More vintage luggage used as storage: a Bar Harbor square case

I love this cutie pie. It's tall and boxy and shaped like no normal, self-respecting suitcase.

The tag is tiny, just an inch or so long, and reads "Bar Harbor by Dresner", with tiny pictures of a cruise ship, plane, train and auto.

I use this one to store handbags.

More antique wardrobe trunks

I found another old wardrobe trunk last week. I will share some photos of it when I get some taken. It's pretty special. In the meantime, here are pictures of another that we have had for some while. I think I got it at an auction. It's a Hartmann Trip-Lex, meant for mass transit business travel, probably 1930s or 1940s vintage. It looks like this:

It comes apart in two sections. Just one latch holds it together and closed, but that latch does a great job because of the careful design.

The section shown on the bottom here is for hanging clothes, while the removable section is covered with a dust cover.

It came with wooden hangers. The metal bars on which the hangers are sitting extend so you can spread the hung clothes out to air once you are unpacking.

I use this trunk to store seldom-worn formal clothes. Here are 3 dresses on the hangers. There's a nice bar that clips in to hold them all in place.

On the other side, the dust cover unclips and folds back to reveal two folded-goods compartments with stabilizing ribbons.

Here are more of my too-fancy-to-wear-in-real-life clothes, tied neatly into the compartments.

Clip the dust cover back in place, and the trunk goes back together and latches.

Here's the Hartmann label. 

And here's my paper label so I don't have to open all my trunks to find what I need. We store out-of-season clothes and bed linens in old trunks, as well as music CDs and family pictures.

I'll post more of our trunks and old cases soon.

In the meantime, if you'd like to learn more about the Hartmann company, which is still producing wonderful luxe luggage today, click here for the company's history on its website. And to read about wardrobe trunks in general, with some great photos of different makers' work, click here.

That oil lamp again

It took a couple of tries (miscommunication on my end) but I got the chimney and the collar for that old oil lamp. NOW I find that the collar does not fit the burner that goes with the lamp. I jammed the burner on there temporarily so the lamp can be used while I figure out what I want to do about it. I do love this lamp.

Garage sale score: Tall glass parlor lamp

Tall glass parlor lamp, a set on Flickr.

Yesterday after work Miss A and I hit a few garage sales in La Crescent on our way home. She got a shoebox full of LEGO, which made her very happy. I found 6 stems of my crystal pattern, which used to be el cheapo stuff at Target but is now hard to find (Cristal d'Arques Longchamps), and some bed linens. I also bought this lovely old antique parlor lamp from my friend Karen's sale. It belonged to her great uncle. (Karen, did I get that right? Great uncle?) She no longer uses it and wanted to pass it on. I made sure she was certain about this before snatching it off the table.

It's damaged at the top of the font, where the collar should be. Looks like the collar broke off and took some glass with it. I have a email in to a lamp restoration expert on whether I can just epoxy a new collar onto what remains of the glass so that the burner will stay in place. It's a nonthreaded Queen Anne burner, a #2 I think. I am ordering a very tall chimney for it too.

A gorgeous 1930s Detroit Vapor stove on eBay - Omaha, NE

My stove's very close relative is for sale on eBay, located in Omaha. Look at this beauty!

The enamel's in wonderful shape, and what's really remarkable, all the front knobs are still there! I don't see the oven temperature control dial on the right side. Maybe that's one of the things sitting inside the oven. That might be an interesting repair to have to make. Other than that, though, this is a wonderful stove. I wrote to the seller to correct the date; it's 1933-1934, not 1920s.

Houston County Fair Entries 2011

Here are two garments I entered in the fair. The black apron I'm proud of, and it won a blue ribbon. The eyelet blouse I entered because I said I would enter a blouse and I did not have time to make a better one. It's okay. It won a red ribbon, and probably did not even deserve that much.

The apron has a little story behind it. Last spring, when Lisa Fruitful were making costumes for The Sound of Music, I quickly made a black half apron with colored rickrack trim for one of the older von Trapp girls. It was very striking from a safe distance, not so great close up because I was in a huge rush by that point and it was, after all, just a costume. But the drama coach Tammy Manning just loved it. So I redid the idea, taking my time and finishing seams and putting the rickrack on for keeps this time, and now that the fair is over, I have given it to Tammy to keep. I took a picture to keep with the blue ribbon it won.

On Sunday, when Lil Miss A and I drove back to the fair to pick up our stuff, we passed a pile of free stuff on a curb. Caledonia has a lot of garage sales during fair days because of all the added traffic. I had not gotten to go to any of them and was sad. Yet here was a lovely pile of garage sale leftovers with a big FREE sign on them. Even better! Look what I got:

It's an old suitcase with real travel stickers on it, mostly from Europe, though I see Florida on there too. I'm very excited. Can't believe nobody bought this at whatever price they were willing to take for it rather than leave it in the free pile, it could not have been much.

111 Vintage Dress Patterns = Maria Hit the Jackpot

I stopped by a church rummage sale Saturday morning. They're the best. The greatest stuff, the best prices AND they want to clear out everything, so are usually making deals right and left.

When I arrived, everything was already half the marked price.

I picked up two big boxes of old dressmaker patterns for one dollar (they were originally a dollar a box). I grabbed them so fast and rushed them out to the car before anyone could snatch them out of my greedy paws. I did not even look through them till I got home.

