Cul-de-sac Shack is dedicated to all things mid-century. From my house, to interesting things I find, all will be shared here!
Follow along as I restore my small Ranch House to it's 1958 glory!
Some Legal Stuff
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No, they aren't mine. I don't know the people selling them. But, it sure was fun looking up all the old AMC's! I thought since I did the AMC post yesterday, I'd follow up for Friday with a little eye-candy that you could put in your own driveway if you so desire. FYI - I do not gain any profit for sharing these with you, nor do I gain any profit if you purchase one of these cars or anything else from clicking into eBay this way.
I don't know why I am so fascinated with American Motors. I have always been a huge GM fan. I love my Buick. Maybe it's the company name: American Motors. No question about it, they are American cars. They lasted through most of the 1980s, before they finally bacame part of Chrysler. The only nameplate to survive from American Motors it Jeep.
So, today, enjoy these two fun videos on 1966 American Motors.
Comparing an American Motors vehicle to a Cadillac? Yes, they did!
Oddly enough, I really like this 1966 Rambler Classic Wagon. It's styling is attractive and not awkward like AMC vehicles became in the 1970s (although I do like their 1970s designs, they just weren't well thought out for main-stream car buyers in my opinion).
Of course I can't mention Rambler and Cadillac in a post without also sharing this fun video of the Playmates song Beep Beep (The Little Nash Rambler) as sung by a Cadillac and a Rambler.
Just wondering if I'm the only person having issues with Blogger on commenting on other people's posts? Of course, if there is an issue for everyone, you won't be able to comment here... HMMM....
It keeps wanting me to choose my profile, and won't accept that I'm logged in to Blogger already. I have had this issue in the past, and it has been my computer. I normally run CCleaner and it cleans the junk off my computer and I am able to comment again, but that hasn't helped this time.
Any suggestions?
** After a little more digging, this appears to be an issue with Internet Explorer. When I use Firefox, I can comment all that I want. Any suggestions on getting IE to let me comment again?
Mick's girlfriend, Patricia, with the Chicken Annie's sign
In my recent post about Mick's visit, I mentioned that we had dinner at Chicken Annie's. JKaye asked for more information on Chicken Annie's, and I'm always happy to share my favorite restaurant with people!
The following information came from the Chicken Annie's Girard webpage, which is a secondary location of the restaurant.
"The History of Chicken Annie's
Ann Frances Rehak met Charlie Pichler in 1914, when she left home to do the housework at the Pichler's. In the early 1900's the only work available to young ladies was housework. Ann and Charles were married on April 28, 1917.
They started their married life in a three-room house in Yale, a mining camp called No. 13, five miles north of Pittsburg and 31/2 miles east. Charley was a miner and worked in several of the area mines. Out of this union, four children were born: Ann Irene, Wilma, Carl, and Louella.
Charley was in a mine accident in March 1933 at 24 Western. He was severely injured, one leg was crushed and the other had to be amputated below the knee. It was now up to Annie to become the breadwinner of the family. For a short while she worked as a seamstress for the WPA, which was a government project during the depression. Then she started selling ham and veal cutlet sandwiches for 15¢ and home-brew. This was during prohibition days and many of the foreigners made their own wine, whiskey, and home-brew.
Ann started serving chicken dinners in a small way in 1934. In the beginning she raised her own chicken, but as the demand became greater, she purchased chickens from neighboring farms. She also raised peppers and pickled them. Her chicken dinners consisted of three pieces of chicken, German potato salad, cole slaw, a strip of pickled pepper, a slice of tomato, and bread, all for 75¢. All of the preparation of the food was done by hand -- the chickens were slaughtered, dressed, and breaded. While Anne took care of the purchasing, cooking, finances, etc., Charley did some of the preparing of the food and was also the bartender and cashier.
The road leading off the highway to get to Chicken Annie's was a dirt road -- in the winter and during rains, huge ruts formed and made traveling difficult, but it didn't seem to deter customers. In fact, many made the remark they enjoyed the drive into the country as it was like coming home.
The Restaurant became known as Chicken Annie's at the suggestion of Dr. Scott, from Fort Scott. Saturday nights were quite lively as the customers not only enjoyed their meal, but also could drink beer and dance to the jukebox. As the business grew the little three-room house had to be remodeled and several rooms were added. People would come out and had to wait, with the picnic tables and big yard, they didn't mind.
