vintage – erniebufflo's south & west kitchen

November 17, 2011

before and after: vintage patio set

This summer, I saw this refinished vintage glider on Shelterrific and immediately knew what I wanted for the empty end of our front porch:

The only problem was, I wasn’t willing to shell out hundreds to thousands of dollars for a refinished vintage glider. So I knew I’d need to find one I could refinish myself– and I’d just finished fixing up and repainting a wooden table and chairs I’d found by the side of the road, so I was inspired.

A little bit later, I found the following rusted-out glider with a matching chair on Craigslist, $300 for the pair.

I convinced Jon they could be our anniversary present to each other.

Then, in August, I found out that our real anniversary present to each other was BABIES. So stripping and spray painting was no longer on the allowable list for me. Thus Jon inherited what was supposed to be my project. He sanded and stripped and took apart and repainted and replaced hardware, and generally worked very very hard to execute my vision for the glider and chair. And THIS, this beauty you see right here, is what he achieved:

If you need me, I’ll be on the front porch.

October 4, 2010

You can find anything on Etsy, even Memaw’s Treasures

So, yesterday I shared with you some of the beautiful things my Memaw gave me as she downsizes and moves in with my parents. Last night I hopped on Etsy, wondering in particular if they had more of a certain set of dishes that my mom received and I covet in particular, because there aren’t very many of them in her set, and it might be nice to fluff it up a bit. Sure enough, I found a set of the “Dixie Dogwood” dishes for sale on Etsy:

So then I started poking around some more, to see if I could find any of the things I received for sale. Remember the commemorative plate for FDR’s Warm Springs, GA “Little White House”? I found one of those:

And what about the beautiful set of plates my grandfather sent home to his mother from Europe while he was serving in WWII? It turns out you can find those on Etsy as well:

There’s a set of the same milk glass bakers that I received:

Even the little lime green citrus juicer has a twin on Etsy:

And if you liked my super retro footed teacups, you can find a close match on Etsy too!

While it’s sort of crazy to realize that a bunch of things that are, to me, priceless treasures actually sell for $10 or less on the internet, what I am reminded of is that the value of a thing is not its objective value. The things my Memaw gave me are treasures to me because they belonged to her, and because they have stories behind them. I’d never sell them on Etsy! However, I think I might need to set up a shop for all the things we decided to “yard sale,” like some of the mismatched Depression glass that didn’t have mates, or the random pieces of Fire King peach lusterware, because I’m pretty sure Etsy prices are better than we’ll get at a yard sale!

October 3, 2010October 4, 2010

Memaw’s treasures

This weekend I helped my parents move into a new house and my Memaw to move in with them. My Memaw has always been a collector, and the family historian, so she has a houseful of beautiful things and probably enough to fill another. Because she is moving in with my parents, many members of my family are basically getting our “inheritance” early, which I think is great, because I get to tell her how beautiful I think things are, learn the stories behind them, and thank her. I know I have a few vintage-loving readers/friends, so I thought I’d share what Memaw gave me here.

Memaw had at least 8 complete sets of dishes. We asked her how she wound up with so many dishes and what she did with them all, and all she would say is that she used to throw a lot of bridge parties, and my Pops never fussed at her for buying things. There’s a set of china that Memaw gave to my mom and dad that will one day be mine, but in the meantime I got this fun set of regular, everyday dishes:

You can see how well they match the color scheme in my dining room curtains!

I think the funky tea pot is my favorite part of the whole set:

Speaking of tea pots, I also inherited a tea pot that originally belonged to my grandfather’s mother! I love the unusual shape:

Being a big ol’ liberal, I was psyched to see this commemorative plate from FDR’s Warm Springs, GA, retreat. I just listened to an episode of This American Life on the way back from Florida which mentioned Warm Springs and tried to figure out if FDR liked to drink the local moonshine when spending time there (I bet he did).

I think this will be hung on the wall in my kitchen.

I also received a lovely set of blue and white plates that my Pops sent home from Europe to his mother while he was serving in WWII. Memaw kept telling me “these are a real prize!” and I certainly agree. These will also be hung on the wall in my kitchen:

I have a thing for milk glass, so I took this set of plates, even though there weren’t very many of them. They were just too pretty to pass up!

I also love the gold-rimmed scalloped edges.

Proof that my liberalism has roots, a set of vintage Democratic donkey glasses (shot glasses?):

I also thought these tiny red glasses were pretty cute:

Believe it or not, before this, I didn’t have a butter dish:

More blue and white. The set of dishes I got when I got married is blue and white, so this lovely serving platter will go nicely with the stuff I already own: