did you buy that new?

Moving House: *Definitely* Not New

The house isn't just not-new; it's not ours.  We're going to be renters again, after having owned two homes in the last seven years, and it's - a lot discomfiting.  It's also a little embarrassing, and I am having to face down my ego, high-noon style, something I don't enjoy too awfully much. 

I keep trying to make myself take some photos of the house we've rented, and while it's a cute bungalow, a very Portland house (or Berkley, if you're familiar), I just can't get past how dingy and beat-up it is.  Plus the kitchen is just the most disheartening thing ever, if you're me and you've been living in two brand-new kitchens in the last several years, one of which you designed your own self and though you didn't spend TOP dollar on it, you sure spent plenty, and it was *nearly* your dream kitchen, and damn, if that isn't nearly close enough.  The kitchen in our rental has no dishwasher (unless I'm standing in it).  It's got some seriously banged-up counters and cupboards.  The paint is this off-white mess of chips and scratches and warps and the floor is awful.  The oven is old and white and ugly, and it isn't gas, it's electric, with one of those flat cook-tops my husband and I both despise, and the only other appliance (because there's not even a fan above the stove, which, by the way, is literally three feet from the bathroom door, *small shudder*) is the small, ancient refrigerator, an off-white affair that has probably seen some serious use.  There's actually an ironing board intact from the initial structure inlaid in the wall that, when you pop open the cupboard, drops the iron out. 

I am trying SO VERY HARD to imagine it painted (we're attacking it this weekend with masses of leftover paint from our current house + a few extra buckets that I'm spoiling myself by purchasing), clean, and established with our things inside, and desperately trying to convince myself it will be sweet and lovely and dollhouse-ish, TRYING. SO. VERY. HARD.

I'll take some photos of this crazy project-to-be so you can get the before-and-after feel, and I really pray that you'll think it's nice, and I pray equally hard that I will, too.

(It's in a fantastic neighborhood and great school district and we got it for a song -- per month -- and it is NOT an apartment and there's a yard in back and they allow pets so we were able to acquire a puppy AND a kitten because we're desperately mad, and I feel very fortunate to have this chance to reboot our financial lives, so please don't think I'm not seeing the silver lining.  I am.  I just want to see it with a bit of freshening on its face, and I'm having a tough time visualizing the whole thing.

Did I mention the house is less than 900 square feet?  And we currently live in a 2500 square-foot house?  *tears silently at hair*)

A Ring-A-Ding-Ding

A fabulous place to visit for design inspiration, if you love the well-worn.

Christmas Stocking Project - 2009/2010

When I decided to make a stocking for Jack in early December, I had the funniest feeling I wouldn't proceed to the production mode of said item 'til much nearer the big event than was comfortable, exactly.  And, hey!  I was right.  So I didn't finish it.  It only had the "J" sewn on when it was hung in place.  Luckily, Santa wore his smartie pants and figured just whose stocking belonged to the four year old in the house.  ( PHEW.)

The stocking body is a very nice, heavy wool that I hope will last a long time.  Okay, forever.  I don't plan on repeating this process once it's finally finished (one only hopes the "finished" will be prior to December of 2010 -- I have yet, if you'll notice, to attach the last two letters.  Hey.  It's slow going.  Hand stitches take time.  And beer).  I used a couple of kinds of stitching when piecing the two sides of the sock together so as to prevent unravel, as the wool is that kinda textile.  The upper portion is a nice, soft, tweedy wool that contrasts nicely.  I liked it enough to use for the body of Rudolph, the homespun Reindeer.  Caleb (Jack's dad/my partner) drew the design because I'm a chump when it comes to using a pen for anything other than writing incomprehensible scrawl and lists.  There was a nice, sparkly black rhinestone in place for the eye that fell off immediately after the glue hardened, but that's what you get for waiting until Christmas Eve at 5 p.m. to finish your kid's stocking, and using whatever ancient tube of superglue you find lying around in some drawer.  (Yes.  I'm aware it wasn't technically finished, rhinestone eyeball or no.  Shaddup.)  I like the little fifties-era spangly things; makes the whole project sorta modern, but also kind of a throw-back.  My favorite combination.

tick-tock.

