Picked Up a Two-Tiered Shade for a Favorite Lamp

I had Friday off, so besides doing some errands, I managed to hit a local estate sale advertised as full of "Mid Century Modern."  That label pulled in dealers and pickers from everywhere, including a couple women from Baltimore who were right in front of me, and someone else from New Jersey.  I managed to get #27, but it was almost an hour before I got through the door.  Interesting sale in an old apartment turned into a condo. Even with the late number, I still got a few things, including this lampshade.

I have been watching for one that has the three "bumps" on the top structure.  That feature makes it sit correctly on the milk glass difusers  found on some mid century lamps like my brass and black floor lamp, a gift from my nephew Dave (thanks again Dave).

The shade was in excellent shape, and the price was relatively high.  But I never see these locally, and my only other option was to buy online and pay about the same and also have to cover shipping costs.  So, I paid the price.  I think it was worth it.

Here it is on the lamp.  The atomic finial is one I already had, but I think it looks good on there.

Looking good!

By the way, I see that I'm one away from having 200 followers here on the blog, and 75 over on Facebook. I guess it's almost time for a giveaway to celebrate!  Stay tuned...

New Love Seat, Pole Lamp, and a TV Pole

Hi there loyal Uncle Atom reader!  I won't recite all the reasons Uncle Atom has been wallowing in lameness this past month, but I needed to take a break.

Project wise, I haven't finished anything new, and I haven't gotten out to any sales either.

But, I do have a few photos I can share.

I mentioned before I had quite a haul from the estate sale where I got the vintage fridge.

Here's the white vinyl love seat.  It was part of a set that included a turquoise sofa, and orange and turquoise chairs, all of which were bought by others at the sale.

The wood is in pretty nice shape, and the cushions don't have any tears, just a little wear in a couple of places.

The previous owners had this in the basement party room, and I had the joy of cleaning off a pretty heavy layer of old cigarette smoke.  Mr. Clean erasers did a nice job overall.

I also used the erasers on this white Stiffel tension pole lamp, which was also coated in smoke.

Once I went over the pole and lamps with the eraser, the yellowish tint was all but gone.  I like the difusers in this lamp.

This last item came from eBay.

I stumbled across this tension pole designed to hold an old tube-style portable television, and I had to have it. Luckily there was no bidding competition.

A "portable" TV would hang by it's handle from the two brass hooks (I've inverted them here to loop over the top of this TV), and the base sat on a flat piece of metal sticking up from the lower part of the pole.  I managed to use some strong hook and loop webbing and mounting screws on the back of the flat screen TV to get it mounted to the pole.  I have another piece of hook and loop holding the base of the TV to the flat metal piece.

So far no issues, although I'd really like to clean up the look of the back of the TV.  If I really get ambitious, I might try to cover the black TV edges with a light wood grain or some other color besides black. I'll have to ponder that - don't want to ruin the TV with something that would look cheesy.   For now, it's kinda nice to have a working TV in the Rumpus Room again.

Stuff I Picked Up at the World's Longest Yard Sale

I've been kinda inattentive to the old blog lately -- apologies that I haven't made progress on an mid-century projects.  I actually have been working on my 1963 Mercury Comet station wagon, but the work has been on the front suspension and brakes, and that doesn't make for much of a blog post here, mainly because I'm nowhere near done.  I've had to acquire a couple of special tools to help with removing rusted/stuck front brake drums and to take out the coil springs.

So anyway, I have owed you all some photos of the goodies I picked up during our first foray to the World's Longest Yard Sale.  If you looked at my Flickr photo stream from the sale, you maybe got a feel for what was happening along Route 127 in parts of Tennessee and Kentucky.

I was a little disappointed on our first afternoon of the sale.  Saw a lot of awful castoff junk and just a few gems here and there, and not much that I wanted to buy, but I didn't come away totally empty handed that day.

I scored these brown plastic letters all in a bunch.  I'm guessing they date to the 1970s or 80s, but it's kinda hard to be certain.

These had threaded studs to attach to a wall.  The capital letters are each about 12 inches tall.

I also bought this cool Vogue sewing pattern magazine pretty cheap.

The next day we had some rain in the morning, and we passed up a few places where most vendors had tarps thrown over everything.  I couldn't help noticing that some vendors didn't bother to cover their stuff!

