50's, 60's, 70's, Elvis, Graceland, kitsch, Memphis, Mississippi road trip, road trip, Tennessee., travel

Mississippi Road trip: Memphis pt. 1 Graceland, the main house

No Comments
         I have a weird fascination with Tennessee, I’d never been until we went on this trip, but it just seems like a cool place to visit. Someday I’ll visit more of it go back to Memphis, Nashville, go to their big flea market and maybe even bonaroo (not all at once though). Anyway once I checked out where Springfield was and that it was relatively (but not really) close to Memphis I immediately wanted to add it to the itinerary. The number one reason I wanted to go to Memphis was, of course, to see Graceland! I love vintage kitsch and Graceland is like the holy grail of vintage kitsch. It’s a time capsule house of Elvis. And oh boy did Graceland deliver! Oh my god I would go back again, it was soo cool!!!! so worth the long drive. I highly recommend it if you’re in Memphis.  The house isn’t very big compared to today’s McMansions but it was in Elvis’ time. It was also named Graceland before Elvis ever lived there, he bought it from a doctor who named it after his wife. Anyway there is SOOO much to see at Graceland so I’m going to break it up into a few posts. So here are the pictures of the main house. 

Front of the House

The Living Room :

Check out those groovy peacock stained glass room dividers

And so begins one of the motifs of Graceland, Mirrors EVERYWHERE.

Sputnik chandelier in the Hallway? yes please!

  
Elvis’ Parent’s Room:

Amazing purple bathroom with…

Poodle wallpaper! mama like.

closet

Hallway/ Stairs to the 2nd Floor

Visitors aren’t allowed on the 2nd floor so this is all you see of it. Notice the mirrored wall.

 Dining Room:

The Kitchen: 

Carpet in the Kitchen?

I saw one of those canisters in the thrift store and immediately picked it up because I remembered wanting it but put it back because I didn’t remember why I wanted it. I wanted it because I saw it in Graceland!!! doh! Next time.

Preview of the Jungle Room:

The TV Room/ Bar :

Mirrored Bar

If you didn’t notice the color pallet for the TV room/ bar is bright yellow and navy blue. Interesting choice.

After visiting Graceland I’ve developed a need for white ceramic monkeys, don’t judge.

The headset said Elvis saw someone that had multiple TVs (possibly the President) and decided he needed three as well, which is great in the days before the DVR.

MORE MIRRORED WALLS!

 Game room/ Den:

check out that crazy patchwork wall tapestry

I’m kind of obsessed with the circus tent treatment to the fabric walls, I  kind of really love it.

yes there is a matching couch

 The Jungle Room: 

The Jungle Room is hilarious. It is an semi- Tiki /Hawaiian style, has green shag carpet on the floor and celing,  large wood carved furniture and faux (yes faux) fur upholstery.  

MORE CERAMIC MONKEYS!!!!!

The back of the house

There is way more Graceland to come. The Grounds have multiple buildings full of Elvis goodies which I’ll try to fit into one post and of course his planes (which are also amazing), stay tuned for more.

60's, 70's, art, broyhill brasilia, canisters, dresser, haul, mid century modern, mushrooms, space, thrift haul

Thrift Find of the Year?

2 Comments

Last wednesday I went to the dentist and the dentist is near my local thrift route. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to go thrifting or not and sort of went back in fourth in my mind but decided to go. Savers was having a mothers day sale which was 30% off clothes, accessories (not jewelry) and bedding. I went to Savers and didn’t find anything good but was kind of in the groove and decided to go to the other three.
Goodwill was OK, I found a cool piece of comic book art that someone made. The frame is crap but I thought the art was actually really good and nerdy. I’ve recently been looking more for cool art at thrift stores but haven’t had much luck. So I liked this enough to get it.

