Thrifting Finds #21--Eames Edition!

I think we covered all of our usual spots but one this weekend.  I kept stumbling across things that were almost something I wanted but not quite--a lamp I would have bought if it had a mate, a coffee table that was the right size but the wrong style,  nice Pyrex in patterns I don't collect--that sort of thing.  I'm sure that happens to youall too, right?

I almost started having "Empty Hand Syndrome", when I spied this.  It was in a bin of stuff ready to be shelved, and a bunch of people passed it by.  It's like it was waiting for me.

1.  Eames coat rack!!  When I first spied this, I thought "Huh.  That looks like one of those Eames coat racks."  So I sauntered on over and discovered I was right!  It's the genuine article, made by Herman Miller and still has the mounting screws and the instructions/certificate of authenticity attached!  There are scratches on a couple of the balls from being manhandled by Goodwill staff, but nothing major.

Unfortunately, cool as this is, and as much as I love it, I have no use for this and don't even have a good place to put it.

Well.  I couldn't let it languish in the Goodwill, could I?  Or worse, let it get purchased by someone who has no idea what it is.  So I up and bought it.  It's headed for ebay, hopefully to someone who will appreciate it.  They seem to go for 100 bucks or more, which would be great.
Wanna know how much I paid for it?  Are you sitting down?
Six dollars.
I know!
I'll have to get off my butt and take some pictures and come up with a description, but with any luck, this'll be posted this week.  Keep your fingers crossed that it sells for millions of dollars, won't you?

Linking up with the goodness at Sir Thrift A Lot.

Weekend Thrifting Finds #20!

Well kids, the vacation is finally over and it's back to the Salt Mines for your old Uncle Veg.  Naturally, hubs and I spent the last day of our time off scoping out the local thrifts looking for cool stuff.

We found a little.

But first, here's the scorecard for the stores we hit during our time off:

10 Goodwills
2 Salvation Army
1 Savers
1 Rescue Mission Thrift
1 Hospital Thrift
1 St. Vincent's Thrift
1 Name-I-Can't-Remember Thrift
1 Habitat Re-Store

Looking back, I had NO idea there were that many thrift stores around.  Of course, a bunch of them were in Pennsylvania, and a couple were about an hour away, but still.

And you'd think that with that many thrift stores around, we'd have ended up with a lot more than we actually did!  Not that I'm complaining, really.  We did get some good stuff, and with my hoarding tendencies, it's probably best that we keep the purchases to a minimum.

Moving along to what I got:

1.  Tupperware!  This looks familiar,but it's actually a slightly larger size than the one I got here.  Hubs said he couldn't fit his hand in the piece I was using to hold sugar (piece in the back), so I picked up this one.  Goodwill, $3.00

And here's a little mini-rant.  What is up with the Goodwill's prices?  One of them had a nice big Tupperware salad bowl, but it was priced at $6.00.  In retrospect, I guess that's really not outrageous, but it was definitely more than I wanted to pay for a used piece of plastic.  Especially when you consider that I got that beautiful, unused cake carrier for $2.00.

2.  Lamps!  Aren't these awesome?  Well, you'd think so if A) the picture were better and B) the price stickers were off.  A couple of our Goodwills use these price labels that absolutely refuse to come off.  I was soaking these with some Goo Gone when I took the (crappy cellphone) picture.

But back to their awesomeness!  I saw one of these on a high shelf at the Goodwill on Saturday and immediately thought "Ooh, I like that.  Too bad there aren't two of them."  You can imagine my surprise and pleasure when I discovered the mate to the one I saw lurking behind it on the shelf!  Wellsir, it was a matter of a nanosecond before those two beauties were in my hot little hands.  They cleaned up really well with just a bit of soapy water, and the stickers are now gone.  I'm going to live with the colors at the bottom, but I'm toying with the idea of repainting them in shades of blue.  Or maybe keeping some of the brown and adding some orange.  Neither will likely happen because I'm basically lazy.

Ready for the price?  Sit down:  $14.00 for the pair!  I know!  Just like these.

Of course, I still need to find shades, which I think I will probably have to purchase new;  I'm pretty sure we used up our lampshade-finding-mojo when we got these.

Since these lamps are quite narrow, they're slated for our nightstands.  I can't wait!

Oh, and just as an aside, at one of the Salvation Army stores we went to, I spotted the biggest, most beautiful Broyhill Brasilia china cabinet for 200-and-some bucks.  Boy, howdy, if I had a place to keep it, I'd have snapped that sucker up in a heartbeat!  Didn't take a picture, though :(

Linking up with all the fabulousness at Sir Thrift A Lot.

Thrifting Finds #19, Part Deux!

Well, so we've been off all week and yesterday, while waiting for the Girl Child so we could go out for my Birthday Lunch, hubs and I hit a few more thrifts.