In 1961, Annie and Charley retired, passing the business on to their daughter, Louella, and her husband Louis Lipoglav, and their son, Carl and his wife, Rosemary. By 1972, the country home was no longer adequate for the prospering business. A new building was built down the street from the old Pichler house. Carl and Rosemary left the Chicken Annie's Original to help their son, Anthony, establish Pichler's Chicken Annie's, located south of Pittsburg. In 1971, Louis and Louella purchased the Girard location formally known as the "Sunflower Tavern & Chicken Dinners" in Ringo from Louis's mother, Mary Pistotnik.
On May 10, 1978, Charley died and Annie passed away on September 25, 1991, leaving the family tradition to their children and grandchildren."
Chicken Annie's was featured on The Travel Channel's show Food Wars about a year and a half ago. There is another chicken restaurant, Chicken Mary's, that sits 300 feet from Annie's. I'm not discussing Mary's, as I am an Annie's die-hard.
Anyway, I wanted to find a video from Food Wars to embed in my post, but the video isn't available to embed. To see some of the best fried chicken you will ever find in your life, check out this link to the Food Wars video on Chicken Annie's.
** Edit 7/21/2011 12:00PM **
I found the video in an embedable version! See it below!
Enjoy! Now I'm going to have to drive a half hour to get some of the best fried chicken ever!
Recently when I shared my latest Hull finds, suzieQ asked how I go about removing those nearly impossible calcium deposits, which were pretty bad on the pink Hull bird planter.
I failed to get a before picture of the planter, but the build-up was some of the worst I have ever come across.
To remove the deposits, I needed a few things. First, my nice deep kitchen sink. Second, a bottle of CLR cleaner. Third, a magic eraser. Lastly, plenty of water.
I stopped up the sink, poured a decent amount of CLR in, and filled it up with nice hot tap water. Finally, I put the piece to be cleaned in. Make sure there is enough water in the sink to cover the piece you are cleaning. I let the piece sit in the cleaner for quite a while (I don't remember exactly how long, it was somewhere between 12 and 24 hours). Keep checking the piece periodically and rubbing the areas of concern with the magic eraser. The calcium will rub off eventually!
Hopefully you have a nice double-bowl sink like me, so that you still have use of at least part of your sink.
Good luck!
P.S. Next time, I will try to remember to get pictures of the whole process. I realize this post is rather boring without any photos.
The Saturday of Mick's visit we visited several antique malls and flea markets, scouring them for great mid-century deals. I've really been cutting back lately, so my purchases were on the light side. Still, I found some great things!
Planters! Who would have guessed?! LOL! The little grey one sits on my bathroom counter, and is the container that gets to hold my watch, ring, and bracelet at night. The pink piece is a fixture on my dining table, and the orange planter is adding some color to my coffee table, along with the green planter that Mick brought me.
The things that weren't planters were kitchen things. I picked up two Marcrest Daisy Dot dinner plates for $1.98 each for my sister who collects it at the D.A.V. Thrift Store, the chrome Penguin hot/cold server for $3.00 at an antique mall / flea market, and the two little oblong blue Pyrex 700 pieces were $5.99 for the pair at an antique mall.
I was very excited about the Penguin server, as I now have one in chrome as well as the rare copper colored one that I picked up last fall.
Remember my posts about preparing for company? I kinda didn't mention who was coming. So, here he is (and his girlfriend!). Mr. Mick of Everyone Goes to Mick's and his girlfriend Patricia.
We had a wonderul time visiting and going to dinner at Chicken Annie's on Friday evening.
On Saturday morning, bright and early we were up going out to hit up the local antique shops and flea markets. I found some great pieces that I'll share with you tomorrow. We finished our time together by going to watch Cars 2 at the local drive-in theater. It was a blast! I certainly look forward to future visits from them!
Mick even came with some gifts! Take a look at this awesomeness!
The school sign from the schoolhouse on the set of Tom Sawyer. Mick named the school after the one-room school that my grandma taught in back in the 1940s. He also brought a great green planter (as many of you know, I have an ever growing collection of planters - they have so many uses!), a stone that he hand painted and has a little picture of his cabin, a postcard for the Glenn Miller Band, and an avocado green Ice-O-Mat to go with my avocado green kitchen.
