Gossip Bench Finally Gets a Lampshade

I had the day off so I spent a couple hours rewiring and attaching the lamp arm and shade to one of my first atomic-styled furniture acquisitions - this great telephone table / gossip bench.  BEST $40 purchase I've ever made!!!

Thanks to Sara of NoPatternRequired.com, I had an inkling of what kind of shade I should look for.  And I finally lucked into a fiberglass shade on ebay a couple weeks ago.

To connect the shade, the lamp had to come apart, which meant rewiring.  Rewiring the lamp took longer than I expected, because the wire cord had to pass through the lamp arm and make a really sharp turn before coming out at the top.  I used some WD-40 spray to help the cord through the arm, and soon enough I had it rewired.

I have never had the lamp arm attached to this before, and I've had it so long I could not recall how the thing attached, but from what I can tell, this angled orientation is probably how it was.

I've never seen another one of these, but Sara had seen one in Texas but didn't have a photo.  She described it from memory and that was enough to get me on the right track.  THANKS Sara!!!

Flea market booty - the pushover edition

Here are this morning's scores from the Arlington Civitan flea market.  Got some good deals, everything came to $50!

Being a pushover for wrought iron legs, I nabbed this footstool, I knew it would match up nicely with the wrought iron chair I already had in this corner of the living room.

The chair upholstery is an orange, yellow fabric (not original), but the stool has that heavy textured vinyl from the mid century era.  No rips or tears.  I like the way these pieces work together.

Being a pushover for a gossip bench with iron legs, I folded this into the deal for the footstool from the same seller.  It was missing the plastic feet, but I had four black plastic caps that fit it perfectly.  The upholstery is great, the back of the chair is missing two screws, no big deal there.  The formica top shows some aging, but I couldn't pass this up for the money.

Being a pushover for pole lamps, I got this from the same seller.  It has a candy dish that sits in a hole in the nightstand top.  The brass base has some minor rust, I'll polish that as well as I can.

Being a pushover for old suitcases, this was a steal at $1.50.  I have plans for this one, it will house a hidden stereo system and sit in the back of the Comet wagon so I can keep an original-looking AM radio in the dash but still have tunes that I can keep hidden.

The seller even gave me the packing peanuts.

I usually don't spend time looking at record albums anymore, it takes too long and I already have too many.  I don't buy them for the audio, I usually buy them for the album artwork.  I've shown some of the classic TV-related albums I display in our basement.  I'm not a Sinatra fan, but the art in this was cool and it was in great shape.

This album is one I've never seen.  It's from the Jimmy Carter presidency, and it's a follow on to the spoof comedy albums that started when Kennedy was in the White House.  The DC area is the best place to find these.  I have the original and a sequel to the Kennedy album, a Reagan-era version, and this.  Probably the most obscure take on this "first family" comedy is a couple of albums that poke fun at Nikita Kruschev, who was in charge of the Soviet Union in the early 1960s.  I'll have to get these all out and do a post on them all together.

Classic bicycles

When I started making progress on restoring our Shasta camper (more posts to come on that as the weather warms up), I began thinking about things that would be good accessories to go with the camper.  Coolers, radios, folding chairs, dishware, and vintage decals all came to mind.  Then I got the idea that you really need a bicycle to get around a campground, so I started learning about mid century bicycle. She Who Must Be Obeyed began to sigh about yet another thing I might start collecting -- she was right.

I've since found several old single-speed coaster-brake bicycles.  This 26-inch ladies bike is the most original and complete that I've found so far.  The handgrips, seat, and even the tires are original and in very good shape for being about 45 years old.  And check out the graphics -- I love the styling and details on these babies.  Is anyone else here collecting old bikes?  Got any photos to share?

Got it up!

Even us old guys can still put up an aluminum Christmas tree  ;-)

My Flickr collection

With all the activity in the kitchen today on Thanksgiving (I peeled potatoes and helped in some other ways, but mostly tried to stay out of traffic) I went around and took some photos of more mid century items here at the Uncle Atom hacienda.  There's a link to my Flickr account in the links window on my main blog page.

Here are a couple selections from today's photos:

Isn't this a great telephone gossip seat?

I found this lazy susan in an antique mall in central Pennsylvania a few years ago.  It helped start me on a theme of black wrought iron and brass that's echoed in our lamps, sofa, end tables and accessories.

A many splendid thing

What kinds of things will you find in this blog? I'll be writing about topics such as vintage campers (and particularly the 1962 Shasta Airflyte I've been restoring - finally got paint on it this summer); old cars (yep, got em - a '63 Comet wagon, a '64 Mercury Park Lane convertible, and a 1967 Mercury Cougar XR7); vintage bicycles; mid-century modern furniture, lamps, clocks, shadow boxes and other furnishings; 1950s 60s toys, games and lunchboxes; tiki stuff; and more as I stumble across it.

Mid Century Atomic Stuff

Welcome to the Uncle Atom blog - I'm starting this blog to share my interests in mid century things. So pull up a hassock and once the coffee stops perking we'll have a cup.