 After goodwill I went to the Salvation Army, I didn’t expect to find anything since though it’s on my route it hadn’t heeded any great finds. so I was browsing and went to the furniture section to see if I could find anything cute and mid century. I didn’t really see anything but I did see a dresser that looked kind of like campaign furniture, but wasn’t. So I went over to look at it and then when I saw it wasn’t campaign I looked to my left and recognized a distinctive handle of … a Broyhill Brasilia dresser! I almost couldn’t believe it, I looked it over to make sure, grabbed the whole tag (apparently you’re only supposed to get the bottom of it) and giddily sped to the register. It was $79.99 but with tax it came out to $85.00! I’ve been stalking Broyhill Brasilia online and recently saw a local vintage re-seller sell a credenza for $400.00. And on Craigslist I know mid century dressers are listed for around 100.00 to 400.00, So I knew it was a steal and I was getting it. It needs some work, someone decided to paint the top and it has a few nicks here and there but I still love it! Anyway, I was so full of adrenaline after that I couldn’t look around anymore. I quickly browsed the dresses and purses and then decided I just had to go and call my mom to tell her. Unfortunately she was at work so I left a message and decided to go to my last thrift store despite my adrenaline high.

We haven’t moved it to my room yet, it’s kind of heavy, but this is what it looks like.
Oh hey there Oliver.
 

After that high I calmed down a bit and decided I should finish up my round and go to Value Village. I figured with the Brasilia find I was on one hell of a roll and shouldn’t stop the momentum. Thankfully Value Village didn’t disappoint and I found some cool 70’s canisters. I’ve wanted some of these ugly kitschy canisters for a while but never bought any. These were in good shape and pretty cheap so I decided to get them. The middle one doesn’t have a top, despite my searching, but I figure I can use it as a planter or vase or something.

I’m linking up again with Her Library Adventures’ Flea Market Finds, so check out all the other cool vintage finds over there too.

50's, 60's, coffee, estate sale haul, estate sales, fish, haul, kitsch, lamps, Mad Men, mid century modern, Peggy, pitcher, pyrex, thrift haul, tv lamps

Mid Century Estate Sale Goodness

No Comments

          As I mentioned before I haven’t been thrifting as much in the last couple weeks in part because of a sweet mid century estate sale I saw posted on estatesales.net last week. I’m a sucker for mid century anything and once I saw the pictures online I knew I’d have to go. I was mostly interested in a pair of mid century Reglor Lamps that had the original shade. I got up early the first day of the sale to try and get the lamps but by the time I got there they were gone. Everything was reasonably priced but all of the lamps were a tad out of my price range. They had a lot of cool mid century lamps but they were all around $125-150.00, not bad really but I was only really ready to pop on them if they were under $100.00. We  were also planning to go to a big garage sale the next day and I didn’t want to spend so much money on a pair of lamps. The woman running the sale said that sale was just the tip of the iceberg that in two weeks there would be another sale of even more stuff. I guess the owner was frequent estate sale attendee and ebay-er, my kinda guy! But he has so much stuff he decided to sell some of it, awesome. So since there’s so much stuff I may end up getting some cool lamps at the next sale. We did end up with some cool stuff anyway. Most of it is actually my mom’s, she went with me to the sale and I bought her some stuff as presents for Mother’s day and her birthday which are both coming up. Anyway here’s the cool stuff we walked away with.

1. This Snowflake Pyrex casserole with lid and cradle. My Pyrex enthusiasm has waned in the past few weeks. If I find a cool pattern/color for a good price I’ll pop but I find myself passing them up more and more. This was only $5 bucks so I figured I’d get it. Plus it’s a color and pattern I don’t have and haven’t seen in a thrift store.

** Also Peggy and I have the same casserole

image via Tom and Lorenzo

2. This restaurant style coffee pot.

3. This cool Mid Century light was the item I got my mom for mothers/her birthday. It goes with our living room and she really likes it.

yup it lights up

4. Probably the coolest thing we got was this fish TV lamp. They had about 7 or so of these at the sale in various colors. We’ve seen various TV lamps before but never these funky fish, so we had to get it. It’s pretty cool right?

