exciting finds

This one came today, and it has a small chip and flea bites along one side of the lid. I guess I won't be buying this stuff online anymore. It's not worth the risk since they are expensive to ship to me and to return if something is wrong.

The seller was very nice and gave me a generous refund to make up for the oversight, so I feel ok about the purchase. But it's still disappointing, and again I'm not sure if I can use these lids since they are damaged. I don't want any exploding Pyrex in my home =(

I was so excited to find a somewhat inexpensive 5 quart casserole in the Spice o' Life pattern. When I emailed the seller, she said the piece did not have cracks, chips or stains. But when I received the piece today, it had a small chip in the lid and a long stain on the handle. The stain might be removable, but I can't do anything about the chip. It's small and I could see how she missed it, but I've heard that once your glass piece has a chip in it, you can't use it anymore.

I'm not sure if this is true, but I may be in the market for a new lid =/ I've emailed the seller, so we'll see what she says. Other than those 2 things, the set is in good shape. I've been looking in my cookbook that I mentioned for a recipe to try out the larger casserole.

Also, I picked up these small plates from the local thrift store yesterday for $3 total. I was going to sell them, but they are stained pretty good, so I'll just keep them.

*Update* The seller gave me a partial refund, so I feel ok about it now.

Also, my Sidekicks came in and they are perfect. It's like they were never even used. They are a lot smaller than I was imagining, but I realized that I never actually read the measurements. Whoops. Oh well, they are still awesome. Now if only my toaster oven were big enough to fit them.

Bought this baby on eBay and it came only 3 days after I paid. It has a few more signs of love than I would have liked, but they are all cosmetic and on the outside. I'm sure I would have done as much damage just storing or washing it anyway. These little things are expensive and shipping prices always seem so inflated. Why are my habits so expensive?

Found this little gem at a thrift store for $3. It matches the 3 quart casserole dish I found at a local thrift store (though I can't remember which one) and the loaf pan I bought online. I got super lucky with my sugar container today. I also saw a matching ~4" skillet that I was going to buy, but I changed my mind since it was so small. My rule for collecting pieces from this set is that I can only buy the things I will actually use to cook.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm going to track down some Grab-Its, but I'm hoping to score some of those locally too, since they are expensive with shipping. The Grab-Its seem to be difficult to find with lids especially, so finding several to make a set will take a while. I will probably also buy a 5 quart casserole and maybe one of those square 8"x8" pans I've seen.

When DH and I bought a new dining table, I moved the old one into our bedroom to use as a desk. While the desk served its purpose just fine, it took up a lot more space in the bedroom than I liked; eventually I grew tired of it being in the way and looking awkward. For weeks I searched on and off for a real wood desk (because I didn't like the fact that 100% of our furniture was from Ikea) that was a good price and was small enough to fit neatly in the space available between the dresser and the wall.

Over the weeks I had been looking, I found several desks that fit the bill, but they all ended up not working out for various reasons. I gave up the search for a while and went on vacation for 9 days. We returned home on a Friday, and school started the following Monday. Saturday I realized that I still didn't have a proper desk, so I checked craigslist again and stumbled upon an ad for a wonderful vintage typewriter desk that had been posted 6 days earlier. Though the measurements weren't listed, it looked to be the perfect size. I emailed excitedly, hoping that it was still available after such a long time on craigslist. It was!

We scheduled to pick up the following morning, and before we left, I already had a response about the old dining table I had posted on craigslist the night before. I let her know that we wouldn't be home till the afternoon and that I would let her know. When we went to pick up the desk, I talked the seller into bringing the price down $20, and we discovered that it didn't fit in our car. We borrowed an SUV from DH's parents and enlisted some friends to help move it since it was too heavy for me. That took all morning, so we all went to lunch together, which we wanted to do anyway to thank them for watching the cats while we were gone.

I emailed the buyer for the table to let her know we were available and promptly fell asleep. When I woke up, I saw that I had an email from her and panicked, thinking that I'd missed her and she was no longer interested (this has happened to me before). But after I sent her an apology asking if she was still interested, I noticed that she had only sent her response 10 minutes before I saw it. I emailed again with my address, and she was at our door less than an hour later.

