This Week's Haul: Tables, Fabric, Patterns, Appliances, And A New 'Hazel'!

I know.  I'm still slacking, but I swear it's because this stupid computer is so slow and buggy that it honestly DOES take hours to do just one post.  It has more brain farts than Albert Einstein at a Mexican restaurant!  So annoying and I'll likely throw it out the window shortly.

I haven't done a 'Haul' post in a few weeks, so I'm going to throw all my recent finds into this one...I hope you'll forgive me!

I finally snagged a new 'Hazel'.  That's the name of my dress form I had while I was in London (and 'Hazel II' was my final collections dress form at uni).  I sold Hazel when I graduated and hadn't found a replacement for her until now.  Yayyy!

She's actually about a size larger than sample size at her smallest, but she'll do for the moment until I can find a smaller, better form.  And for $24, it was a great deal.  I love her!  And the fact that she's aqua just makes her and even more fabulous mid-century diva!

She's 'Pip Approved'.

I've also gotten a few new patterns at Habitat.  I used to buy TONS of them because they were only 25 cents each, but for some reason they've raised them to 50 cents and mentally I can't wrap my tightwad head around it, therefore I usually buy less---both volume and $$ wise.  Marketing stupidity there, Habitat.

Anyway.  I also got a nice HUGE curtain panel there, I'm estimating from the late '50s.  They didn't have it marked and I was told they'd price it at the register...again, not a very good marketing plan as it made me instantly on edge expecting to be taken advantage of.  Luckily, it was only $2.50!

There's a good four or five yards!  It'll make something fab!

I found this great tray at my favourite thrift store and knew I had to have it! 

Of course, I looooooove the graphics.  They're too cute and oh so 1970's/'80s Japanese cartoon luciousness...which is my childhood in a visual nutshell! 

I keep a lot of my loose hair pins, clips, and ties in a box in the top drawer of my bathroom vanity and it's hell digging through in search of something...especially while holding the hair the elusive accessory will hold in one hand...you know what I mean, ladies, we've all done it!  I'm happy to report that, after arranging them in my new tray,  yesterday I was able to find what I was looking for in record time!  Not bad for a dollar!

I got these tables at the same time....

I'd seen them on a previous visit, but didn't buy them.  This time, I only saw the two end tables and thought maybe I'd imagined the coffee table.  I asked and the owner assured me that the coffee table was around somewhere, but we'd have to look for it because she couldn't remember where she'd put it!  We found it underneath another taller table in a corner.  I remembered they weren't very expensive from the last time I was there, but couldn't remember the exact price.  I was thrilled when she said, "I've got them marked at $15".  I was even more thrilled when she went on to say, "...but they've got that yellow dot on them, so they're part of the 20% off sale."  What?  $12????  Yup.  $12.

They're not very heavy and aren't in pristine condition, but they're a killer style and I've been looking for a set of tiered end tables to either use in my living room as additional table-idge or in my bedroom since my current bedroom suit is sans nightstands.  I haven't decided where they'll go, but they'll for sure be painted first.  The coffee table will go somewhere as well, but for the moment, they're all three in the 'moving in room', aka, junk room!

This great starburst footed platter was bought off a local facebook selling site for $8.  Love it! 

  

I've since found out that it was originally a chaffing dish, but is missing it's 'chafe'.  It's still fab and will come in handy I'm sure!

The next couple of 'finds' weren't bought, but simply brought to my house from my parents' house. 

These two pictures were in my house (my grandparents' house) to begin with and were taken out by my mom and I while renovating so they wouldn't be ruined or lost.  They've made their return and appear quite happy to be 'home'.

This is a pic of my grandparents themselves, Grover and Bertha, freshly married around 1942.  Don't you just love the soft tinting on old photographs?

This photo of my mom, around 1963, hung in my bedroom in this house when I was little.  I love the pattern on this dress!

When I got home from work the other day, I found this in Pip's 'Staying at Gran's House' bag...

Mom had apparently decided I needed it for my laundry room!  This is a '70s original and made many moves with my parents and me.  It's been in my parents' current laundry room since I was 12, but when mom called the next day and asked if I'd found it, she said it was just screaming to be in my owl and mushroom laundry!  I can't wait to install it!

I've realized this morning that I never posted any pics of a 'haul' from before Christmas!  My late '40s General Electric kitchen appliances!

