Vintage Things – Page 2 – Jo's Country Junction

Day 2 of my Kidnapping

1 Comment / By Jo / August 9, 2014 August 9, 2014

I told you earlier in the week that Hubby kidnapped me. Day one, although we had fun and did find the bathroom mirror, was slim on the antique hunt. We did end up going to Cedar Rapids that evening and visited with our son Buck and his wife Jen. It was almost their anniversary…my a year can fly by.

The next morning we were in Monticello, Iowa visiting our daughter Kayla and her husband Spencer. Both of our kids had bought houses and Hubby hadn’t seen either one of them. We just had a quick visit with Kayla as they had a full schedule that day and we were off antiquing.

There’s a great shop in Monticello we always stop at, Whistle Tree…we didn’t find anything there. Their specialty seems to be furniture…which we LOVE!

Next stop the old church in Cascade. We love their shop. We can’t resist stopping. We bought our kitchen chairs there and we bought my filing cabinet that was Hubby’s first refinishing project. They had lots of things to look at there but the owner was reorganizing the shop getting ready for fall so it was a bit of a challenge to get through.

I always have an eye open for quilts!! The bottom one didn’t appear to be vintage at all….but I still liked it.

I’ve seen something like this done before…I want to make one someday…I think I might revamp it and do it with half square triangles.

Here was a nice quilt. I seem to be drawn to quilts without a lot of whites in them lately…Loved this one!

This was wool and I loved it. Kayla had made something similar once.

I grabbed a close up of the stitching if she (or any of you) would ever want to replicate it. I could easily find wool jackets at the thrift stores for it!

We didn’t buy anything there and continued on our way…a trip to Lowes in Dubuque and then on to Cuba City, Wisconsin….complete with a stop in Hazel Green.

The Hazel Green store is going out of business so nothing was new there…at Cuba City…we found this….

I had heard of this place via Craig’s List. I had been begging to go…Hubby ignored my pleas. Well he won’t ignore me again. WE LOVED IT!!

It is huge and perfect for antique lovers and house restoration people. I was so in awe that I forgot to take many pictures. In the front is a show room of nice antiques. There were probably 5 tall high backed beds. All were beautiful. In the next big room there were fire place mantels…probably 6 to choose from. All were displayed neatly and very organized.

In the upstairs…they had a room of wood trim taken from houses. They had a room bigger than the main floor of my home FILLED with doors. All types and sizes you can imagine were displayed. This photo is half of one wall.

Looking for a claw foot tub…look no more!

There was a room of only lighting. There were lots of people there to help too. They are only open Fridays and Saturdays. But WOW…we ere so impressed!

We did find a few things we were looking for…all in this bag are our “big” purchases.

There are three double switch plates for push button light switches.

We didn’t realize we would need as many double push button switches. The electrician put double switches in the bedrooms…one for the light and one for the fan. They had a triple switch there we probably should have bought but we know where they are now…at least we hope there are some there if we need them!

We found glass knobs for the kitchen cupboards too.

Cuba City has other antique shops…more like antique malls too. We stopped there too…

I am slow in antique malls because I am trolling the place for sewing or quilting things…Hubby in only looking for furniture or fire trucks. I knew he was already done looking and sitting out on a bench so I was especially trying to hurry…besides, both of us were hungry. I came around a corner fast and was going to quick peak in a room when I got so excited. I spotted my childhood doll. I have been wanting for a LONG time to find her…I was giddy. I got the rest of the way around the corner and imagine my shock when I realized she had been beheaded!!

I came out of the store shaking my head trying to get the image of my beloved childhood doll beheaded when Hubby asked what was wrong. I explained the whole thing to him and we both ended up laughing and laughing.

All in all a good trip. On the way home we stopped and visited Hubby’s niece and we stopped at Kelli’s house too. I was good to be gone but as always it’s good to be home too.

Our Latest Acquisition

11 Comments / By Jo / June 19, 2014 June 19, 2014

We were at a graduation party about a month ago when the people we were visiting with asked the question that EVERYONE asks now days, “How is the house in town coming along?” Honestly, at this point I try not to talk to people anymore because that is the question I always hear and honestly, it just gets me depressed. The truth is-Nothing much at all has happened lately. I am to the point that I’ve given up hope on anything ever happening as far as that goes.

I was polite and said we had been going on trips hunting for wood work. They mentioned that their mother’s old farm house was going to be torn down. We had been in the house and knew that the wood work was painted and not anything that would match what we needed for the house in town so we didn’t think much of it. The conversation continued on to our kitchen cupboards and how we had found a cupboard and were redoing it for the kitchen.

They mentioned that there was a cupboard upstairs in their mother’s house and maybe we’d want to take a look at it. They said their nephew owned the house now and we’d have to talk to him. Well we didn’t know that we needed another cupboard…but thanked them for the information.

A few weeks later we were at a friends house who is on the fire department with my husband. He had been to the house as the owner was offering the house to the fire department so they could burn it down and use it as a fire training scene. The friend happened to have taken a picture of the cupboard and had it on his phone.

Well I needled Hubby and we ended up going and looking at it…and bought it.

It’s a light lemon yellow color. The doors have wall paper in the insets. Then motifs from the wall paper were cut out and adhered to the dresser as a decoration.

