Vintage Style Mailboxes

Lately I have been searching for a vintage wall mount mailbox to replace the one on my house.  I am fairly certain that the one on my house, with it's starburst emblem, is original.  However, it is long past it's prime.  The hinge is in bad shape and the box is sprung.  I love the style, but I don't think it is salvageable.  I also don't have a picture of it handy to share at the moment.  I did manage to break a tip off the starburst last night while attempting one more time to revive the poor old thing.


I have been looking for a vintage piece either on etsy or ebay, but I haven't found "the one" yet.  Last night, while shopping for new ones, I came across the website mailboxixchange.  What caught my eye were the boxes manufactured by a company called Bluegrass Woods, Inc.  You can also find information about their products at Bacova Gardens.


The following information on Bluegrass Woods comes from the mailboxixchange website:


"Bluegrass Woods is the home of the American Classic Mailbox. Since 1965, each box has been individually hand-crafted in historic Bath Country, Virginia. Their classic fiberglass mailbox is specially designed to resist wear and weather, and is custom made to order. Their American Classic Mailbox designs have become a tradition in the industry and can be seen all over the United States from coast to coast."

The wall mounted mailboxes that I was drawn to have great mid-century style.  Here's the one that caught my eye: 

Unfortunately, it is too wide for the place that my mailbox goes, so the search continues!


Have a great Friday!


* Please note - I am in no way affiliated with the above mentioned companies.

Weekend Finds!

What a great weekend!  Mick and Pat and their friend Jenny came up from Texas on Saturday.  We spent the afternoon thrifting and going to flea markets in Joplin.  Before they arrived on Saturday afternoon, I hit up a few places that I knew we wouldn't make it to after they arrived.  I managed to snag 5 pieces of Pyrex for a grand total of $20, and a brown and yellow card table tablecloth for $3.50.

My first purchase was at the yuppie thrift store - the divided golden acorn piece complete with lid for $5!  The Forest Fancies casserole came from another thrift store for $2.  It is in amazing shape.  This is my first Forest Fancies piece, and probably my last.  I'm not a huge fan of the pattern, but it was in such good shape I couldn't pass it up.  Plus, I try to have at least one piece from each pattern in my collection.  I picked up the two Butterprint fridgies at a grungy outdoor flea market that is always hit and miss.  But, I was there at the end of the day and got a deal on the pair!  The larger one was priced at $3, but the small one didn't have a price.  When I inquired about it to the lady running the booth, she told me she didn't want to have to pack them up and take them home, so I could have both of them for $3 - sold!  (She could have asked $3 for the little one as well and I would have taken it, but she didn't need to know that...).  My most expensive piece was the yellow New Dots bowl.  This is my first New Dots piece and hopefully I will eventually run across all of the pieces without resorting to buying online.  The postage increase from USPS has curbed my online buying quite a bit.  I can't justify the price as much now so I don't buy unless it is something really special.  Anyway, the yellow New Dots was $10.

I also picked up this amazing vintage outdoor metal rocker in the basket weave design that I have been seeking for a long time.  I finally found one for a decent price - $24.50 at an antique store.  Very soon it will be red with a white basket weave, which is the original paint scheme on it.

We stopped and ate at a little hole-in-the-wall truck stop on the way to my house from Joplin, enjoying chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes and gravy.  This was followed by a quick visit to the Cul-De-Sac Shack and we then headed to the drive-in theater to watch Hunger Games.

We slept in Sunday morning and then Mick got a chance to dig through my storage unit for any goodies that he would like.  After unloading some junk sharing some treasures with Mick, Pat, and Jenny to take back to Texas, we went into Kansas and had lunch at Chicken Annies.  This restaurant, in the middle of an old mining camp, is out in the middle of nowhere, and was featured on the show Food Wars, along with it's rival, Chicken Mary's, which is 350 feet away.  My family has been going to Chicken Annies since before I was born, and it is a family tradition to eat there.  After an amazing lunch, Mick, Pat, and Jenny worked on packing everything up in their Subaru (an entertaining story that I am sure that Mick will share) and then they headed home.

All in all, it was a great weekend!

Thoughts?

I picked this vintage cement planter up at an auction a couple of weeks ago for $6.  I have always liked these, and really wanted a matched pair to put on the front steps, but I really don't have room for two, so I decided to pick this one up when I came across it.  My original plans were to peel as much of the black paint off as possible and repaint it white (which was the original paint color on it).  However, the chippy black paint has kind of grown on me for it's shabby look.  Now I don't know what direction I want to go in with it, but I need to make up my mind so that I can get something planted in it before long.

So, what are your thoughts?  Stay with the shabby chippy black paint?  Strip it down and paint it white?  Maybe repaint it black?  I would love to hear your ideas!

Was It A Morning Like This?

Hallelujah!  He is Risen!  Happy Easter!

Weekend Auction Finds!

Vintage Tupperware... or, well, Tuppercraft by Tupperware!  Here's a blast from the past that I have never run across before.  This pair of vintage hampers date to 1958.  Some of the research that I have done on them suggest that they are the first laundry hampers Tupperware created.  The design is amazing!  The large one is for laundry, and I believe the smaller one is for rolls of toilet paper.  At least, that's what I plan to use it for!