They're in my basement at the moment in the canning kitchen from which I snatched my current mid '60s upstairs oven and fridge.  I plan on using the unfinished basement as a tiki bar/billiard room and will of course need an extra kitchen for that...well, maybe not NEED, but it'll be nice!

I haven't done much cleaning on them yet...except for the inside of the fridge...but now that we're having some warm weather, the basement is more tolerable and I'll be getting them ship shape soon.  Then I can put them in proper position in the room.  At the moment, they're just sort of sat in the middle of the floor!  I may eventually paint the refrigerator because it has a little spot of rustiness showing ever so slightly through a corner at the bottom.  I'd LOVE to take it to someone to professionally paint it and if I do, it'll end up either pink or aqua and that's all there is to it!

Check out the inside!  It's pretty much all there.  

I think, upon doing a little spot of research, that the only thing missing is the glass topper of the 'Meat' drawer.  Everything else is intact and in great condition...the 94 year old original owner (a friend of my mom who is preparing to move from the house she's lived in since the early '50s into an assisted living flat) even found the original manual as well as the release lever for the ice aluminum ice tray for me!  She and her husband brought these appliances with them when they moved into the house!  They moved them into the basement in the early '60s when they redid the kitchen....you should see the GE oven they replaced this one with!  It's one of the cute ones with the push buttons!  And don't even get me started on the kitschy wall paper behind it!  I should get a photo next time i visit!  I've told her to make sure that whoever buys the house has my number and knows that I will buy that oven from them if they take it out...as well as the Youngstown sink in the basement that matches the cabinets I bought from her!

The Airliner oven is officially non-working right now and not in as good condition as the fridge.  I say OFFICIALLY because mom's friend said that it had a short in it and she'd unplugged it because of that.  TECHNICALLY though, I think it's probably perfectly fine.  When I went to pick it up, her son and I were looking at it and he said he never knew until I'd asked to buy it that it wasn't working.  He turned and asked his mom what was wrong and she again stated that it had a short in it.  When pressed further, she said that she'd been using the oven a few years ago and it had 'shocked' her when she touched it.  He and I looked at each other and at the same time said, "Not grounded?"  Probably.  Because when we pulled it out, there was no grounding wire.  And since the basement was never a proper kitchen, the outlet itself was unlikely to be grounded either.  Since she just got a little shock...and lived!...it's unlikely to have caused anything to short out, so it's probably just fine!  Of course, I'm going to have a professional come look at it before I plug it in, just in case.

It has its original soup warmer and it even has all of the inserts for steaming several things at once!

If it turns out that she is in working condition, the only real issue she has is the broken face on the clock/timer...

Well, that's it for now!  Any of you scored some good stuff lately?

Vintage Black & White Scotch Whiskey Adverts

The following post is brought to you by Pip, the official Head of Security here at the Brady Ponderosa....

Scotties were all the rage from the 1930's through the 1950's.  And many products used them in their advertising.  For instance.....

Here's a 1941 Pontiac ad:

And a 1950 ad for spark plugs: 

Mayflower Trucks & Warehouses:

My favourites have always been the ones for Black & White Scotch Whiskey.  Check it out, kids:

 

 

 

 

 

 



Cutest dogs EVER!!



Pip would like me to point out that 'Whitey' of Black and White is NOT a 'Scottie'.  He's a Westie!  There ARE wheaten Scotties, but this ain't one! 
We were hoping that my mom's Scottie would be a wheaten.  One of his brothers was, but was already spoken for.  McTavish ended up with only a bit of white...on his chin and his chest:

Pip Pip Cheerio and McT.....Besties!!!:

I'll take 'Black and Black' any day of the week!

It Runs In the Family--Vintage Bar Collection

Apologies for my sporadic posting, but honestly my computer's so slow it takes forever between all the lockups and script errors, to do more than a few lines and a couple of pics (this post has actually been in progress for 3 days)...plus, I don't have a scanner and have to wait until I'm at my mom's if I want to scan anything and I usually forget due to the cuteness of Pip and my parents' puppy, Tavish, playing together when we're there!  Puppy cuteness leads to memory loss.  True story. 

 

Well, we're finally having a spot of sunshine, so I wanted to take some pics while I could of my vintage bar collection.  Most of this is inherited from my paternal grandfather's home bar (the 'Good Time Charlie, to the left was his too!).  It was a fab knotty pine masterpiece of mid-century awesomeness!  The only pic I have of it is of the wall behind the bar, so you can't really tell much about the room itself....