I am so pleased that everything worked out well. Though the desk shows some love, it is full of personality. I someday may refinish it, but the condition of the desk is actually quite nice. I put my typewriter in the space provided because it was getting dusty being on display all the time. The desk has holes for securing the typewriter to the platform, but the screws on my typewriter are too small. I just let the typewriter rest against the back surface since it's not too heavy. When the light is better, I'll get a picture of the underside of the desk. The mechanism to bring out the typewriter is so nifty.

The desk has a small plaque on it that says "F.W. Wentworth & Co, San Francisco" on it. Though I'm no expert, I've never heard of this brand, and the only meaningful result from googling was an ebook entitled "Lawrence A Oxley. Architect and engineer (Volume v.62-63 (July-Dec. 1920))" which an address listed for the company. Is this desk really from 1920?

On the way to pick up DH at the train station, I stopped by the thrift store and found a set of worn salad bowls. In the largest bowl I'm planning to plant some sort of lettuce mix! The book I'm using said she had found a large salad bowl second-hand and used it in this manner, and the idea greatly pleased me. This set didn't originally have a price on it, so the guy said he'd sell it for $6 when it would normally be priced at $8 or $10. I measured the bowl and found that it's a little short of having the minimum soil depth for lettuces and leafy greens, but I decided to buy it anyway and give it a shot. I can always harvest early if the plants look like they are getting too big for the container. After the guy left, the lady who was ringing me up said she'd give it to me for $5. Sold!

Naturally, after I removed the tape and three smaller bowls, Selina had to plop herself in the largest bowl.

This is my fancy Remington Rand Streamliner manual typewriter, which I found on craigslist after a few weeks of searching online. More pictures at my Flickr set. According to The Typewriter Database, it was made in 1941 or 1942 depending on the serial number, which I have yet to find.

It is in great condition, with only a few scratches that I will probably cover up with a sharpie or maybe car detail paint; I haven't decided yet. The seller kept a piece of paper wrapped around the platen, which seems to have protected it very well. I'm not sure if this was her intent, but I'm glad it happened since I didn't want to send the platen to be recovered. The case is in decent shape, but that's just going into storage. I'm going to have the typewriter sitting out in our sofa table for easy access and as a decoration. I've ordered a couple replacement ribbons from Around the Office, and they arrive in about a week. I can't wait for the ribbons to come in so I can start using it. A couple of the keys are a bit sticky, but I'm going to clean it out and maybe re-lube everything. I don't have the owner's manual, though, so I don't know what I'm doing.

I actually have a lot going on this weekend, so it's probably a good thing that I have to wait for the ribbons to come in. When I first took it home, I immediately started playing with it and fiddling with all the little switches. I think I've pretty much figured everything out except this one little knob on the upper left of the keyboard. Not sure what that's for. Regardless, I'm glad I snapped this one up even though she wouldn't budge on the price. I've seen these sell for 3x more than what I bought mine for, and I didn't even have to pay for shipping. Once again, craigslist is my friend ♥

I finally bought a pair of pruners and trimmed my Meyer tree. Some articles I read said to trim lemon trees in the spring, and some said that it doesn't matter when lemon trees are pruned. I decided to go ahead and prune since I have already cut off a few branches and it is doing fine. I also didn't want any effort put into growing branches that I was planning to cut off anyway.

Compared to how Meyer used to look, its after-pruning appearance leaves something to be desired. I much prefer the bush I bought to the spindly plant I have now, but from what I've read, this is better in the long-run and will allow for a better crop. The tree has two main branches, and I see the beginnings of a third branch that would form a lovely tripod effect on the tree, so I'm hoping it will grow and strengthen. I also pulled off many of the flowers and fruits it was already bearing so the tree could put its effort into the remaining branches. I left some of the flowers for now, but I'm sure I'll end up pinching those off as well.

This picture also shows Meyer's new home. It's a plastic blue pot that is supposedly fully recyclable. DH drilled some big holes in the bottom, and I bought a cheap clear plastic tray since I couldn't find a matching one. I really wanted a ceramic pot that I saw at Lowe's, but it was $33 and the coordinating tray was $22. I couldn't bring myself to spend that much money on a pot that 1) Meyer would outgrow in ~16 months (according to the grower) and 2) would be too heavy to move.

I'm still in the planning stages of the rest of my balcony garden. DH and I hit up a few thrift stores a couple weeks ago and scored a couple of terra cotta pots and a fun metal container for the garden. The book I mentioned said that you can make a themed garden using colors and containers, but I'm not sure I want to do that. I kind of like the idea of just using a mish-mash of things I find in thrift stores and creating a special look that's mine. I figure if I change my mind, I can switch around the look without too much of a hit to my wallet.

I have long coveted the library card catalog. They came and went on craigslist, but something always stood in my way. The piece would be in bad shape or it would be too big, too small, too far, too expensive. Or it just wasn't right. Lo and behold, a couple of days before Christmas, I saw an ad for this perfect library card catalog on craigslist. It was the right size, and it even had the pull-out shelves I like just for fun. But the seller had listed it as a part of a set and wanted to sell it with the other furniture. She mentioned possibly selling the cabinet separately, but she seemed like she wanted a little too much for it, so I decided to let it go. Then a week or so later, I saw the same ad relisted at a lower price, so I emailed again and asked. She said someone was supposed to come look at it the next day.

Luckily, that person flaked, so we drove the ~25mins to the East Bay last Sunday and went home with it! I was worried that it wouldn't fit in the car, but it comes apart in several pieces, so it fit fine. The seller told me that she had bought it a few years ago from an antique store somewhere and had it refinished, which explains the great condition.

After we picked it up, we had In-n-Out for lunch and went home. ^_^

Though I originally intended it to be crafty storage, I will probably end up using it to store a lot of random stuff. Somewhere online suggests storing wine in it, which sounds like a good plan. Not that we have a lot of wine. Also, these drawers all still have the rods in them, so I'll have to remove and dispose of those somehow. The seller told me her sister has one just like it and uses it to store CDs. DH and I don't have our CDs still in their cases, otherwise that would have been an awesome idea.

In any case, I'm just happy to have it sit pretty for now. I've had it almost a week now, but I haven't been able to share it because the weather has been stormy, so the lighting wasn't good for pictures. As much as I enjoy the rain, I'm glad the weather cleared up long enough for me to take pictures today.

Picked up this wood soda crate at a garage sale today. It looks vintage; I don't know how old it is, but I don't think it's that old. I've been eyeballing these types of crates on Etsy for a while, but I didn't want to buy one without being about to inspect it in person, so I held back. I'm glad I did, because I paid less than half of what I would have paid buying online. The garage sale also had some other styles of crates, but they came with bottles, which I did not want. I'm thinking of going back tomorrow to see if they are still there, but I don't know if I want them. Also, the people who were running the sale were not very friendly.

Anyway, my plan for this is to hang it on the wall and use it as a shelf. Not sure what I'll put on the shelf yet, but I'm sure I'll get good use out of it.

This is the fabric I bought at a garage sale today. It has Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, Flopsy Mopsy Cottontail, and carrots all over it. The garage sale was located much farther than we thought, but my sister and I had fun digging around looking for things to buy, basically to make the trip worthwhile. She bought a bunch of scrapbooking stuff, and I came away with the awesome fabric above, a vintage pattern for an empire cut dress, and a bag of ribbon.

Yesterday, I also went out to a garage sale and thrift store with my mom and came away with some cool items. I bought a couple pillow cases for lining in purses or something, plus a bag of nice metal-toothed zippers for cheap, and a skirt I'm going to mod to fit me (it's only a size too big).

I used the pinker today, and as soon as I finished, I proclaimed that it is the coolest sewing thing I've ever bought. I pinked the edges of the rabbit fabric before I wash it to prevent unraveling.

