Weekend Picks, Etc.

We knew we had an auction to go to last Saturday morning right in our neighborhood. How handy is that? While I was getting ready, Roger ran down to scope it out. He came back and told me there really wasn't much there, except some chrome and laminate tables. Now, he can say that sort of thing, but I like to see for myself. I'm pretty good at finding stuff that he overlooks. And, vice versa. That's why we work together on this. The auction didn't last long - less than three hours. We came home with a number of great things!

 

 

I picked up a flat and a couple boxes/bags of small Christmas décor. I love all these little angels. Especially the little cardboard ones with the wooden bead heads.

 

 

I could not figure out the point of this Styrofoam Santa, but how can you possibly go wrong with a Styrofoam Santa?

 

And, then my sister asked me if it opens....Oh my gosh!! It's a Styrofoam Santa cooler!! Why would you need a Santa cooler? Why not? I can hardly wait to start decking our booth for Christmas.

We also picked up a flat of baby toys. I probably would have passed them up at first glance, but Roger pointed them out, so I picked through them a bit more. It was the blue bear rattle that sold me.

I picked these two pillows out of some boxes of ratty blankets. They're pristine and obviously handmade. What is this pattern called? It looks like stained glass.

Remember the chrome and laminate tables? Yeah, we bought five of them. I'm not even going to tell you what we paid. It was criminal. What do you do with five tables? Stack them in your living room, of course! Hoping to get these out of here soon!

More great finds at Thriftasaurus!

Details

It's all about the trim. Roger puts so much time into figuring out the trim work for any project. And those little details are what make me love our house. He's doing it again in my trailer. And the exciting part is that I can finally start to see this space coming together!

 

This is the first completed window. Look! It has a window ledge! More space for me to display more stuff! I might even put a sacrificial plant in the window. It will look great until I manage to kill it...

 

 

See how the there is a little ledge at the top of the wainscoting? That will go all around the trailer. More space for stuff!

 

 

He worked on the other windows tonight, too. By the time he finished up for the night, they were completely trimmed out. These windows are going to be way too pretty to cover with curtains. I'm thinking that valances will be enough.

 

 

Remember the completely amazing metal table leaves I bought this past spring? They're next up to be mounted.

 

 

If you look closely, you can see a penciled letter "C" on the wood. That's the center line. The leaves fit into the space absolutely perfectly! Still my most favorite part of this trailer!

I was down at the flea market/antique mall this afternoon and found these three crisper drawers. The plan is to somehow incorporate these drawers into a storage cabinet. I'm excited to see what Roger comes up with. My favorite drawer is the one that says "Hydrator". It's hard to see in this picture, the other two have blue flowers on the handle of the one of the left and the one on the right says "crisper" on the drawer handle.

It is FINISHED!

So, after sitting in our living room 95% finished for at least a year, the Gym Dandy Surrey restoration is complete! I finally figured out how and got up the nerve to sew that canopy! Cutting into a big piece of canvas like that is not to be taken lightly, you know! Roger is very happy to see it done. He did his part with the wood and metal, and he's been on me ever since to do my part with the fabric.

I used this table cover tutorial as a guideline for sewing the corners, and added a little dart where the top of the surrey peaks. This makes the sides of the canopy come down a little further than the original canopy would have, but I like the deeper look. I sewed bits of ribbon at each of the four corners and at the two peak darts so that the canopy can be tied into place. I didn't want a gust of Kansas wind to rip off the canopy and send it flying into the next county! Finally, I used my serger to finish the bottom edge of the canopy before sewing the tasseled fringe into place.

And, then we entered it in the parade! The girls got third place in Saturday's kiddie parade. I wanted to see it in the parade at least once before we offer it up for sale. Our driver was a pro, but her legs were tired when she was done!

We've had several people ask where we got parts and graphics for our Gym Dandy Surrey restoration. We recommend Cowboys & Kidillacs.

More great finds at Nifty Thrifty and Thriftasaurus.

Recent Finds

A couple Saturdays ago, we woke up and decided to attend an auction. We had no intention of going to this auction when we went to bed on Friday, but we took a peek at some pictures, it was nearby and we figured, "What the heck?"

So glad we went! We ended up with some great items!

I can't find any information on this set of vintage glasses. Each one has a card suit symbol on it, and they sit on a nice glass holder. The glasses each stand about 5 inches tall. A friend suggested they may be half pint glasses.

There was a ton of enamelware at this auction. We picked up a few pieces in a fabulous aqua blue color, but this is my favorite piece and one that I am keeping for my crafting trailer. It has a red rim, and I believe is a collapsible spice rack. I think it will look adorable holding colorful bottles of craft supplies.

This was the most exciting purchase of the day, at least in  Roger's opinion. It's a vintage dental chair. He's been working on shining up the chrome so we can get it down to the antique mall as soon as possible. The hydraulics work, and it is in quite good condition. It's a perfect recliner for a man cave!

There were a lot more purchases, but they got hustled into our storage unit, because the real plan for that weekend was to unclutter the house! There is nothing that will clutter your house faster than a good auction!

A couple weeks before this auction, we took the kids and headed to Florence, KS for my aunt and uncle's estate auction. We came home with some great pieces from there, especially if one likes rusty stuff!

Love the nice rusty dolly on the left. The big scoop on the right is called a tumble bug. It will make a very cool industrial look piece for someone! 

This pretty scrolly frame is made of some kind of painted metal. Roger was teasing me about my collection of empty frames. Frankly, they look kind of cool. Why mess them up by adding photos?

One of my other uncles had brought a few pieces of furniture that he had restored to sell at the auction. This cabinet was one of them. Originally it was all blonde. Now, I love mid-century modern, but I'm not a fan of blonde wood. This is so much better and fits our decor perfectly. It's a keeper! Notice I've claimed it by filling it with part of my Pyrex collection. And, I love being able to store stuff in the bottom cupboard!