...but it was gorg!  It was in the old part of the upstairs of my grandparents' house, which was really an attic.  The entire room, including the sloping ceiling was covered in knotty.  It even had ultra modern looking recessed spot lights in the ceiling!  Not too shabby for 1960, which is when everything was installed!  My dad saved the bar itself before the house was demolished by the new owner and is planning on installing it in his workshop/mancave this summer.  When he does, I'll be sure to get pics for you!  He also has that decanter in the picture...unopened...sitting on the kitchen counter in my parents' house! 

On to the pride and joy of the 'Brady Ponderosa', my bar collection:

Half of my collection is stored in Dan-o, the stereo.  You see those doors in the middle?  They look like they'd slide open to reveal record storage, right?  Yeah, that's what I thought when I bought it and didn't even bother to look inside....until my dad was helping me load it the next day and I heard a "clink, clink" as we hefted it up onto the trailer.

When I opened it, I found out it was actually a bar storage area, complete with glass holders and the 8 original glasses that you can kind of see here:

My other bar/liquor cabinet is in the right half of my Sculptra buffet/hutch in my dining room:

One of my favourite bottles is the unopened Dark Eyes Grenadine bottle:

  

I've not been able to find any information on this brand, but I would guess it's from the '50s-early '60s.  Anyone ever heard of it?

This is the best stuff EVER!:

 

It's like drinking a chocolate covered cherry! 

There was a hang tag on this, but it was in ROUGH shape.  But judging by the visuals that were on it, I'd estimate this bottle to be from the late '60s-early '70s.  Here's a great ad from the early '70s:

 

 

And one from the late '60s:

 

They still make this stuff and I highly recommend it!!

Cointreau, most likely from the 1960's...
 
A contemporary ad:

I'm diggin' the Cointreau rack!  And any green drink is A-Ok in my book!

There's a lot of Hiram Walker in this collection!
Here, we have Chocolate Mint fron the '70s and 1960's Green Creme de Menthe:

  









I have two of the larger bottles of creme de cacao, probably from the '60s.  The smaller one is much older.




 

Coffee brandy from the '70s....



Schnapps!!  Probably from the '70s.  The peach brandy, I'd date to the '60s....


More Schnapps!  This time, Peppermint.  Frankly, YUCK!!



Kirsch.  My grandmother used to put this stuff in sooooo many deserts!  They'd float!!
 

 Here's another fun one!  Deuce Juice!  I can't seem to find any info on this one either, but judging by the packaging, I'd say early '70s.  Isn't it fun!  I have a slight feeling the 'pure grape wine' wasn't much of a vintage?  N'est pas?


This next one is my favourite bottle.  Not because it looks cool, although it does, it's because it belonged to my great-grandfather, George:

That's him on the right a few months before his death.  On the left is my grandfather.
Now, my great-grandmother didn't approve of drinking.  She was a hard core teetotaler.  But Papaw George drank.  He was, however, smart enough not to let her see him drinking.  Everyone in the family knew he had a stash somewhere, but no one ever found it...including my great-grandmother.
Years after he died, while cleaning out an old building next to my grandparent's store, dad found a cured ham hanging in a storage closet.  It was hollow.  In the void was hidden this gem:

Dad instantly knew that he'd found his grandfather's long lost liquor stash.  Consequently, this is the most prized piece in my collection.  Of course it goes without saying that, once my dad gets his bar set up, this beauty will be returned to a place of honour in his collection!

There are a couple of decanters I like that I'll eventually add to the collection, I just haven't knicked them from storage at my mom and dad's house yet!

The collection isn't limited to mid century liquor.  Here's some other lovely little things my grandfather had in his bar....

I adore this Seagram's basket-y thing.  Perfect for spoons and stirrers.

These spoons have a lovely art deco design on the handles and the colours match my kitchen and dining decor so well!

 

These are fun!

The clear one on the left with the dog on top is marked Wolfschmidt's Vodka.

 

The nautical themed spoon in the middle is one of a set.  They have little gold foil stickers on them and I'm sure they once held the name of something or somewhere, but it's long worn off.

 The little stirrer on the end is from TWA Airlines.

 

I'm quite smitten with this set with their red Bakelite handles....

This pocket bar guide is from 1942 and will turn you into a mini Tom Cruise...

Speaking of Mixology guides.....

Here's a Bicentennial one:

These two are hilarious, mainly because they focus on 'What's your sign?'.  The graphics and fonts in these are fantastic.  I'll scan these soon and share further the groovalicious details.

This is my favourite.  So much so, that I'm seriously considering framing it....double sided of course, because both sides are so much fun!  Look at that seal!!

I love that it even gives you a  visual of the proper glass to use for each cocktail!

If you're gonna make these cocktails, you'll need shakers....

There's something endearing about this slightly banged up old aluminum model:

This one's slightly newer...I'm thinking '60s (I just now saw that I fingerprinted it before taking the pic!  Oooops!):

And, if you need to make drinks for an army....

This thing is truly HUGE!

And if you forget how to make some popular drinks, NEVER FEAR!!!  It conveniently has a little rotary on top that gives you a cheat sheet!!

 

 If you want it stirred not shaken, Mr. Bond, you'll need these:

Sprite swizzles!!

Even better, these 'Swirl Sippers'.

A swizzle and a straw in one!  What WILL they think of next?

And if you'd like to have a Hef style drink, just spear your olive with one of these.  You'll feel like you're drinking in the Playboy Club circa 1966:

I ADORE this bottle opener!  One of my favourite pieces, actually.

These are next pieces are SUPER old.  Much older than mid century.  They were found in the top of my family's store that had been sealed up since 1953...you can read the story here.

I couldn't get a non blurry photo of these and to be fair, the print on them is a bit faded anyway.

This one is local and says:

"Compliments of

M.R. Miller & Co.

Drink

Bristol Club

Clinchfield, 

and Miller's Oldest

Bristol, VA"

 

This one's marked "Glasco Medicine Glass".  It has a little measurement scale that measures "Tea" and "Wine Glass".

This set was inside a golf ball.  Yep, inside a golf ball!

 

 I found a picture of what the thing looked like on Etsy:

Obviously one of my shot glasses was missing, there was also a crack in the top of the golf ball.  So I just opted to keep the glasses and decanter.

 We've now come to what I affectionately call 'Drink Condoms'.

Before 'coozies', there were these bad boys:

 The fact that the box mentions "sensation" makes the moniker even better!

 The paper inside reads:

"Since all Latex is going into the War Effort, our designers have effected this new construction which is just as absorbent, just as durable, and as versatile as the old-style--and it's 100% American mercerized terri-knit.  Slip one on any glass or bottle and you'll find it a remarkable fit!

NOTE:  After using the new HI-JACS, or switching them from large to small glasses, you can restore their original shape by stretching lengthwise."

The whole thing sounds very suggestive!  Or am I just a dirty bird?

 

 Here's a few others I found that are a bit different:

If you're drinking from a can and are as anal retentive (good lord at the suggestiveness rolling around this post!) as I am, you won't want to drink directly from the mouth of the can.  You're in luck!  These little babies take care of that!  And they're in such great colours!!

If you'd like to 'BYOB', you'll need a flask.  I only have two, but boy are they fun little muffins!!

The first is a souvenir flask.

It's covered in leather...which kind of makes it look like Ed Gein's flask, if I'm honest.

On one side it says:

"When your heels hit hard

And your head feels queer

And your thoughts foam up

Like the froth on beer

When your legs are weak

And your voice is strong

And you laugh like hell

At some damn fool song

YOU'RE DRUNK

BY GOSH

YOU'RE DRUNK!"

 The other side has little holes in the leather so you can have a look-see how much hooch you've got left!

The bottom declares it to be from "Gatlinburg Tenn. Great Smoky Mts."

Yeah, the souvenir flask was cool, but are you ready for this????

A little James Bond hideaway action going on here!

Yes, uh huh, it looks like your average everyday transistor radio in it's case, no?

 

Nope!  It's a secret mobile party!!

My dad said he used to take this with him to the Bristol races back in the early- mid '60s...yep, before he was of legal age!  Sneaky little bugger!  Such a rebel, that one!

Speaking of mobile parties, this is one of my best pieces.  When I found it, it still had the paper on the lock, so it had obviously never been opened, let alone used.

Inside is all you need to be a picnic or barbecue bartender.

 

I love  the printed paper bottles!  "My Favorite Brand"

 

Stay tuned for glassware!!

Any of you lot have a family member who fancied himself a mid century Tom Cruise?