Nothing at the two Goodwills or the hospital thrift, but I did pick up something at the Habitat Re Store:

1. New range hood!  I'm glad to have this one because the last one couldn't be wired in (don't ask.)  It's ductless, therefore worthless, but now I have a light over the stove again!  It was remarkably clean, too.  And only $12.00!

We had a late lunch at an old-timey diner kind of place that has been there for a zillion years.   The food was good, but take a look at the light fixtures:

Aren't they cool?  I'd have unscrewed them from the ceiling and made off with them if I thought I could get away with it!

That's all for today, but the week's not over yet, so stay tuned--anything could happen!

Weekend Thrifting Finds #19!

I'm back!

Yes, it's been a couple of weeks, but your ol' Uncle Veg--despite being  a whole year older!--is back with some more thrifted goodies!  Not a lot, mind you, but what I got is cool.

Plus, I discovered a Goodwill that I had never seen before!  How exciting is that?  

Enough of the preliminaries! On with the show!

1.  Tupperware!  These still are not the Midgets that I've been searching for, but they'll do for the time being.  I just need a little something to take my Ranch Dressing to work in!  I think the round-side bowls (which hold maybe a quarter-cup?) are old or oldish;  On the lid it says "Tupper Seal" with a little line drawing of a seal!  I had never seen that before.  Flat side ones were .75 each, the others .50 each,

2,  Corningware Counter Saver!  Yeah, baby!  I've been wanting one of these for quite some time now.  I think it might be the last piece of Corningware that I don't have.  I have two of the small six-inch ones, but this is the Big Kahuna.  I didn't actually measure it, but it's about 11X14 maybe?  Big, anyway.  And clean, and chip-free.  I will not use this as a cutting board--do you know what a knife on this would sound like?--but I will definitely set hot pans on it.  Goodwill, $4.00.

3.  Not-For-Me Tupperware!  My friend Robin, who is not a thrift store shopper, nevertheless asked me to keep my beady eyes peeled for a cake carrier.  I found this at the above-mentioned "new" Goodwill.  Really it looks like it was never used; not a mark on it.  Best thing?  The price:  $2.00,  I know!  A new one would be $35.00 (!!)

Keep checking back this week, kids--Uncle Veg is on vacation and he plans on hitting as many thrift stores as he can!  Today we went to PA to check out a  couple.  One of the ones--new to us--that we stopped in at was St. Vincent's Thrift Store.  Not St. Vincent De Paul, just a church named St. Vincent's.  The didn't have a thing I wanted, but it was such a  charming little shop, run by little volunteer ladies whose average age was probably 84.

Linking up with all the deliciousness at Sir Thrift A Lot, The Nifty Thrifty, and The Remnant

Weekend thrifting finds!

To be quite honest, chickadees, I found absolutely nothing this weekend.  Rather than make the usual rounds with Husband, I went outlet shopping with a friend of mine.  Even that trip was less than successful, as I ended up buying one shirt and one pair of pants.

We did stop in at a Goodwill on the way back, but didn't find anything.  Plus, it was a huge mess and not organized at all.  So boo on you, Lancaster Goodwill!

Hubs and I stopped in at one of our usual GWs yesterday, but there was nary a thing to be found.  They seemed to be doing well with their 50% off furniture sale, but there was nothing that we needed.

So rather than post nothing this week, I made the executive decision to show something that I found some time ago but never bothered mentioning.

Behold:

1.  Space Age mouthwash bottle!  Kind of a misnomer, as this started out life as a whiskey bottle.  I wish I could remember the brand name but it totally escapes me.  This bottle also started out life with a base on it that sort of matched the cap.  Unfortunately, it didn't survive the trip through the dishwasher.  The cap also started out life gold and I spray painted it blue to go with my bathroom.  So many changes have been wrought on this little bottle.

But not as many changes as this guy made:

Click to embiggen.  Trust me, it's worth it!

Look at the awesome lamp they made out of this same bottle!!!  OMG, is that the coolest thing you've ever seen or what?  I wish I knew how they did that because I would totally make matching lamps for the bedroom.

The picture, by the way, is from this awesome blog.  You should totally check it out.

That's it, I'm afraid.  Still going to link up with the coolness at Sir Thrift A Lot, and The Nifty Thrifty, but I'm embarrassed about it.

Defeating the Empire of the Ants!

Okay, so a bunch of you have emailed me asking what exactly it was I did to get rid of my ant invasion.  Rather than reply individually, I figured I'd do it here.  Because I'm lazy.

But first:

No, Joan!  Not polyester gauchos!  Arrrrgggghhh!!!

Okay.  So after extensive research (I Googled "homemade ant bait"), I discovered that there are two kinds of ants: those that like sugar and those that like grease.  The kind of bait you make will depend on what kind of ants you have.

I didn't want to put on my lab coat and do a bunch of experimenting, so I just made two kinds and let the ants choose.

Bait #1 for grease-loving ants:  I took about a tablespoon of peanut butter and added in a little squirt of honey to make it extra nommy and stirred in about 1/8 teaspoon of boric acid powder.

