Major Work On Child's Vintage Easel Chalkboard

I picked up this little cutie for a song, otherwise I would not have messed with it.

There were no "graphics" left on the the winding window at the top, so I found one of the vintage posters that they now sell in all antique shops and cut it to size.  Much gluing, clipping and time later....only to discover I did it backwards!  argh  The above is a picture of it backwards.

More gluing, clipping and time passing.

I got the top part done.

Then I attached chains to both sides so that the

legs would stand up.

Then I repainted the chalkboard section.

So cute, so worth it.

Pick'd Up Doors Revisited

My May 3 post showed two "cute" truck doors (click here to read that post) and I commented,
"Can't you see these with a fake company painted on the doors?"

 

My husband finally got interested in this project, mostly he was interested in getting them out of the yard.


 He dusted off the paintbrushes and added Motorhead Shop to one....

 
 and Dad's Garage to the other.

Like all my rusty treasures, they're available at my outdoor store. 

Hoping customers are inspired to hang one in their garage/shop.

Four Small Vintage Window Wall Hangings

During our town city-wide garage sales weekend I picked up four little windows.

They measures approx 14" square, perfect size for adding adhesive wall stickers.

 I love doing this on small vintage windows. 

I have done it before ... click here, here or here to view others.

I had $2 in each, sold each for $22.

 I bought the adhesives from Dollar Tree.

Some I had to work on a bit to get them to look right 

in a square frame.

 As always, I used leftover wallpaper for the backing.

(Apply just like wallpaper).

The textured wallpaper shows a little subtle pattern when displayed on a wall,

but really pops when put in a window

Vintage Microwave Cart

This gas stove has been our microwave / kitchen TV stand for the last 20 years.  It had a cool look and extra storage for cookbooks, etc.  But with the "new" white baseboards (check out post here about the baseboards), the ivory didn't look so great.  Time to make a change.

Which led us on a whirlwind shopping trip to our vintage mall.  We spied a gray utility cart that fit the dimensions we needed, and snapped it up.  Unfortunately, it had some fluorescent orange stenciling on it (sorry, no photo of this).   

A little paint (and distressing) gave us the perfect microwave cart.  And so much more mobile!  It also looks great with our new flooring and baseboards.

Selling Off My Vintage Hershey Collection

In about every other post I mention that we hope to relocate in a year.  We will have lived in this same wonderful house for 30 years. While I am not a huge "collector" (I am much more of a "seller") but you still manage to retain alot of stuff in 30 years.  Bit by bit, I am having to re-evaluate my "stuff".  Do I love it? Do I use it?  Is it an important part of our history?

Keeping the kitchen items we use all the time AND look good.  It is going to take some doing to thin things down.  This is just step one...selling off my vintage Hershey collection.

 I LOVE chocolate and I liked how the browns looked in my kitchen, so it served it's use.  I've enjoyed a good portion of the collection for decades.  But, at this point I am ready to let some lucky ebay buyer enjoy the candy bar boxes and cocoa tins. (Altogether these Hershey items sold for $60).

Getting rid of these lovelies will help de-clutter the high shelf in the kitchen.  And we all know that to sell houses, they need to look de-cluttered.  Spacious.

Presently it looks a little sad where the Hershey stuff was sitting, time to take down the Hershey sign and rearrange what is left.  Sometimes de-cluttering hurts a little.

Three Vintage Find "Upcycles"

I am being super selective in what I purchase for resale.  One of the things on my "do-not-buy list" is "project" pieces.  You know --  the ones that take more time than they are worth. But sometimes I am sorely tempted, and I give in...

 Like this cute little vintage wooden wheelbarrow.

Great colors, just missing...a whole side!

I decided the best option was to make it looked "patched"

rather than "matched".

 100 year old hooks...but on ugly boards.

I had some extra baseboard leftover from my

kitchen floor makeover (see post here) .

I like the vintage look of the hooks and baseboard together.

 We recently bought a single old drawer for the two great pulls
that were on it, which we sold on ebay.

That left the drawer itself...

 The drawer had this great wainscoting on the bottom.

Well, you just can't put that out on the curb...

 I trimmed off the drawer "lip" that made it sit ascew.
I added the shelf.
Then a little painting and distressing.

 Old drawer upcycled into small shelf.

Vintage Baseboard In My Kitchen

Incorporating vintage details into my 120 year old house feels like the right thing to do.  So when we decided to tear up the old flooring in the kitchen, including the rubbery plastic baseboard that edged it -- I was ready to look toward a more original look.

 I believe all of the floors in our house were originally wide pine when it was built in 1895.  We can argue taking things back to the "original" until we are blue in the face.  I believe between 1915-1920 most of the floors were covered over with narrow maple -- so some of the non-original floors have been around for 100 years.  Shouldn't we honor their age as well?  It all comes down to what looks right with the house, best serves our purposes (and budget), and would be good for resale of the house.  So we choose a light colored wood plank laminate for the kitchen floor -- waterproof and has a lifetime guarantee.

But, I knew from the get-go that I wanted the same type of Victorian baseboard in my kitchen that I had in the rest of the house.  Mr Handyman actually was trying to clean out a barn last fall, and gave me quite a bit of the baseboard.  It had a lovely chippy white look.  I knew the amount would be tight, and that definitely there would not be enough to trim out around the island.  So I started looking....

And ended up buying a huge pile of painted white interior house trim.  It turned out most of it was door molding/trim (argh) but enough was matching baseboard that we ended up having enough to use to finish out the kitchen.  (There were also some interesting pieces in the pile that I was able to sell, and they paid for the whole pile.)  Mr Handyman was able to use some of the door trim to do the baseboard around the island. .I did put a matte coat of polycrylic on the baseboard in case it contained lead, or would try to continue to chip off.  Love the look, especially with the wainscoting (which is original).

Local Vintage Tractor Show

 Our local museum sponsored a Tractor Show in their

parking lot last Saturday.

 To compliment the outdoor show, they had a display of

pedal tractors inside. The blue Ford is ours (belonged 

to our now 28 year old children).

 There was a great tractor display,

and you could cool off with apple juice freshly made from this antique mill.

 This is a daddy of a friend of mine,

standing by his favorite tractor.

 There were many things to see and do,

and plenty of chewing-the-fat.

 This was the only tractor that wasn't actually

driven to the museum.  The owners keep most of them

in running condition for shows and tractor cruises.

 This little farmer's shirt says "Will trade one of

my sisters for a tractor".  Who can blame him,

he has three sisters.

This little guy is enjoying the leftovers of the

"mini super-farmer contest".

City-Wide Garage Sales Weekend

So last weekend was my little town's city-wide garage sales -- over 200 garage sales. About 20% start Thursday, another 40% start Friday, and on the official city-wide day of Saturday the other 40% start.  Normally, I am on top of my game those three days, but we were out-of-town until mid-afternoon Thursday, and I needed to leave town again by 9:30 am Saturday.

 So, it was a little hard to figure out which

sales had already been open the day before and therefore were a waste of my time.

Blue milk can I bought for $5, sold for $27.

 Nevertheless, we did our best and picked up a few nice items.

This little adirondack stool is going on ebay.

Bought for $8, SOLD FOR $30.

 Love this antique plant holder,

also heading to ebay.

 Antique carved soapstone Chinese vase.

Bought for $5, sold for $18.

 Hubley doorstop.

Bought for $3, sold for $66.

 My SECOND incubator table, identical to one I bought in April.

Already sold the first one.

 These vintage ceramic angels are not the type of item I normally purchase,

but they were so cute in this vintage upcycled box.

Bought for $5, sold for $14.

 Red and blue, just in time for July.

Notice the cute cart basket behind the coooler.

Bought for $45, sold for $70.

Sweet little stoneware bowl,

I would SO keep it if it weren't blue.