The fish illuminated!!!!
one of the marbles fell off

This week I’m also linking up with Her Library Adventures’ Flea Market Finds and Apron Thrift Girl’s Thrift Share Monday so you can check out what other bloggers found recently. Did you go to any sweet sales last weekend? Find any cool items?

50's, 60's, Betty, Joan, Mad Men, OOTD, Peggy, Roger, style, TV

Mad for Mad Men

No Comments

Image Via AMC

If you like television like I like television, which is perhaps a bit too much, then you’re probably just as psyched for the return of Mad Men today. I didn’t actually start watching Mad Men until 2010, I’d heard so many good things about it and its style but just hadn’t put in the time to get into it. Anyway I totally got sucked in and quickly caught up on seasons 1-3. So, when I heard last year Mad Men wasn’t returning until 2012 I was bummed.  Though I tried to quell my thirst for the Drapers with sub-par 60’s dramas (*cough* Pan Am *cough*) there’s nothing like the real things, and I’m glad It’s finally back! So of course I had to do a Mad Men post in celebration of the 2 hour season premier tonight.
     
        Mad Men is pretty well known for it’s style so what better way to celebrate its return then through a post celebrating the style of it’s leading ladies.

Betty Draper

 First up is Betty Draper ex-wife of Don, disgruntled housewife, and WASP. In other words the ultimate 1950’s housewife. Mad Men is of course set in the 1960’s but Betty’s style is most definitely informed by 50’s fashion, including the classic 50’s circle skirt silhouette. When she’s not in a skirt or dress she goes full WASP in her classic equestrian chic look.
And of Course what would a Betty Draper post be without disheveled Betty.

Anyway here’s my take on Betty’s look. This is actually my Halloween costume from 2010 when I went as a 50’s housewife.  Betty’s look is very 50’s housewife with pearls, circle skirts, cardigans and heels. She is always dressed to the nines and never skips a beat, even when she’s sad Betty.

Cardigan and Skirt: Vintage  Shoes: Urban Outfitters  Necklace and Earrings: Target  Bracelet: Marshall Fields (before Macy’s took over)

Joan Holloway aka Joan Harris

 The second and probably most iconic look of all the female Mad Men Characters is Joan. Sassy, in charge and sexy Joan is the office Marilyn and always dresses the part. With Christina Hendircks’ fabulous curves Joan’s style is sleek, tailored and sexy. Joan is an ace at knowing what works for her body. Unafraid of color Joan’s look incorporates bold color with slim silhouettes that accentuate her tiny waist and lovely curves.

I have a couple looks that would work for Joan but I haven’t blogged them yet and want to save them for future posts. This entry from the skirt challenge, though, works equally as well.  What makes it very Joan to me is the pencil skirt, bold color and highlighted waist. When letting out your inner Joan highlighting your curves is of the utmost importance as is incorporating solid bright colors.
 Shirt and Skirt: Thrift Shoes: Urban Outfitters Necklace: Target

MARGARET ‘PEGGY’ OLSON

Finally we have Peggy the smart, modern, working girl carving out a place amongst the men at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Peggy’s style is very 50’s school girl but seems to be evolving into a bit more of a mature style, with a few school girl touches. Despite being in her 20’s her style is fairly Juvenile. Peggy is often shown in more muted tones with bold, simple patterns and higher necklines.

Peggy’s style is the hardest to translate for me but I think this dress works well. Peggy doesn’t work as many brights solids as Joan but she’s sort of the middle point between Joan and Betty. Peggy incorporates both full and pencil skirts, bright and muted colors and a variety of patterns. Though it’s a tad brighter than Peggy’s general palate and the neckline is a bit lower then Peggy’s normal ware I think this dress works fairly well for a Peggy look and it’s also my OOTD for today. 
excuse the floors that need to be sanded

Dress: ASOS Scarf: Thrift Shoes: DSW  Bag: Thrift (originally from Target)  Scarf: Vintage
And just for shits n’ giggles I had to add a picture of my favorite male character and silver fox on the show, Roger Sterling. Le swoon. 
*all Images via google images and AMC
Whose style do you like the best? Which TV characters do you wish you had full closet access to?