Posted by Debbie

I used to love a (Portland) thrift store that was situated on 82nd Avenue and Holgate; it no longer exists.  I pulled up one day several years ago, my friend P-starr, visiting from San Diego, in tow, all lathered up over what lay in store, to see them rolling the very. last. rack. out the door.  The empty wasteland of dust bunnies and bent hangers and the forlorn dressing rooms with those wussy little doors waaaay in the back, lonely as hell.  I cannot remember its name. 

I found this clock, along with its twin, pristine and gleaming, on one of the shelves one rainy afternoon.  The clerk, a young, zaftig boy who set my gaydar a-clangin', experienced a bout of mild hysteria when I went to pay for it, especially when I pointed out the other one - which he instantly claimed. 

at the copa.

posted by Debbie

Some of the best-loved members of my choking-on-dust collection (the player is having some trouble, and it'll have to wait to see the doctor until later in the year, when there is ample [ha!] money for such capricious repairs).

(If you leave, don't leave now.  Please don't take my heart away.)

(Sadly, the bonus 45 lp's *wrapper* was present and accounted for within the envelope, but not the actual disc.  Not surprising; it was a collector's item.  Still.  Sigh.  And yet, my complaints are thin; while the sticker says it cost $2.98, it was 70% off day, and I paid a mere $.99 for this double-album lp.  Which doesn't quite compute, but then, thrift store prices at the register have generally, if not always, been sketchy at best.)

(I purchased this disc at a thrift store in Anchorage, Alaska.  There was a type-written sticker with the name and address of the original owner still attached to the centermost portion of the record; the address was on Glisan Ave. in Portland, a street I ended up living on not quite a year after I returned to Portland from Alaska.  I thought it appropriate.)

(This album was sold to me by the, yes, THE Sean Croghan, of Crackerbash fame.  He spent a short portion of his working career at Jackpot records back when they first opened up shop.  I haunted the joint for some time because of it.  Sean used to be good friends and housemates with Elliott Smith.  Just writing that makes me sad.  I met Elliott through Sean and his friends, in fact.  Oh.  Sad.   This is,  by the by, an official thrift, because it was a used record - they traded in used and new.  I suppose they still do.  I don't shop record stores much these days; that is the purview of the younger set.)

(This was my favorite from my mother's collection when I was a kid.  I would sit and drink in its sultry details, from the high-heeled slippers to the menacing kitty and the ornate, dangly chandelier.  I suppose it explains my mid-twenties coiffe at one point, now that I think of it.  It mirrored that of the woman in the photo.)

a chair, slightly rough, yet better for the wear.

Posted by Debbie.

I found this chair at an estate sale one gray-yet-warmish Saturday in early summer; in fact, it was the day before Mother's Day, come to think of it, so it wasn't true summer; late spring, rather.  I had to stand in a queue, my number, on an unevenly trimmed yellow paper, scrawled in black sharpie, #57.  Or maybe it was #58.  Oh!  I know what - I'm confused because a woman who had #57 gave it to me, saying that she would be late for work if she waited.  I laughed because it only nudged me up by one, but that was still pleasant.  It felt convivial.

A woman behind me in an Obama t-shirt regaled her queue neighbors with tales about people who are banned from the estate sales in the area; about how rude the collectors are, how they even thieve, arrive before the thing has been officially declared open and just abruptly walk through, taking things and haughtily peacocking amidst the scene.  It sounded scandalous!  I had no idea.  She even told of some collectors who tried to break into the sale she and her sister had put on, but that, presciently, the sisters had chosen to sleep in their family member's home, and noticed the skulking of some fellows popping their heads up to peer through windows in the back in the dead of night.  Which made me not want to ever host an estate sale.  Creepy.

When I finally got in, I was fairly pleased; the house was in the period that I most adore, the fifties, and the woman who had left it had a quietly sweet taste.  Things had been cared for, and loved.  Something I'm always so happy to see.   It imparts a sense of the person, of their nature, an element of the treasures you might bring home that you never get when you buy new things.