I can only imagine how much better it will make everything from here on out. ♥

I officially opened up shop. I'm really excited about that, though I'm anxious about hearing from the unemployment department.

On Tuesday I picked up this lovely jar for $4 at a local thrift store for my themed terrarium. I'll post pics when it's done, but I don't want to give away the theme before then. My mom and I stopped by Ikea and two thrift stores, and I was a little bummed toward the end of the trip because I was hoping to find something specifically for my terrarium. Then I happened to spot this big round jar on a shelf behind the "employee only" sign, so I pulled my mom over and got her to ask an employee who said we could go for it. Hooray! It's exactly what I had in mind when I went looking for a jar, so I'm really excited about it.

When I got home, I ordered some terrarium supplies on eBay, but the seller said she wouldn't ship my items till next Monday. She didn't explain why, and though this weekend is a holiday, I thought almost a week just to ship was a little long. Then again, it is moss, so maybe it's a harvesting issue?

Today I ordered a new belt and some needles for my sewing machine. It's an old C-series Red Eye, and I believe it's a class 66, but Singer says the records are lost. I don't mind, but I wish I had a proper manual for my machine. I was actually thinking about trying to sell this one and buying a new one to put in. I doubt I'll do that though.

I bought a sewing machine in April as a reward for paying off all my credit card debt. It arrived today, and although it has a bit more damage than I thought, it still looks pretty good. I'd like to restore the cabinet, but that doesn't seem like something I want to do in my living room; I'll have to figure out a time I could work in my parents' garage. I might want to work on the sewing machine in there too. All the parts move, so it may not need anything major done. I'm not quite sure what I want to do with it yet, so I guess we'll see. I wish I had a local sewing friend who could look at it for me.

Originally, I was planning to buy a hand crank machine, but I thought hand cranking would be tiring. When I saw this Singer in a parlor cabinet, I just had to make an offer. I'm really excited about it, and when it arrived, I was even more excited to find the little Singer oil can in the drawer.

I'll post pictures of the machine and cabinet soon. We still haven't figured out a good place to put it. My original plan was to put it in the bedroom, but I really want it in the living room on display. But it also has to be a place where I can use it, so we'll see what happens.

Last month, I went to a yarn store that was closing and saw a hanging organizer cabinet with a magnetic chalkboard. Both cabinets the store had for sale were sold, and my sister and I were really disappointed. I guessed that it was Pottery Barn, and after searching through the cabinet, I found a little Pottery Barn tag. So when I got home, I searched and searched online for it, only to discover that it had been on sale in 2007. After unsuccessfully searching craigslist and eBay, I posted a want ad with the stock photo I found and hoped for the best.

After a week or two of not posting the want ad, I decided to post it again yesterday. Last night, I got a response from a woman who lives 2 hours away, but would be about 30 minutes away this morning to drop off her daughter at the airport. We agreed on a meeting time, and now I am the excited owner of a craft organizer!

She said it was in excellent condition, but on the way home, I was dismayed when I discovered scratches on the bottom. I was annoyed about it since, if I had seen them, I would have asked her to bring down the price, but it's too late now. I also found that one of the drawers has chips and nicks on the side, and the corner of the drawer seems brittle. The damage won't interfere with the functionality of the drawer, especially considering I didn't even notice it when I inspected it. This will be a lesson to look more closely before I buy, though this is the first time I've cared about finding damage after the transaction -- probably because I felt like I could have talked her down on the price.

Also, DH just pointed out that we are also missing the other side of the hanging mechanism. It was in the picture she sent me, so I know she has it, but I don't know if I want to drive 2 hours for a stick of metal. I emailed her about it, so we'll see what she says. I don't want to pay for shipping either. I wonder if Pottery Barn is like Ikea and will give spare parts for free.

Anyway, I filled in the scratches on the bottom and on the drawer. When the light hits it at a certain angle, you can see the Sharpie strokes, but since it's the bottom, you won't see it anyway.

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