New Living Room via Craigslist

Our living room  (or "frunchroom" if you're from 'round here) has been quite dark and dungeonous, as I posted before, and as you can see in the pic above. It was the dark furniture and ugly woodwork that made it so. Don't get me wrong, I love the original oak woodwork throughout our 1926 Bungalow, but after years of not much maintenance...or some bad staining...it just looks blah. So we cut to the chase and painted the wood in this room white. Much better!

Anyway, as I've stated this all to my husband, he, so sweetly and secretly, left early yesterday morning to pick up a sweeeeet craigslist find in order to give me what I wanted - something new (as in new to us) and some color! Now I can't say he swindled the sellers because he just paid what they asked, but It was quite an awesome deal at $150 for all 3 pieces - which are in near perfect condition for their age. He got 2 green swivel chairs and one long wool tufted sofa in mauve. Can't get much more colorful than that!

Much better. Yes? We've completely redecorated this room - not by adding much but taking all the crud out like the radio, cabinets and misc junk we don't use or want in there. And we're selling the black vinyl couch in the photo above, if anyone is interested...and in the Chicagoland area. The couch is great for people with grubby handed kids - like us. And it was made in Chicago way back when things were actually made in America.  

Its nice being married to a picker!

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How To Find the Best Vintage

If you're like me, you love vintage to keep and sell. As a seller, you can't just go to the local Salvation Army and expect to find the most amazing piece of vintage...though its not impossible. There are a few places you can find great vintage:
1. Garage sales - find some gems the owners don't realize the worth of
2. Thrift shops - some unique but often broken/ poor condition items
3. Antique / vintage shops - good finds but very pricey
4. Estate Sales. - THE place to go

Estate Sales are the cream of the crop when it comes to the best vintage finds. Yes, its a bit morbid, kinda sad and makes you really think about you're own mortality but might as well reap some benefits, right? Here you can find items the previous owner cherished and kept in pristine condition. Entire sets of dishes, pyrex, barware, you name it.

 

You can find unique, one of a kind items, old toys, all kinds of awesome gems. And in turn, make a profit or keep for your own use. Personally I love keeping vintage for these reasons: Most are made in America (a rare thing these days), made to last (even rarer), and have great designs you just don't see anymore.

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Etsy Treasury: Vintage Love!

I finally got a flippin' treasury! I figured since I love vintage so much, I'd dedicate this treasury to it.

And heres the treasury link http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=25738

How to get a simple screenshot: Copy the url for your treasury into thumbalizr (you don't need an account to do it)http://www.thumbalizr.com/and then save the screen shot to your computer. I then edited mine in photoshop.

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Another fun vintage find!

Last weekend we went to an estate sale. When you think about it, estate sales are really just rummaging thru a dead persons things. You have all access to wander about the house taking whatever you want. It creeped me out a bit, especially thinking when I die, will a bunch of strangers go scavenging around my house trying to haggle my belongings? The good part was this was probably the coolest dead lady ever! First of all, she was a seamstress - so there were boxes upon boxes of bias tape, rickrack, needles, fun weird sewing gadgets that aren't sold anymore, so I got a ton of that. Then I got this super neat contact paper that is a flashy gold and yellow damask pattern. The thing I loved most is that she had OLD appliances in mint condition; washers and refrigerators like you'd see on the old Tom and Jerry cartoons, like from the 40's. My best find that I could actually take home was this kick-a toaster. I saw it and it was over; it was mine - and for $3, that's not bad.

Its a Dormeyer toaster made here in Chicago! I dont know when it was made. I love buying vintage stuff...its whats left of things made in America.

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Vintage Fun!

I have been addicted to thriftin lately, luckily I have 3 great places nearby to frequent...quite frequently. So yesterday me and Maddy went for a little trip - I was looking for a used picture frame for the print I just bought from The Black Apple since the ones I have are too small and ugly to hold such a work of art. Well, I didn't find that frame, but I did, however, find some really neato stuff! First off I found this Viewmaster from 1952! How cool is that? What makes it 100x better is that it came with a bunch of those round film strip thingies.

The best part: all the little stories in these mini films are actual models - like real tiny film sets with real figurines. I was amazed at how awesome they looked in an artistic sense and age wise - these things are over 50 years old! This is probably the coolest vintage item I found all year. I will definitely keep this one for a long long time! And the kids won't touch it.

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Hooters

I found these adorable vintage owls the other day. I couldn't help myself, they were hooting my name and I came running. So here they are. So cute! I was gonna post them on my Etsy site, but Suprisingly, My husband thinks they're too cute and wants to keep them. He's funny sometimes

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