It's Not Hobby Lobby

I want to start off today's blog with a sincere thank you.  I can not express how much it means to us that our family and friends support us in this venture.  Nor can I thank enough those customers who come in and buy our lovingly purchased, cleaned, rehabbed and up-cycled pieces.  It reaffirms that we are doing something right.  That others see the life left in vintage items and will love and cherish them as much as we did when we picked them.  Bill and I don't buy anything that we wouldn't put in our home.  In fact it's a struggle to put our finished product into our jeep and bring it to the store... because we have soooo much of our hearts in these.  (It's also a struggle to get some of the items past my mother who will scoop much of what I grab up if I let her...  I've learned to show her small things only... because getting the larger things to California can be challenging.)

Every time something larger sells, I reconfigure the layout of the booth.  I find themes/vignettes and end up spending hours there instead of the 15 minutes I'd given self to add a few smalls and fluff it.  Today was one of those days.  We now have a travel corner.  Trunks, suitcases and valise's...  my love for these makes complete sense, since travel is what I do for a living.  I LOVE finding the old bag tags on pieces... our newest trunk has a Delta tag... I think the green trunk has an Eastern tag...  I know whatever tag that one has is a long gone airline... On our shelves in the main area of our booth we have an old medallion tag for Delta, along with airline shot glasses... and one of my favorites is the airplane slippers... check them out, they're right next to the blue enamel pitcher on the bench.  That's when the skies were much more luxurious for sure.

I also have a weakness for hand painted china.  I have zero talent in drawing and painting, thus I appreciate the efforts women put into these pieces long before I was born.  China painting was a 'respectable hobby' for women from 1880-1920.  Some painted pieces for fun, others to make pin money.  Some items were displayed and other items used, like the set of 6 individual salt cellars seen in the picture to the right.  I'm going to veer right off subject here for a moment... and talk about how much time these women took in setting the perfect table... today we tell the kids to grab a plate and a napkin and eat... then, you had your own salt cellar, cups and silver for each type of food or drink might be served... crystal and silver knife rests...  etc... we're losing this art in our age of computers and smart phones...

Returning to the subject... everything that could be painted was... tea strainers... jewelry boxes, hat pin holders, salt shakers, bells, and sugar shakers to name a few.  Each painstakingly done with exquisite perfection.  It's hard for me to pick and choose when I find a sale full of these beautiful pieces of art.

We do have some newer decorative bits... I kinda like fun fillers and couldn't resist the feather balls at an estate sale recently.  I tried to grab just a couple, and ended up with them all... along with some hand painted balls from Africa, that I threw in with my hand carved gourds from Kenya.  They called to me and I hope they'll call your name too...

I usually blog around a project, so I'll throw in a quick one for the piece I put in the booth today.  It was a drop leaf table but it was pretty banged up and had some broken pieces on the leaves.  My husband and I both thought the legs were sexy though so we grabbed it from a friend.  We had planned to attach it to a door for a hall tree but as we got it apart we both agreed that it needed to just be reinvented into a hall table.  All the wood on the table is original.  My very talented hubby took the three pieces from the table top and grabbed the one piece still in good condition.  He cut it down to fit the legs attached it to the top and re stained the entire piece.  One of it's side drawers was missing a knob so we put on vintage looking glass knobs.  The piece came out gorgeous!!!  It's perfect for your foyer or den... or even possibly as a small desk in a teenagers room for their laptop.

I'll end this as I started this with a thank you again...  from our house to yours... happy junking and safe summer travels...

Salisbury Cathedral pitcher

Is it Love or is it Rust? Both Make Us Giddy...

I read this line in a British magazine... "Our job is to make a piece fit for a purpose.  We are rescuing it from the bonfire and putting it back into people's homes where they will stroke, love, use and polish it for years to come"...  I read this and thought... EXACTLY.  Up-cycling saves wood, metals, furniture and other medias from either being burned or tossed into landfill.

Our planet has finite space.  The majority of society is all about the newest fad.  We can't afford to fill the planet with yesterdays fad.  How do you make these pieces new again?

Antique shopping works best when you aren't looking for anything specific.  You find something you love and you buy it.  It'll work in your home because you love it.  If you're like me, and you buy for both home and a store, you can take chances on items that you believe can be loved by others.  I'm very much a Victorian woman living in a modern world.  I'll take chances on some mid century items because I like the lines.  For example I can't pass up a 50's step stool... and we currently have a cabinet that is screaming to be a bar...  wait til we get to that piece, you're going to LOVE it... I'll blog it's up-cycle.

One of my favorite rehabs we've finished this year was on a pair of folding 50's Cosco chairs.  We went to an estate sale a few months ago that was being run by some people we adore and they mentioned that they hadn't gone into the garage attic yet.  Of course, I immediately turned to my patient and loving husband with a "Honey???" and he grabbed a ladder... The attic proved to be a gold mine of rust.  When he handed me down these two chairs the junk queen in me got giddy.  These are the types of items we love to get our hands on because most people would put them top down into their garbage bin for Monday's pick up.  Additionally, we'd just finished a project with a vintage typewriter desk and we both knew it was going to be the perfect vignette for our booth when finished.

They were carefully taken apart, sanded and primed.  Then we ran out to grab the fabric for the base.  This is one of those projects that you have instant gratification with EVERY step you take.  The deconstruction to the reconstruction.  You can see the pieces slowly come back to life.  I love how they look now... they can fit into almost any place... a sun room... a child's dorm...  your office... around a bistro table in your breakfast nook.  They are comfortable and timeless... and as stated earlier... FOLDING... you can store them in your closet and take them out for guests... :)

Since I mentioned the vignette... I thought I'd do an honorable mention for the vintage typewriter desk.  This is the second one we've overhauled.  The first I bought because I loved the lines and knew it had potential... the second I bought because I loved the idea of what another person had done and knew that my husband would work with that idea and make it even more fabulous.  He did, and it sold the first weekend we put it i the store... So I put the original piece in his work space and said "Next please"...  The table has been painted black and a barn wood top attached.  It's modern and masculine.  Perfect for a corner table in a living room or office.  Put books on it like we did here or a globe and a light...  We love how the whole look evolved and think that you will too...

Of course you can find these pieces at the Queen of Hearts in Alpharetta.  We hope to see you there soon...  For now it's time for me to run off and get some more fabric for a large wood throne we are working on.  Look for that blog in the future!!!