Instant Gratification

Another refurbished piece from 2015. Still have that wheelbarrow, still holds water, still love it!

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On a cold, dark day last November I bought an antique wheelbarrow at a small sale here in Salem. A case of love at first sight.

This was no mere infatuation. Still love the thing, still enamored of its metal patch that is so well done it holds water. We had to keep dumping rain water out of it all winter. I saw neighbor cats drinking from it more than once. My intent was to plant it with a festive medley of flowers for the summer.

We moved the barrow the other day, still empty, to the part of the front yard we call Middle Earth, which is very much a work in progress.

And on Monday the hubs and I headed off to a wonderful nursery not far out of town to get just the right mix of plants.

We looked and looked. Created little collections of plants to see how they’d look together. Moved 4-inch pots about and brought in others. And then I had a brainstorm.

This nursery has beautiful hanging baskets in full bloom. And their prices are better than I’ve seen elsewhere – less than $20 for a 10 inch pot full of a mass of blooms. I totted up the prices of the collection of baby plants we were considering, and when the total was several dollars higher than the lush blooming beauties in the 10 inch pots, our strategy changed and we went looking for some ready-made beauty. It was a surprise to me when I fell hard for a red geranium. Really, really red. And big.

Talk about instant gratification. Wherever you are in the front garden, there’s this major pop of color at its heart.

We also splurged on another pot for near the front door. Three different colors of those mini petunias that bloom their little heads off.

It’s sitting on the cute fifty cent plant stand Judy and I found last July. More plant love. Every time I look outside I find myself smiling at my instant flowers. 

I hope some kind of buy-this-now monster will not take over my normally frugal ways. Nah. It won’t. But maybe we all need a refined jolt of instant gratification from time to time.

A Cheap Education

One of my favorite parts of garaging comes after I get home with my new-to-me goodies: finding out more information about each thing. All those years as a librarian made research as natural as breathing. I love to learn something new, and I really love finding out that I got something special.

Case in point: last Saturday I picked up my SIL Linda and we headed out for the town-wide yard sale day in one of Portland’s suburbs. Our first stop was breakfast at a newish coffeehouse Linda had heard of. Turned out she knew the proprietor, who gave us our favorite quote for the day: "Midlife crisis... couldn't find a man, so I opened a coffee shop." Sound very Portlandish to me!

We had fun driving around, though neither of us found much. But at one of our first stops I picked up a couple of pieces of clothing to use in some future upcycling project. There’s some damage on this wool skirt I bought for fifty cents, but the fabric is unusual and I like it. since it’s a maxi skirt there’s plenty of fabric that still good.

When I got home I noticed that the interior details are above the norm (pretty rare to see hem tape these days)

so I looked up the tag and found it’s a designer piece from the Sixties. (And for the record, I don’t dry clean anything. This baby got a nice cool handwash and did just fine.) I wasn’t familiar with Nelly de Grab. Found some real eye candy of her designs from the 50s & 60s over on Pinterest. This Richard Avedon photo was probably my fave.

Fast forward to this week. Judy and KK and I were out on Friday finding what we could find. For once I seemed to be having all the luck, and once again it was mostly of the textile variety. Since I started upcycling old clothes into new, I’ve always got my eye peeled for interesting fabrics. I picked out some rayon shirts with matching skirts or pants in a box of clothing marked 25¢ each.

When you find the matching skirt or pants, it’s beyond easy to remodel a shirt. So these should be in my closet and wearable soon.

I think it was Judy though who spotted this linen blazer in that same 25¢ box. (Forgive the wrinkles, it’s been washed but not ironed.)

Linen, a quarter, what’s not to love? Zoe likes it a lot.

She barely moved when I turned it over to take a picture of the back.

I noticed that all the seams are finished with bias tape inside. This is definitely not something you see often on ready-to-wear.

So once more I looked up the label

and found I have another designer piece on my hands. I’m sure this jacket is a few years old, but it looks like it was never worn. And his current jackets seems to sell in the $500 – 1000 range.

Pretty good for a quarter, I’d say.

At one of our last stops I found a cool pair of midcentury modern salt and pepper shakers. Couldn’t resist them.

I took their picture with what I think is a hand-carved cooking utensil. Maybe a pasta fork? Whatever it is, the wood has the most satin finish I’ve ever touched, you just want to pet it. I liked the look of it with the shakers, which turned out to be Danish, from the 60s, made by Stelton of stainless steel and rosewood. Another new name for me.

At the same sale I spotted some small vases. I’ve been wanting something small to do little bouquets from the pots on my deck

so I brought home a blue and a green.

The blue is unmarked but the green one is from Norway. Isn’t that a great midcentury style?

The glass is lovely. Held up to the light it’s like green water solidified. And I’ve added another name to my mental database.

Even better, it’s perfect for its intended use!