Category Archives: Coral Gables

Roached-out Silver Still Holds Its Appeal

Posted in Antiques, Coral Gables, Estate Sales, Florida, Garage Sales, Thrifting, Uncategorized by

I started with one. One that my belonged to my great-grandmother. Then I saw one at a yard sale for next-to-nothing. Then some time went by and I saw another one, all seemingly cheaper than the last.

And so it began. I didn’t set out to collect old silverplated pitchers, but I do. Some are art deco, some are frilly and some are so old, they don’t even shine anymore. Hahaha!

When I was in Miami, I saw these OFTEN. The things people sold down there always killed me. Folks in Southern Florida have little appreciation for everyday antiques, so I was in heaven. But I digress.

I snatch these up anytime they’re marked at my magic number or less. Today I actually paid a little more for one, but I don’t usually go above that “number”. So that brings my number to nine silver pitchers. I met up with some old-timer antiques dealers a couple of weeks ago and wasn’t all that surprised to see that they had a collection of them too. They were asking more than three times my magic number, so I know I’m on to something good here.

My favorite use for them is as a vase. They kind of elevate the presentation of the flowers in a charming way.

Silverplated pitcher with roses

Antique silverplated pitcher as vase.

I decided not long ago to start using some of these things in my everyday life. So I use one of my small silver trays for a catch-all on top of my dryer. It holds things like buttons and change and lots of lint I’m sure. I don’t know, it still makes doing laundry seem more… civilized.

image

Pretty, Pretty Princess Cabinet Started As Anything But

Posted in Coral Gables, flea markets, Florida, Garage Sales, Liberty, Missouri, Thrifting, Travel, Treasures, Uncategorized by

I snatched this little beauty up in a rural flea market on the drive from Mulberry, Florida to Miami. I loved the legs and thought it surely had more to offer than roached out wood and dust. It had a beautiful shape and the original glass and door pulls, so I knew I could do something with it.

At the time, we were living in a hotel a stone’s throw from Coral Gables. With space at a premium, I cleaned it up and used it immediately. Once we were settled in our Coral Gables apartment, I got to work on it, thanks to a mis-tinted can of paint from Home Depot ($5, thank-you-very-much).

I couldn’t have been more pleased with how it turned out. The color was close enough to Tiffany Blue that it really elevated it. I gave it a little class by painting the window jams white. Painting the inside white was a no-brainer, because it served to lighten up the entire piece, making it look clean, intentional, stylish.

I hated to see it go at one of our garage sales once we moved to Missouri, but it just didn’t fit with our current decor. So when someone expressed interest in it, I waved a long good-bye to this pretty little thing and carried on.

Flea Market Flip 01

Small cabinet found in rural Florida shows true beauty

*Note: When I took the after picture, I noticed some areas that needed touch-ups. Those areas were fixed. 🙂

1960’s Bahamas Map/Ad Still Works

Grand Bahama Island Site of the New World Riviera, one of the fastest growing RESPRT/RESIDENTIAL/INDUSTRIAL areas in the World. LUCAYA/FREEPORT Depicted areas of interest: Mangrove Cay, Water Cay, Cormorant Point, Grand Bahama Hotel, Oceanus Inn, Bahama Cement, West End, JackJars, Airport, Holmes Rock, Seagrape, Set and Be Damned, Eight Mile rock, Harbour, Imperial Bahama Floating Hotel, King's Inn, Oil Buckering, Pub on the Mall, Holiday Inn, Lucayan Beach Hotel Casino, Freeport, Lower Conch, Green Cove, Gold Rock, Bell Channel, Riding Point, Halls Point, Cormorant Point, Riding Point, Pelican Point, Carrion Crow, Deepwater Cay, Sweetings Cay, bird Cay, Burrow Cay, Cross Cays, Orphans Cay, Abaco, Great Sale Cay, Smithspoint

While living in Miami, I went to my fair share of estate sales. It was my attending sales so much that led me to work for the region’s best estate sale company. At one of those sales, in one of the not-nicest homes in the area, I ran across this poster in the bottom of a closet. It was such a sad, rolled-up crusty thing that when I took it to the door to have a price assigned to it, I was waved away. “Ehhh, keep it, honey,” the woman running the sale said.