I wended my way toward the main bedroom, scraping the walls to avoid the people ambling large through the narrow, almost-dainty hall.  Tilted my head to peer at the furniture (bedroom furniture has been simmering on my back-burnered mental list of late, tho we cannot afford such items, even priced for estate sales; generally, the pieces of good quality are priced in the several-hundreds range).   And a chair popped out at me; a little crumbling around the edges, but seemingly in good shape yet.  A slipper chair with maple legs.

As I trundled it out, I saw my friend, Nora!, just coming in the door.  She complimented me on the find.  I smiled and said, accusingly, "So you weren't even going to *tell* me you were going estate-saleing today?"  She responded gently, her usual manner, with something acerbically funny.  Which I might have noted to tell about now, if I weren't caving under the weight of my new $65 chair.  My Mother's Day present, in fact.

exchanging swap for shop.

Posted by Debbie.

Some very good links regarding frugal, earth-snuggly fashion.

A piece on the matter, HuffPo-style.

Clothing swap.

Shopping swap.

Also, somewhat gratuitously, a photo of me in one of my all-time favorite second-hand-shopped items; a fifties sun dress that has been with me for over ten years, and is going strong.  Jenny took this photo at BlogHer, in one of the many bathroom fiestas held that weekend.  Jenny:  she can write like a cross between Sarah Silverman and Jennifer Saunders, and she can photograph like a seraphim on mood-enhancers.  It's an honor to have been the subject of one of her grand, brilliant experiments.

antique bling: somehow, SO much more fabulous.

Posted by Debbie.

Some of my favorite thrifted and estate-sale-purchased discoveries.

Even the shell came from an estate sale.

This piece is, quite possibly, my all-time-favorite thrift item.  $.99 for a clasp that can go from trashy to classy (claspy?) in the blink of an eye.  Hooray for San Diego thrifting!  (Oh, and the shelf on which the clasp is situated was also an estate-sale purchase.  It's a rolling cart with a - working! - hot plate.  For $15.  Hot dog!  Or, uh, hot fondue!)

(The aforementioned cart, in the left corner, which supports a hodge-podge of literature and drink materials; coincidentally, so do I.  Or not so coincidentally.   Also, while we're in this space, you may as well know that the table was purchased second-hand and extends to fit about seventeen-hundred people, or maybe only fourteen, which kind of feels like seventeen-hundred.  The chairs on the long ends were salvaged from someone's curb, repainted and reupholstered by yours truly.  The centerpiece on the table consists of two heavy glass candle holders I inherited from my maternal grandmother, and the turquoise cinder receptacle in center, full of shells that were a gift to my son from his -- still very much alive at 90! -- great-grandmother, came from the estate sale of a woman with exquisite taste.  More photos to come in future of a small, well-edited selection of pieces from her once-incredible collection.  I only wish I'd had a thousand dollars to spend the day I wandered through her slightly-musty, yet darling, home.)

at the automat.

Posted by Debbie.

Lotta, who sells lovely things here, and whose fb page is here, makes all of her exquisite, one-of-a-kind pieces sourcing vintage buttons.  So you can feel earth-good about your purchase, *and* pretty, all to oncet.  (I'm mimicking Lotta's vintage sourcing and dipping my verbal pen in a 1930s depression-speak style to complete that last sentence, if you're confused as to what in the world I'm doing with my spelling skills.)

"Blue Balls" :: Mom-o-matic's Automat

IRL community clothes swap.

Posted by Debbie.

Does that sound intriguing?  It does to me.  In fact, I was talking about just such a thing with the director of my son's daycare this morning, and I like it more and more.  The thing about the thrift stores that bothers me is how little they give back to the community, considering their taking regular advantage of donations from that community.  I like so so so much the thought of being able to provide for people who need things the opportunity to swap with others in a public forum, because of both the inaccessibility to the internet's wealth of swappy places like craigslist and freecycle for people who can't afford an internet connex, and because it makes people feel pride in being able to exchange and not just receive.  I mean, I think that's true.  (I love feeling righteous.  Even if it's misguided.  I'm annoying like that.)

What do you think?  And just how might I best go about implementing such an idea?

Your thoughts and not-so-humble opinions are welcomed, and even demanded.

Gimme.  uh, please?  :)