it's not you, it's me

Very short "Dear John" letters to the things I didn't bring home this week:

Dear Pink Trunk / Toolbox:
I promise, if I had a place for you . . .

. . . and I wasn't so afraid of your adorable-but-lead-filled pink paint . . .

. . . I'd take you home with me. You have that look everyone's trying to copy with chalk paint and faux rust, but baby, you're the real deal. 

Sadly, my kiddo might decide those paint chips look like candy and so, for us, this must be good-bye.

Dear Giant Letters with Neon Tubing Inside:

I would try to tell you how awesome I think you are, but I was never as good with words as you. 

Dear Orange Metal Tool Organizer:

Your orange paint is gorgeous; you are gorgeous. But I admit I find the fact you pack heat (even if it is only a sander) to be the teensiest bit off-puting.

Dear Thingamabob:
I love a little mystery and I think you'd make a great lamp, but I just don't feel like I really know you.

Are you a pressure cooker? A boiler? I just can't gauge.

Dear Cabinets That Would Make the Perfect Play Kitchen:

Stay alive; I will find you.

Linking up to:

Junkin' Joe at the Cottage Market

a place for everything and everything in its place

"Everything is a fork" is the other advice I've read recently regarding home organization; it's really stuck with me. The point being that in your kitchen, you always know exactly where to find a fork because your drawer has a fork spot. When trying to organize, everything is a fork. Everything needs its own designated home. (I wish I remember where I'd read it; I'll post a link if I run across it again.)

In our small house, with a little kid and two adults and two cats living under one 950-square-foot roof, this is becoming increasingly important.

Enter the broom (from Scheumack Broom Company**) that has been shifting from wherever I leaned it, flopping over, and bashing skulls for a couple of years now.

I picked up two antique hooks from Salvage Works / Solabee / Boys' Fort in Portland awhile back, and have been finding they work really well for hanging brooms. The Green Man broom hangs on the inside of the front door now, looking right at home near the newly-painted dining room.

So now the goal is that everything in my house will be a broom. Everything will have a practical place to live, close at hand, not clonking me in the head.

Has your own spring-cleaning / organizing project spilled over into summer? Made any simple organizational changes that make life easier or at least prevent concussion? Do tell!

Thanks for reading!

p.s. To make these photos larger, just click! But you probably already knew that, clever you!

Linking up to:

The CSI Project



(**I was lucky enough to see the pleased expression on the broom-maker's face when, upon buying a mini version for my kid, I told him that I have one of the Green Man brooms and that yes, I use it for actual sweeping. Apparently lots of folks just use them as art. I love beautiful tools, but make no mistake, they are tools and are meant to be used. The craftspeople who make these brooms make them to stand up to years of long use and be passed down as heirlooms later.)

hometown tourist: salvage works / solabee / boys' fort

We took the kiddo up north to Stumptown last weekend to visit OMSI, and when he'd tired of watching paper cups fly and making little foam balls hover in mid-air, we packed him back into the car and shuffled him off to my little dreamland of the day.

When you see Paul Bunyan, you know you're getting close. 

Yes, my idea of a good time was visiting Salvage Works, which now shares its space with Boys' Fort Furniture  and Solabee Flowers and Botanicals (they do weddings!). You can see your intrepid blogger reflected in the window below . . . and now I'm gonna link this post to Amy over at While Wearing Heels, whose photo challenge of the month was to photograph your reflection. Bam! Two with one blow.

You can probably guess as to the nature of Salvage Works. They sell architectural salvage, house parts, and assorted oddities. And they dress it up so that the place looks and smells (and costs) boutique. Boys' Fort and Solabee help with that, though it's at times difficult to determine where one venture ends and the next begins, they're all so integrated. 

For example, we have here a gorgeous cabinet with drawers full of hardware and . . . succulents.

A wall built with reclaimed timber sports a vertical wall planter made of old coffee cans; more barnwood planters fill the desk.

Because all three businesses operate so symbiotically in the front area of the store, I think it'd be better for you if I just show you some vintage + green eye-candy and give you a scavenger hunt list.

To Find:

*antique green house/plant stand full of plants

*stump used as a low stool/table

*whiskey barrel

*vertical wall planter made of reclaimed wood

To Find:

*vintage mail slot

*1970s lamp

*oleo margarine trough . . . er, bucket

*old trophy

*painting of Vincent, called Vincent, by a local artist

*really old trunk

*tupperware canisters

To Find:

*an arrow made of reclaimed wood

*an old stool

*a stained concrete floor

To Find:

in this wall installation

*grape crate from the Coachella Valley

*Anglo roast beef crate

*a shout out to San Francisco

*a Scotch Whisky crate

*yardsticks

To Find:

*a yardstick photo frame

*turquoise dishware

*fake fruit

*old yearbook photos

To Find:

*doorknobs

*drawer pulls

*face plates

*a well-loved glass display cabinet

As usual, I missed taking snaps of some of my favorite things inside, like the labelled cabinet full of drawer hardware, a leaning pile of huge reclaimed timbers,  and a rolling stool made with a stump and some casters. Some day I'll get the hang of this blogging thing, readers, and you can say you knew me back when I sometimes still resorted to phone camera pictures and sometimes neglected to document the good parts.

Oh heck, let's do a little scavenger hunt outside, too, shall we?

To Find:

*really BIG chain

*creepy head watching your every move

*fabulous cabinet full of tools (?)

*stack full of singleton drawers and wooden crates

To Find:

*a "staff only" sign I totally missed

*a "detour" sign that someone else hit . . . possibly with a truck

*dart board

*coal buckets

To Find:

*oil can

*$1 license plates

*sign that either reads "she said" or "shed sale" (I'll never know, and it's killing me, Smalls)

*more wooden crates

To Find:

*old red orchard ladder

*army green lockers

*two cast iron bathtubs

*vintage bikes

*spoked metal wheel 

To Find:

*a good reminder

*old shovels

*assorted grates

*the word "schmick's"

They also have a decent-sized reclaimed lumber yard which the weather (and lack of flat bed truck) kept us from exploring, but we mean to take a closer look should we visit again.

So let me tell you the best thing about this place: the really sweet ladies running it for the day. I can't imagine better spokespeople for their businesses. 

The woman from Solabee was headed out on a quick delivery, but paused at the door as we were entering to see if she could answer any questions or offer any help on her way out. She swore she'd be back in a snap before pointing the guys toward a pile of vintage Fisher-Price for the kiddo to paw while I wandered around.

I think Terry was the name of the knowledgable, helpful, and friendly woman at the Salvage Works counter, who directed me to all and sundry and helped the mister pick out a surprise t-shirt for me. When I came back through with a fistful of purchases (two little succulents, two old coat hooks, and a letterpress card with Paul Bunyan on it) she told me all about the fabulous Hidden Portland project Carye Bye (the card's artist) runs. Carye also runs a bathtub museum. (You can file that little bit o' knowledge in your "Weird Portland" drawer.)

Summary: Put it on your bucket list of places to visit in Portland if you're interested in really lovely modern botanicals, vintage finds repurposed and reused, or the raw materials to DIY. It's not as big a heaping heap of supplies as you'll find at my perennial favorite stomp (Bring), but more a carefully curated collection of treasures big and small, and a really enjoyable place to spend some time exploring and imagining possibilities.

Thanks for reading!

p.s. you can make these photos bigger just by clicking on them, but you probably already knew that, clever you.

Linking up to:

Thrift Share Monday at Apron Thrift Girl

Junkin Joe Vintage and Thrifty Finds

thrift store finds: piano

I've mentioned before that I was in love with the idea of an antique piano, but couldn't figure out how to get one home. Even though the last one I found and wanted (badly) was only three blocks away from my house, I figured moving it would be dangerous to attempt alone (even with a team and a truck) and getting someone to move it would be too expensive, so I let that one get away.

Who knew that antique pianos were something that people donated literally all the time? When I saw this one, I had a feeling about it. The mister did not. So we hemmed and hawed for a couple of days. I may have pouted about it a bit; my memory on that subject is a bit hazy.

But you know how this story turns out. In the end, he said if it was important to me, I could bring it home. He's a really good guy and trusted that I'd find a way to make it fit in. And as I mentioned in a previous post, I followed through on that trust, moving furniture, getting rid of a ton of stuff, and basically making a nice new home for my heaviest and most gigantic thrift store find ever.

As a bonus, the mister and the kiddo are both pretty taken with it. It's hard to ignore a thousand pound piano in a room, so I hear them playing it at random times. 

Now, the reasons people donate antique pianos to thrift stores are many and varied. Generally, I think the cost of tuning, repair, and moving probably outweigh the worth of most old pianos. This one was has a serial number in it that indicates it was made in 1906. 1906! Imagine the changes the world has undergone in 106 years. It predates two world wars, women's suffrage, Mt. Rushmore, and Glacier National Park, and was built the same year Teddy Roosevelt became president. Doing pretty well for an old lady. The one chipped key in the photo there is the only dead key (though several need new key tops). It's even mostly in tune.

It was priced at $100, but I had a 20% off coupon, so I paid $80 . . . and then a ridiculous $120 to have it moved three blocks in the back of the piano guy's beat up Datsun pick-up truck. He and a buddy managed to alienate the store staff by showing up an hour before we'd agreed to meet there (me, with purchase receipt in hand) and giving them a hard time until they relented and let him load it up. 

It arrived in mostly decent condition (there's a chip on the back corner, but I couldn't swear that it wasn't there when I bought it). The piano guy even told me it had been a really high-end piano in its day (though of course, the value has almost all disappeared except as raw materials), made of solid mahogany (he thinks) and hand-carved art nouveau details.

There is some major crazing to the finish, but no moth damage to the wool felt on the hammers.

And of course, a large and very heavy amount of solid brass inside. The front flips up to expose the interior, where the cast brass informs you that "Walters pianos are built to last a life time and are unequalled in tone and construction. They have reached the highest pinnacle of perfection and are masterpieces of piano building." This one, clearly, lasted longer than a life time. 

Originally manufactured for and sold by Macy's department stores, this turn-of-the-century piano has been accessorized with a Judy teaching clock from the 1970s, an Ikea dining chair, my Cathrineholm bowl, my old manual camera (purchased in 1994), an old mason jar, Hardy Boys novels, and three yellow lotus bowls, all of which (coincidentally) are thrift store finds. 

Okay. So what's your largest-ever thrift store find? Or your most musical? Or when have you hired a "professional" to do a job, and had that person not seem super-professional after all? Share in the comments section below; I love reading your comments and visiting your blogs.

Thanks for reading!

Linking up to:

Apron Thrift Girl

Simple Design

Cap Creations

p.s. you can make these photos larger just by clicking on them, but you probably already knew that.