These belonged to an elderly couple that lived across the street from my church.  They recently moved into assisted living, and the family was selling everything they didn't take with them along with the house.

The couple had lived in the house for years, raising their three children in it's two bedrooms (two girls, one boy).  It had the most unusual floor plan, mostly because it started life as an incredibly small house, and was built on to numerous times over the years.  For instance, to get to the second bedroom you either had to go through the master bedroom or the bathroom.  The main bathroom was remodeled sometime in the 1950s, I would guess, and had the most amazing rounded corner vanity in it.  I wish that I would have taken a picture of it.

Anyway, as I said, it was a very strangely laid out house in a hodgepodge of additions.  It was pretty well maintained, though.  You could tell the couple had taken pride in their home.

Back to the hampers; I was talking to one of the couples daughters, whose family attends my church, and she told me that her parents had these hampers since before she was born and had used them continuously until the day they moved out of the house.  They were well loved, and apparently good quality to stand up through raising three children and still be around.  The lady was pleased that they were purchased by someone that she knew and not a dealer.  I thought the price was okay, but unfortunately vintage 1950s stuff is starting to catch on around here, so I don't always get the great deals that I did a few years ago.  I got them for $15 each.

Here are a couple close-ups of the handle on the lid of the larger one,  One shows the marbled effect and the other shows the writing on it.

Have a great Thursday!  Where has this week gone?  More shocking to me - where has this school year gone?  Ack!

Weekend Finds!

I'm so glad that auction season has returned.  Last Saturday I went to a sale at the estate of an old farm family. Lots of stuff that had been stored in sheds for quite some time.  There were a lot of great mid-century pieces there, but most of them hadn't been stored properly, and would need some love to get them looking good again.

I didn't buy a lot, but I did enjoy the day.  I was a little concerned when shortly after they started the sale the auctioneer was working on selling boxes of books on a table.  Out of one of the boxes slithered a little snake... Now, I am not a snake fan, so buying books was definitely out.

Anyway, here are the few things that I got.

One of my favorite finds was this Seth Thomas starburst style clock.  It needs a new mechanism and a couple of the pieces need to be straightened along with a thorough cleaning.  Still, nobody else wanted it and I got it for $2.  I am as tight lipped with the name of this auction service as I am with the name of that thrift store that I get all of the good deals at!

I also picked up a box full of kitchen stuff - mostly purchased for these two Pyrex pieces... I took the fragile pieces out of the box, and the rest rode in the bed of the truck home.  I wasn't wanting to risk ending up finding a snake in the box I got!

Anyway, a Town and Country piece and a Butterprint piece - $8 for the whole box full of kitchen stuff.

I also picked up this vintage clothes drying rack.  I have been needing one of these for some line dry clothes that I'm tired of hanging over the shower curtain rod.  It was a bargain at $2.

Lastly,  I picked up a vintage Firestone tractor tire ashtray.  I have wanted one of these for years since seeing one on the desk at the local tire dealer as a child (complete with lit cigarette - lol).  Not a steal, but not bad at $15.

That wraps up my finds for the week.  Hope you all had success in your hunting!

Paint Color Confusion...

I have finally reached the point where I am ready to start transforming the spare bedroom into my den.  I have purchased the vintage furniture I want to put in there, and now I just need to start putting it together.  I only have one problem.  I don't know what color to use on the walls!  Help!

First, let's take a look at the current wall color, and the different pieces that I will be working with to create the room.

Here's the current wall color... pulled directly from the little flowers that were in the hand-me-down bedspread that I used on the bed that was once in here.

It's not a bad color, but I don't think it's gonna work with the pieces I want to put in here, so it's time for a change.  It has a lot of orange in it without being flat out orange.  It makes the room a pretty cheerful place.

Next, the carpet.  I would love to pull out the old carpet and have the hardwood floors underneath refinished, but that isn't in the budget at this time.  Replacing the carpet is also out.  I don't want to replace it when I really just want to save up my money and have all of the carpets removed and the hardwoods in the whole house refinished.

A vintage 1970s or 1980s brown sculptured carpet.

Now, let's look at the fabric on the chairs.  One chair is a pinkish-brown color, and the other is a brownish-purple color.  Both are great 1950s chairs.  I don't have a picture of the whole chairs yet because they are being stored at the moment.  They really contrast much more than in my lousy pictures...

Finally, here are the vintage pinch-pleat drapes that I bought last fall that I want to use in the room.  The camera didn't pick it up, but they have gold thread running through them.

Now, for paint colors.  I kind of like the one on the top center of this pic called "Casablanca".  If I use this color, which seems to be a light yellow with a hint of green, I could have a room named after Mick's cabin!  LOL. (Click on the picture to enlarge.)

I have referenced other color pallets from the 1950s as well for ideas, such as this great period example Pam over at RetroRenovation shared.  Here is the original post, and here is a link to the color pallet.

I have only one requirement - no form of beige for the paint color.  I have considered light gray, as I am a huge fan of gray, and it was widely used in the 1950s (most of the 1950s decorating books I have feature several rooms with gray walls), the only problem is I don't think it would work with the brown carpet.

Anyway, you've seen what I have to work with, now give me an idea of what paint color would pull it all together.  Right now, the yellow-green "Casablanca" color has my vote.  Thanks!