Here they are. Try not to faint. Again, these were a DOLLAR. FOR ALL OF THEM.

And the rest, since Photobucket has a limit of 100 images per slideshow:

I'm going to put them all on eBay without pulling any. It was enough to get to look through them all, and I really need the money. This lot was a Godsend, for sure.

Just listed on eBay: Reproduction Hoosier bread drawer

Just listed on eBay: Vintage Masonite HORSES SIGN

Just listed on eBay: 57 pieces of Turquoise and White Melmac Texas-Ware

The link is here.

Spring Grove Syttende Mai Garage Sales 2011

Barry's parents are visiting this week, and just typing that tells me how I am neglecting this blog, because you should already know that. Anyway, this morning my partner in crime Lisa Fruitful and my mother in law Jane Stahl headed off to Spring Grove to garage sail. We did very well.

Some highlights were the wringer mop bucket I had been saving up for on line - for only two dollars! - and those nifty lime-green sneakers up there, shown on my feet. They are wonderful. I also got a pair of Born clogs. The big HORSES thing is a sign - and there are 3 of them!! A Hoosier bread drawer for 25 cents... A red dial telephone... A Blue Ridge Pottery pitcher... A pair of antique granny boots... An old gas can... Teacups for Lil Miss A... Lots of fun stuff. I'm worn out. :)

Stuck in an old cookbook:

Queen Bess is my mother's wedding registry silverplate pattern.

Just thought it was fun to find it being used as a bookmark.

Rummaging around in a fallen-down building

Now THAT's my idea of a good time.

A friend let me hunt through the last bits of what remained of a fallen-down garage that belonged to his grandparents and then his parents. He okayed everything I took, so I made sure I did not take anything he wanted.

He let me have all these old canning jars, storage jars and glass jugs!

A total of 13 quart canning jars ranging from beautiful old blue ones to repurposed mayonnaise jars, plus a blue pint; then a bunch more that were around a half gallon size, which work great for dry storage; and a square gallon jar with a huge lid opening that will make an awesome canister. Also two gallon jugs and a half gallon jug which I will be passing along to my father in law, who makes apple cider vinegar.

Then, there were a few odds and ends of old graniteware, rather beat up but I still love them:

I love how that red and white bucket took a pretty serious blow but is still ready to go to work. No holes.

Weekend thrifty find: Flashy-flowery purse from Hawaii (?)

There was an estate sale in La Crosse over the weekend, and Britta is working on furnishing her unfurnished apartment for next school year, so we zoomed up there to take a look. She found a pretty set of bookshelves for $24. I found a couple of odds and ends, including this little box style handbag. The price tag said "Hawaii". The yellow twine is icky but I love the raffia flowers. It was $3. I also bought a whisk broom for 50 cents. We have one, but when we need it for camping, it's on its hook on the back porch, and when we need it on the back porch, it's packed away somewhere in the camping gear. So now one can be in each place.

Lil Miss A fell madly in love with a NordicTrack exercise machine out in the garage, for sale for $20. I would not let her buy it, not even with her "own money." I do not want a NordicTrack in my house. Too huge. She was pretty upset with me, letting such an obviously awesome deal pass us by.

For OilclothAddict

This is a tin Blenback sign that would originally have been on one of those horizontal bolt racks in the dime stores, where you could pull oilcloth off the bolt and buy as much as you wanted. It's over the sink in my kitchen.

And then here's that oilcloth sign (as in, it's a sign FOR oilcloth, but also MADE OF oilcloth) that I told you about. It has a wood strip at top and bottom to hang it from. I still have not figured out where to put it.

Here is a detail shot of the cute little kitchen scene on that sign.

Trash Day find: Old cot or daybed project

This fall's Clean Up Day was not a roaring success in terms of treasures found, but I did get this old metal day bed. I got it on Trash Day, but it never actually made it into the trash, so I'm not certain I can count it. Anyway, Al Wuennecke was cleaning out a shed that needed to be torn down, and I spotted this, covered with dirt and bat poop, in the shed and asked him if he was going to keep it, and he said no, and hauled it out and even loaded it into my Jeep for me.

I took a wire brush to it and cleaned off all the bat poop and most of the rust. I figured painting would need to wait till the spring, but then we had a couple of beautiful, unseasonably warm days here (in the 60s, even!), so I got the chance to paint it after all. It's not a great paint job, as I basically painted over old paint and some remaining rust with Rustoleum; if I did it right, I would have had somebody sandblast and then powdercoat it. Oh well, it's okay for now, anyway.

I took these pictures in the front room because that's where I put the headboard and footboard back on after painting, but don't worry, we don't keep it there. It will go on the front porch in my sewing area for awhile, though eventually Miss A wants to try using it for her bed. The bed she has right now in her room is actually Britta's and when Britta gets her own apartment off campus, eventually, she wants to take it. We'll give it a try, though I doubt this will be heavy duty enough for daily use.

Here's how it goes normally. The two halves interlock to make a trundle.

You can pull out the trundle and make a double bed (more or less - it may actually be 3/4, I haven't measured).

Or you can just separate the two entirely and make cots.

And here it is with the little ticking mattress I have - only have one so far, will have to do something about the other side eventually - and also Beckham, who had to test drive it.

Just a cute little old cot. I like old stuff like this.