love 'em and leave 'em

In case anyone labors under the mistaken impression that I bring home everything I like from thrift stores and estate sales, I occasionally like to show-and-tell some of the stuff what didn't get brought.

Let's start with a French pressure cell press. My love for industrial machinery knows no logic, but at least I talked myself out of actually bringing it home. And it's a good thing; I don't need any membranes disrupted.

This mid-century lamp is interesting to me. What's that screened bit for in the middle?

It's hinged, so something can be put inside, but what? Incense? Spare bulbs? Is it an ashtray? Intriguing. But I don't need more lamps right now.

Love these chairs. Love them. Except for the upholstery. Just two problems: 1) We have enough chairs. 2) Even if I'd brought home the pair of them, the arms (I love the arms!) would make them unsuitable for using at the dining room table. The kitchen/dining room is on the small side, and these wouldn't scoot in, making for less room to maneuver around them.

 More industrial equipment. I love the name "Cleantron".

Someone put a papasan chair on top of this antique table. Of course, at this particular store, they also write prices inside of antique books in pen, so it's not really too surprising.

I love the way this thing was built. It's gorgeous, and probably legitimately an antique. It was also pretty big. We have a train table in our living room at the moment, though, and by the time I thought of using it as a patio table, someone else had snapped it up. I think it was $7.00 or something. Will it haunt me till the day I die? No, but probably for another few weeks, anyway.

Ooh! Staircase shelves! These would work well with a bunkbed, I think. Traffic was brisk the day I went in; someone swooped in an left with one of the pair about ten minutes after I snapped this picture.

Oddly attracted to this, or the legs anyway. The top had a cheap looking veneer, but I did love the legs.

I used a couple of valets as t-shirt displays at the bookstore, back in the day. I still have one of the pair, in fact, but I've never seen one built as part of a chair. 

I can't remember what the project was, but something I saw on Pinterest made me shoot this picture of a 2-tiered end table.

Last but not least, a little polka-dot chair. Probably a contemporary piece, but maybe from the late 40s or early 50s. I'd sit in it.

And there you have it! See, I told you I didn't buy every cool thing I see! 

Thanks for reading!

thrift store finds: the ones that got away

Contrary to popular belief, I do not, in fact, take home every cool thing I find at thrift and re-sale stores. Sometimes I limit myself to just taking photos of things I like. So here's a little photo dump of some of the things I've loved and left.

This leather folding chair must've been one of the coolest chairs I've seen lately. I don't really need more chairs in my life (our house is still the same size it's always been), but the kiddo and I visited it about a half dozen times before someone else bought it off the sales floor and saved me from myself.

Big industrial mixer-thingy? Really cool looking. No use for it in the world.

Big honkin' antique piano with little doors that slide open to show the hammers? It was almost ours. It should have been ours. If there'd been some way to get it home, it would have been ours. It was only $50.

There was a whole set of these dictionary/encyclopedias one day at the Village; I loved the hand-marbled end papers, and if the books hadn't been so musty, large, pricey, and only sensical as a set, I might have trucked them home. Instead, I just photographed the paper, and just like that, I saved $150 and a ton of shelf space in my house. I might turn the pattern into a fabric design or something.

I don't even know what this is. My left brain says, "air conditioning condenser", but I don't know where my left brain is pulling that from. My right brain says "pretty copper tubing! Maybe it could be a sculpture or something!" But my right brain is (face it) a little crazy sometimes, and my left brain smacked her hand away.

Modern Science Problems is a handsome book. I didn't get past the cover because it was super-musty smelling, and I don't like to introduce mustiness into my book collection. But the illustrations on the cover promised more inside. St. Vinnie's has such great book selections.

I like the idea of this 1970s kitchen measurements/equivalents chart (spotted at Goodwill), but the typography layout didn't do it for me, and I couldn't see past the glaring spelling error. It made me wonder if the measurements would be off, too. Still, I like the idea of a kitchen chart for measurements, and I hope to work up something similar in the near future.

Inexplicably, this elf's house cookie jar (with a sign reading "Cookie Club" above the door) was in a summer window display at the Assistance League charity shop, along with wet suits, boogie boards, and sandcastle molds. 'Round these parts, the cookie club meets all year. Super cute cookie jar. Doesn't go with anything we own, except the gnome seatbelt covers I made for the kiddo's car seat. And we already have a cookie jar.

I thought these hand-stitched chair seats were pretty nifty, but again, we don't need chairs and again, they're not really our style, so I photographed them and moved on. Not five minutes later, the kiddo and I saw a couple of dudes rolling them past in a shopping cart, so they found a happy home almost immediately.

More chairs. I loved the super-tall backs on these and the old leather seats. I clearly have a chair problem.

1950s nightstand in terrible shape. I liked the lines, though, and imagined it all refinished and shiny. I could be really beautiful. But the projects are piling up around here as it is. I mean, aside from the fact that there's no room in our bedroom for a nightstand. It's not the right time, little nightstand, but someday, maybe. Stay alive. I will find you.

Metal cabinet with a fancy latch. No use for it, really, but that doesn't mean I didn't think it over. Flammable liquid storage, maybe? I don't know. Something.

These pretty lucite boxes would make awesome art storage. I had all five of these piled into my cart one day at Bring, but they weren't priced, as far as I could tell. If you'll look closely at right-side hinge on the second case from the bottom, you might make out the number "10". As in $10 each. Because these are special, "lab-quality plastic" donated from the semi-conductor plant that closed. I have no lab use for these, so I can't justify $10 per box, but maybe someone else can! They had dozens of them in stock.

More chairs! I know. I'm seeking help. Fact is, two blogs I regularly visit had featured egg-shaped 1970s wicker chairs (here and here) recently; they're coming back into style. I went back to get one (for the backyard, maybe?) after spending the afternoon thinking it over, and both were sold. At $12.50 apiece, I knew they wouldn't last.

I don't collect Pyrex, but I know a lot of people do. I considered buying it for my Etsy vintage shop. This peachy one was sweet, but honestly, glass and dishware don't sell particularly well in my shop, so I passed on this until I clear a couple more items from my inventory.

Blue portable record player. Love it. No personal use for it. A little too pricey to ship. So it stayed on the shelf for another 24-hours (tops), until someone whisked it away to a new home.

If I didn't already have too many glass vases, this elegant glass globe would have hopped into my cart. But I do have too many glass vases, so it stayed at the Village.

1970s electric organ. I thought it was cute and it reminded me of the one our neighbors had when we were kids. But I'm holding out for a real piano. I still regret not snapping up the one I showed you earlier, and having this would in no way make up for it.

Finally, these. These huge, light-up letters from an old Pepsi-Cola bottling company sign. There are two "P"s in Pepsi. There was one in a (claimed) shopping cart at the front of the store, along with the "s" (the "a" was already gone). If I'd been there awhile earlier, I could have found the first letter of each of our names. As it was, the only three left weren't useful; once again, saved by the bell.

So there you have it! A ton of great secondhand finds I left behind. Which isn't to say I didn't bring home some nifty things recently. I totally did. But I'm gonna save those for another day.

How about you? What have you been finding and leaving behind?

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

Linking up to:

Simple Design's Thrift Haul
Cap Creations' Thrifty Love
Southern Hospitality's Thrifty Treasures