Getting it out of the farm house was a big task. The guys ended up taking the banister off the stair rail-then it was lowered down the hole of the staircase. Hubby “caught it” as it was coming down. Of course I was panicking that someone was going to get hurt and Hubby was telling me to calm down…typical of us.

I am not sure what we are going to do with it. It isn’t a high quality wood and the drawers aren’t dove tailed. The drawers do have bead board bottoms though.

I love that the inside isn’t painted and is all original.

I’m thinking it will get some chalk paint…but what color?? I could keep it and use it in the sewing room at the house in town…or in the basement for toy storage…or I could sell it. Part of me doesn’t want to sell it as now the piece has a good story…and we know the lady whose house it was. If I sell it, the person will likely not care about the story or the person or what it looked like when we bought it.

We’re debating on what to do with the top. The trim pieces don’t have mitered corners.

The left side has no trim piece at all…Hubby really wanted to leave it there…me, I wanted it. For $50 it was a deal regardless of what I do with it.

For now it’s sitting in the garage with the our other collected furniture. What would you do with it?? Keep it…sell it??

Today I’m hooking up with Colorado Lady’s Vintage Thursdays.

A Meet and Greet with Gladys

13 Comments / By Jo / February 6, 2014 January 30, 2014

Some time ago on a visit to the local thrift store, I found this.

I debated and debated about whether I should purchase it or not. I have another machine exactly like that I love that I named Mildred. You can read the story about that machine here. I just couldn’t determine how many machines I actually need. I am sure you’ve asked yourself where is the line between need, want, collecting and hoarding.

I continued to do my other shopping in the store. I decided if the machine was still there after I did all my shopping I’d seriously consider it. I shopped and looked and looked and shopped and 20 minutes later no one had bought it.

Well it was time for me to seriously consider it. The machine was in MUCH better shape than mine. It had the book and accessories to go with it. The cabinet was in mint shape. The machine was very clean. All in all for $25, it was an amazing deal..but now how do I justify it to Hubby.

Seriously Hubby doesn’t give a hoot of how I spend $25…for some reason I just felt like I had to have a plan for it….Hmmmm.

That’s when it hit me. I have been wanting and wanting to get back to sewing my Pineapple Crazy quilt. The problem with that, I have dead line projects that need to get done and paper piecing those blocks is so messy. My plan is to keep this machine separate away from the regular machine I sew on. This one can have all the tiny bits and pieces all spread out like a bomb. I don’t have to worry about moving things..I don’t have to worry about it being a mess. When I know I’m going to have more than two us sewing at the new house, this machine will be the third person’s machine.

I didn’t think I had room to set the machine up at this house so the machine has sat in the garage waiting to be moved to the new house. Then I saw that everyone was setting cups and mail and pop cans on the machine so I decided when I cleaned the upstairs that I need to try to find room for it here at this house so it wouldn’t get wrecked while it was here.

I did find room but sadly, I haven’t found time to piece any Pineapple Crazy blocks…but that’s okay, when I do find time, I will and it’s all set up and ready to go.

For the record, this machine is named Gladys. The name because she was Mildred’s (the name of my identical matching machine’s) sister.

Today I am hooking up with Colorado Lady’s Vintage Thingy Thursday.

A New Addiction: Old House Dreams

10 Comments / By Jo / December 19, 2013 December 23, 2013

When I was supposed to be working…I wasn’t. It’s a confession that every person who works from home has to make now and again. In my defense, Web Expressions the program I use to work on my website, www.makinglearningfun.com, wasn’t working quite right. It was making me wait and giving me delays so I just thought I would read a blog quick….well one thing lead to another and before I knew it, I had discovered a wonderful new blog, Old House Dreams.

Oh my, if you love old houses, watch out..you’ll be addicted too. Check out some of these houses…

All of the houses are for sale. It tells price, size and few other stats along with a few pictures of the insides.

Some are completely fixed and show wonderful homes….like this 1892 Queen Anne home in Kankakee, Illinois.

Some need LOTS of help like this Queen Anne in Skidmore, Missouri.

On some of these…don’t let the outside fool you though. Inside, the woodwork is AMAZING.

Some are really fun to check like this 1905 Colonial Revival in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It shows a current picture…

and it shows a picture from long ago. Notice how the porch has changed??

If I had any desire to live in Minneapolis or spent $395,500….this home would be mine…just look….

Check out this 1927 Gate House in Chevy Chase, Maryland for $1,500,000. It looks like it is from a story book.

This one is more my speed…a good old fashion 1905 Queen Anne…

that needs LOTS and LOTS of work!!

I’ve managed to waste quite a lot of time scrolling through pictures…but I have gleaned a bit of information. I’ve looked at time period light fixtures. I’ve looked at stair rails. I’ve looked at decorating. I’ve looked at lots of things and weighed whether it would look good in our old house or not.

I’ve also seen that what we are tackling with our old house make over is nothing compared to what some houses need. The thing I learned most…the look of a house on the outside really doesn’t dictate the character inside.

Some people love looking at the website Houzz…All in all, for my taste, this site is much better. The only problem is it isn’t easy to search.

Now don’t say I didn’t warn you….I spent an hour there my first visit and I’ve been back several times..don’t tell Hubby. He thinks I am in the house slaving away..

Day 2 of my Kidnapping

Like this:

Our Latest Acquisition

Like this:

A Meet and Greet with Gladys

Like this:

A New Addiction: Old House Dreams

Like this: