So I was looking at my Bartons tin (I posted about it here), and wondering what I was going to do with it. It couldn’t just take up real estate on my desk and not serve a purpose. That’s when I realized instead of having all of my office supplies shoved in a drawer in the closet I could make this tin über functional.

The only supplies you’ll need are some scraps of matboard or other heavy material, an X-acto knife or utility knife, and a tin.

First, cut two pieces to the diameter and height of your tin. Then, cut two thin slits halfway up the the middle that are roughly the thickness of your matboard. With a little bit of trimming they will fit together like this:

Then pop it in to your tin:

And fill it with whatever nonsense you want.

My fairly-organized soul is quenched, and I get to keep this tin on my desk and know it’s serving a functional purpose. Mission accomplished in under five minutes.

This Adrian Pearsall monster couch! Oh how long I’ve searched for thee. This is identical to a sofa that I let slip through my hands years ago and I’ve been kicking myself for the better part of a decade. I shared that debacle with you back in this post. But timing is everything. I wasn’t educated or prepared the first go around—this time I was all over it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, when you’re searching for something, cast a wide net and let people know what you like. It was my mom who found the Craigslist posting that led me to this beauty. I found the posting in my inbox around 5 pm and texted the number to inquire how much they were asking. They texted back, “$60.” I texted back, “SOLD!” But there was one caveat—the couch was over an hour away and it had to be picked up that night or it would be sold to other interested buyers in the morning. I began making frantic calls to secure a vehicle big enough to haul this nine foot behemoth and to find some temporary storage (thanks Angela!) until I could make space for it in my garage. Thank goodness for great friends. Two hours later I was on my way in a borrowed van.

It turns out the seller had been given the couch by a local doctor she worked for. She had looked it up online, but honestly she couldn’t understand why anybody would want it. But to each their own—and I now own this fabulous couch. I was amazed at the condition. The wood is nearly flawless and, with the exception of one hole in the seat cushion, the upholstery is in great shape too. While I like the upholstery and could probably learn to live with the hole, I’ll probably opt to have it reupholstered. The foam is encased in some kind of crinkling plastic sleeve that sounds like a waterproof children’s mattress and the rubber strapping beneath the seat has given way and been replaced with plywood strips and a crude wooden box placed under the seat. It is also missing the original matching throw pillows along the back which I plan to replace. But, I am hoping there is enough salvageable fabric from the sofa to recover a chair that I’ve been hunting for fabric for.

The shape of this low sofa is SO COOL. I can’t get over it. The massive walnut apron, the dainty legs with castors, the ridiculously skinny drawers—it is all so quintessentially mid-century. In my New Year’s find list post I said I loved my current sofa, but I might change my mind for the right piece. This is it. Totally worth changing my whole living room for—a new master plan for the room is currently coming together. Stay tuned for the before and after.

As I unloaded the couch, a thought did spring to mind: how would I possibly get this in my house? My living room is on a second floor, accessible only by a staircase with a 90 degree turn. Normal sized furniture is a challenge, much less a nine foot long couch. As I contemplated ways of hoisting it through the living room window, another option presented itself. From the back, I noticed the couch is built on a welded steel frame. Fortunately the seat and wood pieces can all be removed from the frame, allowing it to be disassembled and carried upstairs in pieces. Score.

Saved by screws! The couch comes apart

Although no markings are left on the sofa, it is fortunately a documented Adrian Pearsall design. Many, many pieces are incorrectly attributed to him, and in reality many are knock-offs of his designs for Craft Associates.

The original Craft Associates catalog page, via adrianpearsall.com

So, I honestly don’t know what’s left on my find list. But I won’t worry about it. As always, you find what you’re looking for when you aren’t looking specifically for it. The key is simply to keep looking at everything, always.

A few weeks back Austin and I had a morning filled with garage sales. Out of all of the sales, the first one was where we bought the most. The sale was in an old building but somehow I ended up in the garage where things had not yet been dragged out or priced for the sale and I hauled out this bunch of rusty junk. These pieces definitely have rust, giving them a look of age and charm. Every time I picked up an item I was given a $1.00 price. Score! How could I put it back? The stack of wire baskets was $1.00 for all! I was excited to find that two of them were old locker baskets.

I bought most of these items with a friend in mind, but I plan on keeping the Jack’s BBQ bucket. I love the graphics and I love the story. It was used in the garage I snagged it from. The original owner of the property had run a BBQ joint right out of his garage years ago. The large walk-in freezer is still in the back of the garage. The current owner had grown up next door and could remember Jack being up all night preparing the meat. He remembered as a child waking up early in the mornings to the smell of the cooking barbeque coming from this garage.

Aren’t the two handles just adorable?

The best part of going to garage sales is the crazy things you find. It’s definitely an adventure each time you walk up to one. Now to figure out what to do with all this rusty junk.