Finding this bunch of lunchboxes sitting on these shelves in puddles of water made me a little angry.

Now, I don't know about you, but it drives me nuts when I find something I want to buy, and I can't buy it because the seller is galavanting around somewhere!  I found a couple record albums and these two perforated brass lamp diffusers at one wet stop we made, and the teenage boy who was left to mind the store had no idea what to price them at. "They'll be back soon," he said.

I waited about 10 minutes and then made two laps around the muddy field waiting for the vendor to come back.  Finally I convinced the kid to take 2 bucks per album and six bucks for the two diffusers.

I don't think I can ever have enough lamp parts.  I hope he didn't get a beating for selling the unpriced merch, which would probably still be in their possession if I hadn't pushed the issue.

Once the rain stopped, I had my best find of the day in a field full of junk.

These etched starburst glasses were not a complete set, but they were uber cheap and they  seem to exactly match the tall glasses I found several years ago.

And this is the set that I already had.  Pretty close match.

One thing I saw a TON of all along the route was glass of all kinds.  I'm not big into glass, but I sure was happy to find these starburst glasses.

I don't collect soda bottles either, but I liked the look of this soda bottle marked Chattanooga, Tenn., so I bought it from the same guy who sold me the glassware.

Never heard of Ski soda before, but the seller said it was a citrusy soda comparable to 7-Up and Sprite (?)

I also found this metal letters and bills wall hanger thing on our second day.

It cleaned up pretty well for something that's probably 50 years old and may have sat in a barn for years.  It had some dirt, light rust and cobwebs all over it, but the price was right.

Our third and last day of the sale was the best in terms of stuff I found, and most of it I got in one farm yard that had probably 100 vendors.  A couple seemed to specialize in mid century and kitschy stuff - jackpot!

I'm not a big 1970s avocado/orange/harvest gold fan, but I do appreciate that others are, so I picked up this four-piece soft plastic canister set for a good price.  I'll be adding it to my etsy store soon.

Within a couple minutes of getting the canisters, I picked up this danish lamp.  

The wood looks like it could use some refreshing, so this is going in the projects pile. 

Eventually I'll disassemble it, shine up the brass, restore the wood and maybe give it a grounded electrical rewiring.  The shade that came with it looks original, but it's kinda beat up.  I'm not tossing the shade yet because I'm hoping I can figure out a way to remove the dents and get it looking decent.  If not, I'll keep it until I can find a close replacement shade.

I was surprised that I didn't find a single tiki mug during the whole trip, but I did get a great buy on both these guys in the same farm field.

They look better than they did when I bought them, thanks to some tung oil.

Next, I just missed getting this great looking record player for $10.  The buyer was marking sold on it when I walked up to it.

And the last thing I bought in that field (and the last purchase of the trip) was this chair -- 

it was a great deal, and fortunately I had brought some tools with me, so I was able to take it apart and fit it into our car top carrier.  It's marked Yugoslavia, the rope is in great shape.  I cleaned up the wood and gave it a coat of tung oil and it's looking good now.

I also picked up probably about 25 more record albums, but I haven't shot pics of them yet.  I know, I'm lame.  I'll try to get that done soon.

Overall, we had a good time driving the back roads and hitting as many sales as we could.  I'm not sure I would do it again, but maybe by July next year we'll be itching for a repeat.

Estate Sale Find - Did I Ever Mention I Have a Thing for Pole Lamps?

I only went to one estate sale this weekend - after I fooled around with the Flair oven for a few hours I stopped by a sale that had a set of four Salterini patio chairs and a table.  Of course, the set was marked sold by the time I got there.

Anyway, the estate featured a TON of bells.  Someone had amassed a huge collection, and for the 15 minutes I was there Saturday, little kids and all kinds of people were dinging bells - cute for the first minute, excruciating for the next 14.  I picked up a few smalls, and before I left I spotted a pair of pole lamps which were turned on, and amid all the bell display cases it was easy to miss them.

So today I went back for half-price Sunday and luckily, they were still there!  Score!!  I even got the working light bulbs in the deal.

This first one is brass, with heavy, ball-shaped shades.  It needs some polishing, but everything works.

The second tension lamp is black and brass, with bullet-shaped shades.  It also works, but it seems to be too tall for the basement, so I may have to move some things around to find a place for it upstairs.

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!!!