Space Age Find

My mom and I were at one of our favorite Goodwill stops in Omaha when I spotted this fab object on a shelf.

Whatever could it be!? A vase? Part of a lamp? A large juicer? (my mom's guess) For $2.50 I figured it needed further investigation so it found its way into the car and back to my house. It is a little over 19" tall and the yellow insert is removable.

So what is it?

Yep, an ashtray. I Googled the markings: Space Age Products Inc. and came up with their web page. It looks like they have been making the same ashtrays since 1954 so I was rightfully attracted to its vintage-ness I guess. It doesn't look like they currently make yellow but I'm not sure how one would date these. They run $37.95 plus S&H so I didn't get ripped off and as my brother states "he knows of a few hipsters who will buy it from me if I decide I don't want it." I think I'll keep it for a while and see what I can come up with.

Whenever I try to flip through the records at these places I always get some creeper standing in my personal space. I am afraid they are trying to think of some clever pick up line for the "hip" girl trying to find vintage exotic music to listen to on her record player. In actuality they probably just want to look through the records to find a few for their ebay store. I even had some older guy yell at me one time, "Do you even know what a record player is!? Watcha goin' do with that!?" Did he really think my Starland Vocal Band record was priceless and he was going to convince me not to buy it with that comment? Whatever the reason for creeper's closeness yesterday I made my selection and then made my escape without any awkward communication. This one was my favorite find:

I'm sure I lost all cool points if Mr. Creeper saw my selection but how can one resist Grover dressed as John Travolta!? The record is in amazingly good shape too with classics such as C is for Cookie and Rubber Duckie.

The Jungle

Oops. I forgot to post my very unexciting tree/shrub removal post so here it is.

This is the side of the house I never see. Our poor neighbor, on the other hand, does from his kitchen window. A while back I looked at the side of the house and realized Mark had not been moving over here. When asked about this he said "I thought it looked cool, like our own little jungle garden area." OK? Yes, I'm sure our neighbor feels the same way.

So here is our little jungle garden. Mostly trees at this point since I have been more closely monitoring the mowing.

Tada! The trees are gone leaving the bridal veils which also got trimmed back so hopefully they come back next year.

A Little Late for Exterior Painting?

I really don't think we are going to get the exterior of the house painted this fall as it already has been getting chilly but the boys are determined it will be done. And when I say determined, I mean they are maybe putting in 2 hours a week of work and still insisting it will get done. OK, whatever. I will start painting when it gets to the lower half but I have some minor vertigo on the tall ladder. I can climb the ladder but I will be tightly gripping it with both hands by the time I get up 10 feet so I'm not much help. Why did I buy a 2 story house which needed painted then? I don't know, it seemed like a good idea at the time!


Some of the paint colors we tried. I do like the top blue. Though I started looking at other houses painted blue and realized they had faded. If we paint the stucco right, we shouldn't have to do anything to it for a long time so a dark color is not a good idea. Plus, not that I am a purist when it comes to paint (it's only paint and can be easily changed is my theory) but while researching Craftsman paint colors it doesn't seem they painted the exterior of their houses blue at the time - slate gray was the closest I could find. Anyways, I was afraid the blue would look silly and then silly and faded in 2 years so I think our final choice is Chocolate Swirl with Raffia Cream. The whole combination makes me hungry just thinking about it.

I am embarrassed to show the purple splotch up there! It was red/brown/deep plum on the sample but it is very purple on the wall and even more purple-y in this photo. Our brown is on the end and the middle off-white is what we picked for the stucco. I still like the dark red too but I'm afraid it will clash with our oddly colored brown/blue bricks. The brown might too for that matter. Mark says my brown choice looks 70's but it must fit with my overall retro vision for the house so he is OK with it.

I have an overall retro vision for our house? Hmm, he's probably right and I subconsciously chose these colors with that in mind. I was hoping for something a little more retro than 70's. I can't say I have the urge to panel anything though I have to admit a lot of orphaned owls have been finding their way onto our walls.

A Ceiling for the Bathroom

I am glad no other females live here as they would not be able to stand this bathroom. We tore out the rest of the ceiling at the angle so we were left with this for a few days.

Fortunately my dad came down for a day and we were able to at least get the ceiling board up FINALLY!!

Of Course the boys were both at work so it was up to me to help haul the board up the stairs and hoist it into position.

Clamped up with some kind of contraptions my dad made for putting up plaster board at their house years ago.

And the screws make it official. The ceiling is in place! The bathroom project has come to a halt for the moment because we need to finish up the outside before it gets cold. Plus we have been out of town for a few weekends which has really put a damper on our progress.