My husband, Chris, went to an estate sale on Friday while I was at work. He came home empty-handed. I went to the same sale after work (because it was only 10 minutes away and I don't fully trust his junk-hunting skills yet) and saw a typewriter sitting on top of this gray metal Sears & Roebuck typewriter table. The price was $35 for the typewriter and table, but I asked to buy just the table because the typewriter wasn't anything to write home about. The seller happily agreed, since it was the end of the day and no one else had shown any interest.
When I arrived home and walked in the door holding the table, Chris said, "Oh, yeah - I saw that there and I knew you would love it". He just assumed that the seller wouldn't want to separate the set. Now do you understand why I have to do a follow-up visit?!
Typewriter tables make great night stands. My son has an olive green one next to his bed. I'm going to use this one as a printer stand next to my desk.
Last week, I bought this large ironstone platter and tureen at a yard sale for $10:
At least, I think it is a tureen. I assume that it had a lid once - but it doesn't have a lip on the inside of the rim. Any ideas?
I love figuring out the age of these old pieces. Sometimes there isn't enough information on the maker's mark to do a Google search. So, I look to my favorite website for pottery marks: thepotteries.org.
When I looked at the mark on the bottom of the bowl, I determined that "Hanley" is the name of the factory town where the piece was manufactured in Staffordshire, England. The manufacturer is W & C - but that doesn't help me because there are many potters that start with "W".
I went to the W page in the Alphabetic listing section of thepotteries.org. I clicked on all of the manufacturers who had W & C initials and whose location was Hanley. Eventually, I found the maker: Whittaker & Company. When I looked at the other examples of the Whittaker mark, I learned that "Windsor" refers to the name of the pattern and that it is made between 1886-1892.
The mark on the bottom of the ironstone platter was much easier to research, since it had the full name of the manufacturer. I found it right away when I googled "Porcelaine De Terre" "John Edwards". Here is the result on thepotteries.org. I learned that this platter was made sometime between 1880 and 1900.
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Thanks to Grace from Poetic Home for featuring a few of my favorite vintage things on her blog. As I told her, I am happy to be a part of anything that has any references to The Sound of Music. And I especially love that she compared me to Conan O'Brien. That made my day! Be sure to check out the other bloggers in her Favorite Vintage Things Series, too.
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Since yard sales are scarce at this time of year, I've been trying to fill the void by visiting local wineries. Surprisingly, there are several in the area and they all have beautiful locations, fun-filled events and great wine, to boot. There is one winery called Paradocx that sells their wine in paint cans.
Isn't this the cutest thing ever?
It is equivalent to four bottles of wine and has a little spigot at the bottom for pouring. I bought the Barn Red variety, which is a Sangiovese/Cabernet Franc blend. They also make Whitewash, which is a blend of Chardonnay, Vidal and Pino Grigio - it has a white barn on the label. I opted for the red, since we have that big red barn in our backyard (which isn't ours, unfortunately). The can even comes with a wooden paint mixer, imprinted with "Paint the Town, Responsibly".
I can't wait until the weather warms up so we can sit on our deck and play "Pass the Can". It is so much classier to drink wine out of a spigot than a bottle.