Yes, it is a chess set and yes, it is complete…and amazing.

Having these all out at one time turned my fingers into butter and I kept thinking one was going to shatter!

I can’t even tell you how detailed these little ceramic pieces are. They are so unique, and all the pieces are there and almost in mint condition (only one rook has a chip). They’re not designer pieces, but I love them all the same.

I’ve been trying to think what to do with them, and was leaning heavily towards selling them. Why? Because they’re hidden in a box, we don’t use them,and I can’t think of a nice way to display 32 tiny statues. Any ideas? Plus, I didn’t think there was a midcentury chess board that would match. At least I didn’t think so, until I was mindlessly perusing Pinterest this afternoon.

According to an auction website (found here), this is a Lane checker board storage ottoman. Now I have something new to look for. Sadly, the one on the site had already sold for $99, but hopefully there is another one out there…and in the Iowa area!

I couldn’t believe it was hanging there with all those terrible Cosby sweaters for only $1.50. Better yet, when the cashier saw it she noticed it had a stain so she discounted it 50%. Awesome.

The stains, holes and random darned spots don’t bother me in the least. It’s old, authentic and it has the battle scars to prove it. I don’t often come across these in any sort of salvageable shape. This one is in good shape and the patches are in excellent condition. I love the chevrons on the shoulder. Judging from the large patch, I believe this is from East High School in Des Moines, Iowa.

I have other letters and patches, including another from East as well as one for golf and one for basketball, possibly from Dowling High School. I always thought it would be cool to frame these. I think I’d like to do the same for the sweater. I’m super excited about the idea of putting this thing in a shadow box made from an antique picture frame. I’ll post the results when I get around to this project…some day.

My collection could easily number into the thirties, but who’s counting? Definitely not me. I do display many of them, but they are all packed away because of our move. Since moving a month ago, I have added the three below to my collection.

So why do I keep buying them? Maybe because I have a thermos problem. Angela supports my addiction and surprised me with the tall blue one. The other two I found at a garage sale for only $0.25 each.

I love that some of the thermoses have the date manufactured printed on them.

I have become pretty picky when it comes to buying them. So here are a few tips I can share for picking the good ones. Always open them and check for rust and bad odors. Thermoses are often vacuum sealed, keeping the liquid in and at your desired temperature, but this also traps in unwanted smells that can be super hard to get out. I actually did not open one until I got home and found it to be full of thirty year old liquid of some kind. Sick! Thermoses can be taken apart and cleaned, but it can be labor intensive. I have given up on a few and tossed them out when they are just too far gone. Probably my best tip is to pick them up and shake them. If you hear a rattling sound, there is probably rust between the metal or plastic outside and the insert. Not good.  A little rust, a few scratches or some dents is fine and only add to its old charm. Finally, remember to leave the lids off so the thermos is open to the air after you wash them up, otherwise they won’t dry out.

That was the previous owner’s shower curtain. I swear!

Yes, we bought the house with this business going on full force. Paint splattered floor, cornflower blue wainscoting, and 90s floral border. I wish you could see the sink; there were scallops to hold the soap. Score.

As with most things in our house, once you start tearing things out you discover a rat’s nest of problems. So, we opted for minimal deconstruction. We did rip out the wainscoting as there were about fifteen wall anchors randomly dispersed through it, but it was a nice nod to the history of our house so we reinstalled new boards.

Yes, we have a window in our shower. There was a shower curtain inside the shower curtain to protect it, but we since replaced the whole thing with a rod used for claw foot tubs and bought two shower curtains. Problem solved. Keep that in mind if you ever run in to the same problem.

So demo started…

There was a step in between when I went crazy one weekend and painted everything because I couldn’t stand that blue.

Don’t worry detail-oriented ones: I went at those touchups with the tiniest paintbrush before we could call things done.

…And probably three months later everything was finished. We are such sticklers for detail that everything takes forever. Ahhh. Much better. New sink, new floor, new paint, and things started to look amazing.

You might remember me searching for some bathroom appropriate vessels in this post to hold things in our open shelving. And there’s the hot rollers Tammy got me for Christmas! Some days I take everything out of these blasted shelves and rearrange them, because I just can’t get them to look right. Probably in a month everything will look different!

Another shot of the mirror I’d like to one day replace with a nicer one when I finally find it.

These frames have all been purchased at different times and I’ve been waiting until I had quite a grouping to put them on the wall. It’s the first thing you see when you walk into the small space and by far my favorite detail.

And lastly, here’s a closeup of my favorite frame, purchased from my favorite dealer. It makes me happy every time I see it.

The most important part of searching for something is to cast a wide net. My friends and family knew I was hunting for this and it was my mom who found the ad on Craigslist and sent it my way. The minute I got her email, I called the number and drove 60 miles in a thunderstorm to get it—I wasn’t about to let this slip away.

I wasn’t disappointed I made the trip. This thing is gorgeous from every angle, and other than needing a good cleaning inside and out, it is in excellent condition with only a couple minor scratches on the top. No water rings, no chipped veneer, no weird smell—none of the common pitfalls of old technology that gets sentenced to musty basements.

It even works! The gentleman who sold it to me had it playing as I drove up. I was prepared to buy it either way, but working condition is a huge plus. I do, however, plan to have it fully restored. Although it works, vintage electronics contain paper capacitors lined with electrolytic paste to control power supply throughout the unit. Over the years these dry up and fail to perform their jobs correctly. It is always a good idea to have a professional look it over and replace the capacitors (known as re-capping) before using any vintage electronics regularly, especially if they use vacuum tubes. I plan to have this baby forever, so it will be worth the investment.

I am absolutely in love with the design and quality of this cabinet. The wood is top notch with amazing figuring. The entire cabinet is heavy plywood with extremely thick walnut veneer. The jointed edge banding shows at least an eighth of an inch of wood, ensuring that chipping will never be an issue. The center grille is also beautiful with vertical solid walnut slats hiding a massive Vibrasonic Golden Voice woofer.

The Vibrasonic system was evidently designed to allow the device to be carefully tuned to the acoustics of any room, recreating the reverberations heard from live music in concert halls. That’s a pretty neat trick for 1959. The stereo also features what some call a “magic eye,” which is a tube that emits an eery green light to let you know if you’ve tuned a radio station to the strongest available signal. Super cool.

But what I’m most excited about is finding another piece of beautifully designed and built furniture from the Drexel Declaration suite. Stewart MacDougall and Kipp Stewart designed the line for Drexel in the late 1950s. It contains numerous pieces, all designed as a modernist interpretation of utilitarian Shaker furniture. The result is a breathtaking line of furniture with elegant, clean lines.

My obsession with Declaration began when I purchased this coffee table at a tag sale for $40. At the time I debated and debated, but fortunately nobody had swiped the tag when I finally decided to take it. Looking back, I can’t imagine how I didn’t grab it at first glance.

Superbly made, this low table has storage inside as well as drawers and magazine storage on the outside. I ended up completely redesigning my living room around this piece, which necessitated buying a flat screen tv and selling many things I thought I’d never sell. But it was well worth it.

As I researched the furniture more, I fell in love with the china hutch from the line. In a very short amount of time I found one on Craigslist and commandeered my parents and their truck to make the hour long trip to get it.  Its coolness cemented it into my life forever. Lighted cabinets with milk glass shelves make a perfect spot to display vintage pottery. Drawers and an automatically lit cabinet below provide tons of storage for serving ware.

My next piece was this side table. It was a charity shop find and one I again debated on. I have no idea why, it’s gorgeous. Despite its rather massive size, the open legs and caned shelf make it look much less space consuming.

But it is this stereo that is most satisfying. How many other lines of furniture had a matching console stereo? None that I know of. Of course you never find what you’ll love the most when you’re ready for it. Literally the weekend before I bought this I just finished arranging the living room furniture to include these two chairs in the last remaining space in the room. Of course, this is where the stereo would have to go.

Before

After

I’d be lying if I said I loved the stereo here as much as I liked the chairs. I don’t. It’s kind of imposing and the proportions are much different than the hutch it shares a wall with, making it look a little awkward. But I’m willing to make the sacrifice until I someday move into my forever house which will be chosen specifically to house these special pieces—and possibly even more. I hear Drexel also made a TV for Motorola…

Drexel Declaration TV cabinet for Motorola, via RetroRenovation

This document was given out to John Elias Jones in 1934 as he graduated from East High School in Cleveland, Ohio. Diplomas used to be large, this one measures 13″ by 17″. It would have been rolled and held together by a ribbon, most likely the ribbon used in this frame.

I just love that the ribbon was saved all those years ago!

Who would have thought that a high school diploma would be a work of art. This snag will be hung on my husband’s office wall.

This Private Stash piece has to be one of my favorites. I bought it at a tag sale of presumably an art teacher for around $3. It’s in pretty good condition considering its age, and the colors are so vibrant.

I didn’t open the tin at the sale before I bought it because it was a frenzied event, and lucky for me all of the watercolors are intact.

Don’t worry: all the colors are non-poisonous as printed on the inside. It makes me wonder what children’s watercolors used to be made of. Only one color has been used and that’s the red violet. And see that bright pink color in the upper left? That’s called “flesh red”. Hmm. There are little hooks on the back to hang it up on the wall, and I’m thinking of placing it next to my son’s little art desk for some inspiration.

What about you guys? Was the weather cooperating and could you make it to a few garage sales? We’d love to see what you find!