Thanks for coming to visit, Mick! Y'all come back now, ya hear?
We all have that piece of furniture in our homes that is our absolute favorite. Many of you have pieces of Hey-Wake that most likely is your favorite piece of furniture. While I have a beautiful Hey-Wake bedroom set that I do love, it isn't my favorite. My favorite is my little drop-leaf Duncan-Phyfe style dining table and chairs.
While most mid-century lovers go crazy over blonde furniture, I have filled my house with dark wooden furniture. Mahogany is my absolute favorite. That love of dark wood furniture combined with my love of having my home be a little more formal in appearance makes my Duncan-Phyfe style dining set a natural choice. It took a while to find the right piece. The dining room in the Shack is 8' by 8' approximately; not exactly the kind of space to hold a large dining set.
The set that I finally purchased for $125 is a small set that fits perfectly in the space. The home it came out of was a 1950s ranch with a similar sized dining room, and it was perfect in there. I purchased it from the lady who accidentally bought it at the estate auction (don't ever raise your hand to wave at someone while there is bidding going on - it can be costly!).
I love the formality of the legs on the table, and the fact that it is a drop-leaf. When you need to seat large numbers of people, you can. When you just need a place for one or two, leave it folded up and push it over to the wall, giving a small space a larger feel.
While I like the lyre-back style chairs most frequently associated with this style of table, I like that this set has a little bit of a modern feel. Since it is from the 1950s, the chairs have a much more simple shaped back. Perfect for my taste. The dark reddish-brown fabric on the chairs is original. I'd say that the original owner hardly ever used this set.
Finally here is a little more of a view of the dining room. Please ignore the boxes stored in the corner on the left. I always bring my personal posessions home from school for the summer so that they don't accidentally disappear, and this corner was the only place I had to put them.
What's your favorite piece of furniture in your home?
Last fall several people were sharing pictures of the kitchens in their mid-century homes. I finally got around to taking pictures of mine. Considering the room is approximately 8' by 10', there is only one angle that you can really see it from.
My house is an open-concept floor plan, which for this area, was very ahead of it's time when the house was built in the late 1950s. My living room, dining room, and kitchen are all one big open area, seperated by a couple of half-walls.
Since the living room is done in the colors of avocado green, burnt orange and brown, the kitchen and dining room are in keeping with this. I painted the two walls in the kitchen a color from Sherwin Williams called "Brassy" which really looks like good-old avocado to me. I love the way it looks.
Here's the view from the living room.
And the view from the hallway.
Looking from the hallway through the kitchen, dining room and living room toward the door to the garage.
One last view of the kitchen. Small but efficient!
I had today's post all written and scheduled to be published when I came across this video. I felt this was a great way to go with today's post. Enjoy this video of soldiers reuniting with their families. Being a teacher, the clips with kids (and there are many) really got to me. Be warned - you will cry.
Have a great 4th of July! The post that I shared yesterday was the original post I had created for today. If you didn't see it, check it out - it's Kate Smith singing The Star Spangled Banner.
I'll end today with a quote from one of my favorite presidents. "America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand." ~ Harry S Truman.
Always remember - there is NO period after the S in Harry S Truman. The S is actually his middle name. There's a bit of trivia for ya!
Enjoy this recording of the classic Kate Smith singing The Star Spangled Banner. Of course, the pitcure of Rosie the Riveter is perfect for this video. What's more American than that?
Wishing you and your family a beautiful holiday as we celebrate our nation's birth! Have fun and be safe!
I've recently acquired a few new pieces of Hull. A three piece set of birds - Swans? in a green finish, and a pink bird planter that I haven't come across before. The green set is like new, but the pink piece needs some elbow grease. It was used for a long time and has some calcium deposits and paint specks on it. Still, I love the shape! Anybody else ever come across a Hull piece like the pink one?
I love these old car commercials that are constantly being added to YouTube. The first one is for my favorite car of all time, the 1957 Chevrolet. This is an ad for the extra-cost TurboGlide transmission. Ah, what I'd give to have one of those sitting in the driveway of the Shack!
While the convertible would be amazing, I have a feeling that the station wagon (the SUV of yesterday) would much more likely have been what sat in the driveway of the Shack. Still, I would be happy to have one of those as well. I've always liked station wagons!
Have a great Friday! It's the last day of Summer School! Yay!