I’ve admired it for over two years. I kept good care of it because despite the holes and rough edges, I knew that I could work with this piece. It was just a matter of finding the right frame/decor/room/space opportunity. The map pointed out lots of destinations or points of interest, and whoever owned the poster also added their own notes. It’s so cute and retro. The little fish images, all of the boats, the famous JackTar Club, which opened in 1960. (Reference here and here.)

Grand Bahama Island Poster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This fabulous black frame came in to my life in Indiana roughly a year later. I couldn’t have paid more than $5 for it; it’s pretty rough.

Grand Bahama Island Poster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grand Bahama Island Map Fish cropped

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cut to today, when I decided I wanted to talk about the Bahama poster. I needed something to set over it so it wouldn’t roll up and the old, crusty black frame with the knot that comes out was right there.

I’ll be getting this to the framer next week. Be prepared for updates.

“Grand Bahama Island

Site of the New World Riviera, one of the fastest growing RESPRT/RESIDENTIAL/INDUSTRIAL areas in the World.
LUCAYA/FREEPORT”
Depicted areas of interest: Mangrove Cay, Water Cay, Cormorant Point, Grand Bahama Hotel, Oceanus Inn, Bahama Cement, West End, JackJars, Airport, Holmes Rock, Seagrape, Set and Be Damned, Eight Mile rock, Harbour, Imperial Bahama Floating Hotel, King’s Inn, Oil Buckering, Pub on the Mall, Holiday Inn, Lucayan Beach Hotel Casino, Freeport, Lower Conch, Green Cove, Gold Rock, Bell Channel, Riding Point, Halls Point, Cormorant Point, Riding Point, Pelican Point, Carrion Crow, Deepwater Cay, Sweetings Cay, bird Cay, Burrow Cay, Cross Cays, Orphans Cay, Abaco, Great Sale Cay, Smithspoint

 

 

Tiny Table Trouble

Posted in Clay County, Coral Gables, Designer Labels, Estate Sales, Genealogy, Travel by
Goodwill find!

Goodwill find!

Too pretty to paint!

Too pretty to paint!

Shannon gave this to us as a housewarming gift. FAB!

Shannon gave this to us as a housewarming gift. FAB!

Mr. Wonderful claimed this for his office on sight.

Mr. Wonderful claimed this for his office on sight.

So I might have a problem with collecting tables. Small tables, to be specific. They seem to be available at every thrift store I frequent. And they’re sooooo inexpensive, I can’t help but snatch them up. Some have labels, some don’t. Some are basic, some aren’t. Many times, I have ideas about repainting/repurposing the wooden ones, but I get them home, clean them up and I find that they don’t need a thing more (other than a purpose).

My latest obsession is this dark, ornate table from Imperial Furniture of Grand Rapids, Michigan (below). I didn’t know anything about the company until doing a little internet research but found out that they made furniture in the first half of the 20th century. Many of their signature items are ornate like mine, but they also crafted more straight-forward/modern-looking pieces. Based on the catalog of labels available, I would guess this table’s birthdate to be sometime around 1939. It has too many embellishments to list (and quite frankly, I don’t know how to refer to them all). It’s a grand, little table. To learn more about Imperial Furniture Company, check out this site: http://www.furniturecityhistory.org/company/3638/imperial-furniture-co.

Salvation Army find!

Salvation Army find!

Dusty, yes. Beautiful still? Yes.

Dusty, yes. Beautiful still? Yes.

More details.

More details.

Imperial, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Imperial, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Heidi Waited Patiently…

Posted in Coral Gables, Estate Sales, Uncategorized, Vaping by

Heidi Med-VapeNot so long ago, I came to own this cute little Block Pottery vase/figurine. “Heidi” was a remnant of an estate sale I worked in Coral Gables; her former caretakers were a judge and his wife. I would guess that Heidi hung out in their kitchen for decades, based on the condition her paint is in. She was covered in grease.

Heidi is part of a series of these kind of vases offered by Block. I’ve also seen “Daisy” and some other various forms.