Bait #2 for sugar-loving ants:  About a tablespoon of grape jelly mixed with 1/8 teaspoon of boric acid powder.  I used grape because that's what I had.

A word about that boric acid.  You get it at the drugstore in the First Aid department.  As to why my Wrong Aid was charging over six bucks (!!) for a little bottle of stuff that probably cost a penny to make is anyone's guess.  But I was desperate so I paid.  Oddly,it was on sale.

It's the boric acid that kills the ants, and you have to be careful with how much you use.  You don't want to put so much in that the ants die right away.  What you want is for them to take the bait back to the hive and share it, killing the rest of the colony as well.

Look, Ma--I'm a myrmecologist!

Hubs walked into the kitchen as I was working and, puzzled, asked "What are you doing?"

"Why, I'm preparing a very special cocktail for our little friends," I replied, sounding exactly like Boris Karloff.

So I took the baits, spread blobs on squares of aluminum foil, and put them on the counter where the ants were.  That's when the fun started.

Now, on the (few) occasions where I think of ants, I generally picture them as industrious little buggers, you know, marching in straight lines, carrying food, being all efficient and stuff.  Not these suckers.  Boy howdy, these were the stupidest creatures ever to crawl on the surface of the earth.  They were just running in circles, bumping into each other, all "Derp! Derp!  Derp!" and I'm looking and them and saying "Dudes, get your act together!" For a while, I was convinced that they were too stupid to find the yummy poison I had set out for them.

But find it they did, and it was most unpleasant.  After a couple of hours, the jelly was covered with little tiny ants.  Every time Hubs went into the kitchen, I could hear him say "Ewww!"  He returned to the den and reported that "The jelly is winning."  Apparently, we had the sugar-loving kind of ants.

So yeah, it was disgusting.  The ants didn't seem to be moving, so I thought I had overdone the boric acid and killed them right then and there.  Well,that's not what I wanted (see above), but I decided that a bunch of dead ants was still a good thing and that I'd mix up another, milder batch in the morning.

Next morning, however, all the ants on the jelly were gone!  They weren't dead after all.  I guess they were just napping after eating all that delicious, delicious poison jelly.  There were a couple of stragglers who got thumb-smashed, but for the most part, they're all gone!

I'm going to leave the baits out for a couple of days just to make sure, but I really think this worked.

One final word.  Or a bunch, actually.  Please keep in mind that while boric acid is a low-toxicity insecticide, it's still a poison, and you need to keep it away from children and pets.  Personally, I'm not above saturating my house with environmentally-hazardous petrochemicals, if it means getting rid of an ant invasion, but the reason I didn't was because I didn't want to take the chance of making the little weiner dog sick. By using the baits, I could put them up out of her reach and not worry about her eating them or walking through puddles of chemicals.

Weekend Thrifting Finds!

Good morning, chickadees!

I'll come right out and say that once again, our thrifting finds were rather meager this week.  Maybe some of you can shed some light on this problem.

I've been hitting the Goodwill for years, but mostly just a quick (less than 5 minute) run through to see if anything caught my eye.  Not the most efficient way of thrift shopping, but I did manage to pick up a few very nice things.

A few months ago, I decided that rather than just blithely skipping through, I'd make a concerted effort to actually see what was on the shelves.  This new procedure had almost immediate results, and I started finding a lot of good stuff.  Even Hubs got in on the act, and he found a lot of good stuff, too.

It seems that for the last couple of months or so, the pickins' are decidedly slim.  Is thrift shop giving seasonal?  Are we just entering a slow period?  Is it all just luck?  Or is there something else afoot?  I'll keep going, despite not really finding anything because I know you have to do that.  I just wondered if thrift shopping was cyclical.

Anyway, here's what I found this weekend:

1.  Tupperware!  I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be for pies, but I seldom have pies to tote around.  So I'm going to use this for when I make cookies or something to take to work.  It's nice to have something unbreakable with a cover instead of trusting my china and Saran Wrap. As is typical with vintage Tupperware, it was pretty stinky when I bought it; a trip through the dishwasher cleared that up.  My first purchase at the Rescue Mission Thrift:  $1.00

2.  More Tupperware!  I was pleased to find this container, though I was hoping there were a few more lurking on the shelf.  Alas, this was doing a solo act.  Turns out this is a really handy size and I can still use some more of them.  Goodwill, $1.00.

And that's it, unfortunately.  In other news, Fondue Headquarters has suddenly been invaded by teensy little ants.  Apparently, it's a big problem in our building.  I don't want to use bug spray inside because of the little weiner and the ant baits don't seem to be doing a thing, so I think I'm going to try the jelly/boric acid bait solution I read about on the Interwebs.  Wish me luck!

Linking up with all the marshmallowy goodness at Sir Thrift A Lot, and The Nifty Thrifty.