20's, 50's, 60's, atomic lamps, dental cabinet, haul, junk bonanza, lamps, metal cabinet, pin up, thrift haul, vintage

Junk Bonanza

No Comments
          So as I mentioned two weeks ago I went to the Junk Bonanza, which we randomly heard about through my mom’s co-worker. There were tons of vendors from all over the upper midwest and was full of cool stuff. Unfortunately I’m a bad blogger and didn’t take any pictures while there, I’ll try and work on that. Basically it had a flea market type set-up with lots of different vendors that, I believe, were all antique dealers. There was a lot of distressed shabby chic-esque furniture, which really isn’t my thing, but there were also a lot of other cool stuff including mid century and art deco items. A lot of the stuff was a bit too pricey for us but we did get a lot of cool ideas for using vintage items in different ways, refurbishing old furniture and checked out some really cool antiques. Aside from what we bought there was a really cool old dental cabinet that looked exactly like this, it had tons of little drawers with cool ceramic organizers. It was $2100.00,  a little out of our price range, but it was really really cool and while drooling over it we thought of a million cool ways to use it. We’re seriously still drooling over it, maybe one day I’ll have the money to get one. Antique dental cabinets, who knew?

        Ultimately we did end up buying some stuff including two really cool atomic 50’s lamps, a 20’s metal cabinet and a pin-up photo. I love 50’s and 60’s era stuff and I’ve sorta started collecting 50’s and 60’s lamps. A couple years ago I stumbled upon two retro 50’s atomic lamps and fell in love. Now I’m sort of obsessed. I’m always on the look out for cool 50’s and 60’s lamps at garage sales, estate sales, thrift stores and any antique stores. So far I’ve only found ones that really appeal to me at antique stores and estate sales, which depending on the pricing at the store/sale can be a good or bad thing. All in all it was a pretty cool experience and we’ll definitely be back next year.

20’s Cabinet:

Cabinet closed with 20’s vignette (picture, bowl and lamp) that my mom styled. 
close up of vignette
cute feet

50’s Lamps:

ceramic deer in vessel. I think they look like they’re at a Drive in movie, but maybe that’s just me.

ceramic cat I bought recently in hopes it would bring me some job luck, jury’s still out on whether it’ll actually help.
close up of lamp trim

lamp base

Pin Up (possibly NSFW):

Black woman pin up

And finally I thought I’d introduce my other cat Diamond. When I was taking the above pictures she was sunbathing on the floor so I snapped a few pictures of her.

60's, cups, estate sales, hat, haul, lamps, thrift haul

A sale-ing we shall go

No Comments
          So a couple weeks ago after a disappointing trip to Austin, MN my mom and I drove to Mound, MN to check out an estate sale that we hoped would be more promising. I was swayed by two things: an awesome 60’s floor lamp and these really cool cups in their own caddy. We went to the sale towards the end of the first day and surprisingly the lamp and cups were still there! The only downside to estate sales is that antique dealers often come out early on the first day and scoop up all the really cool items, fortunately that didn’t happen at this sale. After a little back and forth we decided we’d go back the second (and final) day, when everything is 50% off, and try to get the stuff on sale. So we woke up relatively early Sunday morning, we rarely wake up early to go to sales, and went back. Everything was still there so we got the cups, a winter hat and the very cool 60’s lamp as well as 4 or so bowls and a green bracelet. Everything totaled out to a whopping $40.00, a very successful estate sale day if I do say so myself. Anyway here’s some pics of our recent finds:

My estate sale booty ( minus the lamp)  with a scarf I got at the Austin sale.
Awesome 60’s cups are awesome

Seriously I love these cups
My hat it’s very Mary Tyler Moore and I kind of love that about it.
Finally the 60’s lamp that goes really well with the Green/gold motif in our living room.

Last weekend I went to the Junk Bonanza with my mom and will post about some stuff we got there soon as well.