Heidi sat on a shelf in my living room for several weeks. Many times I wondered what her purpose in my home could possibly be; Heidi had seen better days and could no longer rest on her looks alone. She needed a function.

Enter my nicotine addiction. I gave up smoking in November and recently I was feeling “the urge” so my husband hooked me up with a friend of his who sells electronic cigarettes. Med-Vape, located in The Native Village in Hollywood, FL, offers all kinds of vaping gear, including the implements and liquids to fill them. The upside to vaping is that you can do it anywhere. The downside is that you can’t just set the vaping pen up to rest. It’s kind of tall, so it tips easy. You can’t lay it down either, because it could roll onto the floor.

It didn’t occur to me immediately. But Heidi eventually earned a place on my nightstand. She’s pretty enough to warrant the placement on my side of the bed, but not so pretty that she outshines my other junk. And she holds my vaping pen with such style.

Lions and Snails and Pulitzer, Oh My!

Posted in Coral Gables, Garage Sales, Treasures, Uncategorized by

I’m a wannabe fashion whore. I might have been a full-on fashion whore, had I been born into a different body. But I wasn’t, so I settle for wanting to learn more. I hit a garage sale a few weeks ago and was drawn to a couple of pair of brightly-colored vintage pants on a rack full of random clothes. I checked the labels and read “The Lilly Sportswear Division Lilly Pulitzer Inc.”.

Lilly Pulitzer Inc.

Lilly Pulitzer Inc.


One pair is pink and has lions and the other is green with snails. The woman who sold them to me, who was about my age, said that she wore them in college and they were vintage, belonging to her mother, THEN. I’m not sure HOW old that makes them but I’d guess they’re from the ’60s or ’70s. Because the sale was almost over, I got them for a pretty great price. I tried to find information on the prints on this site (http://home.comcast.net/~sweet36/site/?/home/), but I can’t find a match for either pair.
I think they’re fabulous.
Green pair with snails, Pink pair with lions

Green pair with snails, pink pair with lions

Trawling for Treasures in Coral Gables

Posted in Antiques, Coral Gables, Estate Sales, Florida, Garage Sales, Heirlooms, Treasures by

One recent Saturday in Coral Gables found me at a garage sale close to the University of Miami campus. The sale was being run by two sisters in their 80s, and one of their daughters. The women were Southern and had all of the charm you would expect. From what I gathered, their husbands had passed, as they were selling men’s clothes along with their colorful clothing, various furniture and other fabulous items. I bought a few things and returned the next day to check it out again. On the second day, I grabbed up some fabulous designer clothes (one of the sisters was quite the entertainer in her day) and various items. As I was leaving, one of the sisters directed me to a couple of wood balusters. “My husband and I bought these over 50 years ago when they were tearing down an old mansion in Charlotte,” she explained. “We planned to make them into lamps and he even sanded them down to get them ready…” she trailed off.
The home she was talking about was the Edward Dilworth Latta mansion which was demolished in 1965. These heart pine balusters are bulky, heavy and pretty fabulous in their simplicity. She was worried that no one would take them and strongly suggested I fulfill their plan to make them into lamps. I couldn’t guarantee I would, naturally, but I’m a sucker for provenance and after agreeing on a price I brought them home. I reached out to an architectural salvage company in Charlotte later that week but they were not interested. So the question becomes, “What do I do with them now?”

Edward Dilworth Latta Mansion Balusters

Edward Dilworth Latta Mansion Balusters

Edward Dilworth Latta Mansion

Edward Dilworth Latta Mansion

A Day in the Coral Gables Life

Posted in Coral Gables, Florida, Travel by

Thanks to a gentleman at the laundromat this morning, I was able to communicate laundering instructions (2 dry cleaned, 2 wash and fold) to the Spanish-only speaking clerk behind the counter.
I queued up a song up on YouTube after returning home and the sponsoring commercial was for Head & Shoulders in Spanish.
I REALLY, REALLY need to spend more time learning the language, because my three years in high school and two years in college were not enough. This is NOT like Kansas. And it’s so awesome.

Coral Gables Flora

Coral Gables Flora