Find more thrifty goodness at Thriftasaurus and Nifty Thrifty

More work completed.

I'm starting to feel like this project will never be done, but Roger assures me he is making much progress. I'm just an impatient person. It's the reason I don't do large projects.

He has begun to finish up the reading nook area. The inside walls are up.

All of the light fixtures are installed, including this one that will hang over my table. The overhang is almost done, too.

And, finally, the electric fireplace is installed! I love how it looks. What I love even more is that it is no longer sitting in its ginormous box in my living room!!

Slowly, but surely, we are getting there. The heavy rains have not helped with our progress, but they have revealed a few leaks that need to be dealt with. Not something I was thrilled to see, but I trust that Roger can solve the problem.



Still Chugging Along...

Roger says that if I don't blog, he's not going to do any more work on the trailer. I'd really like to see this project completed sometime this decade, so here's a little blog entry!

 



 

 

Seems like most of the work lately has been of the "boring" variety. Stuff that has to be done, but just doesn't make me go, "oooh!" Roger has replaced all the skylights and polished the entire roof. Not an easy task since it involves perching on a slick, shiny, hot surface, often within reach of a couple of power lines.

 

 

Here's an interior shot of the new skylights. I'm sure I'll be very thankful for these when it's pouring rain and all my craft supplies are inside the trailer. In case you're wondering, most of our parts come from Vintage Trailer Supply.



 

 

 

The back end of the trailer has been completely polished. The tail lights have all been replaced, the logo painted red, and Roger spent some time flipping through antique license plates to find the perfect one for our trailer. It's red and has our initials. B for Becky and R for Roger. (That's Brown County, Kansas, in case you wondered.)

 

 

 

Now, this is the kind of work I like to see! The walls are completely beadboarded, and there are a lot more light fixtures!

 

 

 

At an auction a couple months ago, we found these drawer cupboards. There are three of them and we only paid $20 for them. It involves some re-working of our original plan, but the cost savings should make it worth it! As you can see, the air conditioner has also been installed. Thank goodness, because I don't want Roger to bake while he's working. It's hard to get a guy to work when he's exhibiting signs of heat stroke.

 

 

 

 

And, don't think I haven't been working on the trailer. I found this fabulous canister set at an antique mall in Shipshewana, Indiana while I was visiting my friend. It's made to hang on the wall and each bin pulls out. Perfect for storing craft supplies, right?

 

 

I tracked down this Melody Miller Happy Dishes fabric at Fabricworm. Too pricey to do all my curtains with it, but I'll come up with something to use it for. The pyrex looking dishes are just too perfect!

 

And, these amazing fabrics that are due out in October from Birch Fabrics. You can see more of the amazing patterns at Retro Renovation. Also probably too expensive for curtains, but we'll see! So, I've been busy with the trailer, too. My busy just involves less sweat.







New Old Stock....and some bicycles

Last Saturday's auction was unlike any I've been to before. The sellers had owned some kind of store back in the 40s and 50s, so the auction was chock full of new old stock items, and lots of them. For example, an entire trailer of light bulbs and a trailer full of antennae. And three vintage refrigerators still in their crates. It's fun to find a vintage fan still in its original box. Like this GE beauty.

 

 

Tags still attached. Even has its warranty card!

 

 

I bought this International fan still in its box, too. It's quite large and has an open back. Roger suspects it's some kind of attic fan.

 

 

 

I think that we can all agree that paint by number is hot. How about paint by number office baskets?

 

 

And paint by number tiles? I got four pairs of these tiles and each one is different. I also got a paint by number magazine rack, but didn't get a picture of it.

 

 

My good friend Bobbi went to the auction with me, because Roger was gone all weekend. She was a trooper and carried most of my purchases to the car. And called her husband for his trailer when my purchases outgrew her SUV. She totally sucked air when these two children's folding chairs were pulled out of their original box! Very subtle, Bobbi...

 

 

I'm not entirely sure what this base is for, but it doesn't matter because it's sea foam green. I'm going to find a use for it in my craft trailer.

 

 

 

There was also a handful of bikes at the auction....

 

This is the real reason I was at the auction. Roger went out the night before the sale to scope out the bikes. He took pictures, and then sent Bobbi and I off with an illustrated, annotated list of what to bid on. It was our task to locate and identify the 16 bikes he was interested in. Can you say "needle in a haystack"? We managed to find 15 of the 16. I suspect the one we couldn't find was pulled from the auction, because it just plain wasn't there.

 

I was the only girl out there bidding against the bike guys. I think I surprised them at the beginning. "I have a list!" I informed them. One of them actually asked if I was buying them for yard art! I came home with these 12 bikes. Four of them were not on the list, but still managed to meet with  Roger's approval.

 

Funny story about being a girl buying "boy stuff". I bought a box of vehicle lights for $10. It wasn't something Roger had mentioned, but I know decent lights when I see them even if I can't tell you what they're for! I think I stole that box out from under the noses of all the men there! At the end of the sale, a man came up to me and asked to buy one of the lights out of my box. He showed me which one he was interested in, and I told him I didn't think I wanted to sell that one.

 

"It's not a bike light!" he said.

 

"I know, but I like the way it's shaped," I replied. I'm sure I couldn't have said anything that would irritate him more.

 

"Fine!" and he stalked off.

 

A little while later he was back. "Would $40 buy that light?"

 

Now, I'm no math whiz, but I know $40 was four times what I paid for that entire box of lights, so I sold it to him. I bet it was worth more than $40, but we both ended up satisfied with the deal.

 

 

find more vintage pretties at Thriftasaurus, Nifty Thrifty and Junkin' Joe!