanket. These textiles were originally manufactured from 1920 through the 1940s by the Beacon Manufacturing Company. In fact, they sold so many -21 million a year in the late 1930’s- that “Beacon” became a generic name for the cotton camp blanket. Beacon pitched its product as a modern marvel: a fluffier, less expensive, moth-proof alternative to wool that was easier to clean and just as warm. Their designs originally copied Navajo hand weavings although at their peak, Beacon produced as many as 1500 styles, including many Art Deco motifs.

Country Living did an article on them a while back, if you want to read a bit more.

In all my years of scouring thrift stores, yard sales and such I have always looked for another "Indian Blanket". And perhaps a little part of me was hoping to discover the exact same blanket I had had as a child. But I never found one, until a few weeks ago.

I scored this blue and tan example with an Art Deco ombre plaid (the fading design pattern was a Beacon trademark) for $4 at a rummage sale. It's in great shape, with no holes, tears or frays, something that probably couldn't have been said of our original Indian blanket. It is a perfect fall addition to my son's bed, and he loves it because it is nice and soft. I promised him I would be more careful with this one and not lose it!