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The front porch ceiling was once a vivid blue, as well as a more muted green. This is what I learned from spending the day stripping the original beadboard with the infrared paint remover.
Sky blue on porch ceilings is traditional, but this is a richer hue. And the green—well, someone who owned this house adored green; it pops up everywhere. The worst thing about stripping this stuff is all the staples from the installation of the aluminum that covered it for decades. I’m just really glad we decided to take this down. Stripping the roof base, which for obvious reasons needs to stay in place, is plenty of performance art for the neighbors. It’s a relief to be able to retreat to the backyard with a pair of sawhorses and a stack of beadboard and scrape away the day.
From the amazing array of eBay, I bring you the opportunity to own radioactive rings that will glow forever, thus:
- Helping you find your poison bottle.
- Making your dress buttons beckon to your beloved.
- Luring the elusive Simpsons fish during night expeditions.
- And more! So much more.
Don’t grope (in your filmy negligee)—glow!
Yes, friends, with Lustrolite Radi-Glo buttons you too can scatter radium throughout your residence. Removing tongue from cheek, I must admit that I would’ve been all over these if I had been born a few decades earlier. I adore glow-in-the-dark items and am even wearing one now.
The seller tosses some killer hooks into the description:
This fantastic find was brought to us by the RADIOACTIVE BOYSCOUT – a local man who, in his teens in the 1990’s, set out to build a nuclear breeder reactor in his backyard potting shed, in an attempt to earn his boy scout atomic merit badge.
“THE RADIOACTIVE BOY SCOUT” has since been written about him, and a documentary about his exploits called “THE NUCLEAR BOY SCOUT” was aired in the UK in 2003.
He informed me that “over 2 tons of pitchblende was processed to create the rings.”
He also informed me that this is one of only 2 known displays in existence.
“The “Radioactive Boy Scout” searched for a very long time before acquiring these, and paid $2500 to purchase this extraordinary item!
The previous owner owned a hardware store from 1925 until 1957, and this was a part of his old store stock. …
What a conversation starter!
Don’t miss the chance to own such a rare and interesting Atomic – Age item!
But one of my favorite parts of this sale is what he wrote about it on Craigslist:
This is a set (OF ONLY 2 KNOWN TO EXIST ON EARTH). A 1930″s display that contains 12 radium filled rings. Owned by the radioactive boyscout. Produced in Cleveland. Search EBAY for ITEM# 610-1. This item has a few days untill end of post. Bidding starts at 400.00 dollars. Item will be destroyed and properly disposed of, if not purchased by end of auction.
While I wish I could help prolong the legacy of the Radioactive Boy Scout, I’m not going to have a house to find anything in if don’t spend the money on the mortgage instead. I guess I’m doomed to grope for evermore. But good luck, bidders!
I’m sunk in a spate of touch-up projects right now. So I will attempt to entertain with some pics I took 3 years ago (wooooosh—yes, that was Chronos winging away) at the Vrooman Mansion in Bloomington, Illinois. We’ll start with fixtures that feature lovely old wood.
Copper-lined tank:
And a little something to stoke my push-button obsession:
I think this might be the mother of all toilet seats:
And check out the tank. I’ve got pics of the inside. It’s a little gruesome, but just in a rusty way.
Then there’s the wood-rim tub:
When a vacationing vintage junkie has been rolling down scenic roads for days on end—driving through trees …
… and cavorting with questionable characters at miniature-golf courses …
… waking up in sterile surroundings that boast 50 different shades of beige—a little clawfoot spells big relief. Who takes a bath in those boxy, plastic hotel tubs? This curvy beauty begs to be filled and dipped into.
Gold … foooot!
It wasn’t quite this …
But it’s more than a week since we stayed at the home of that tub, the Metro Hotel in Petaluma, California, and I’m still reminiscing about it. And this lovely sink.
I should have asked where they bought that trash basket because it fits the decor so well.
Y’know, when I installed my old sink, I chose a mixer faucet because I thought those separate hot and cold taps were going to be irritating to live with. But I didn’t mind them at all. I just got some hot out of the one side and some cold out of the other and mixed it all in my hand before splashing my face. Of course this is making me reconsider my bathroom remodel, which—oh dear—I really don’t need any encouragement to keep refining. In any case, the Metro also can fulfill your desires to sleep in an Airstream trailer.
But even if you’re in a traditional room, beware the local creatures.
(And if anyone knows what that French says, please let me know. It may have invaded my subconscious as I slept, but I wouldn’t mind hearing it in English as well.)
I also loved these curtain holders, so I’m going to document them here so I can find them later.
ETA: Ha, I finally did a search on these and it turns out they’re an Ikea thing, so most likely everyone in the world but me knew about them before. That figures, since I’ve never been inside an Ikea store.
I’ve got housespiration from various places to post as well. Please do not hold your breath, however, because I seem to have embraced the lazy life of late.
As if we needed any more excuses to eat out or order in, this is the state of my kitchen these days.
It’s been sacrificed to support the shellac work on the living room baseboards. Yum, old pine.
We can barely walk through the living room itself because the 12-foot sections are set up in there, along with the closet door. I’m very excited to finally be at this stage of the project, with all the paint removal just a sticky, smoldering memory.
This fetching, blue Bromo-Seltzer bottle turned up a few years back when we were rebuilding the side porch. I guess heartburn has always gone hand in hand with house work!
The words on it:
BROMO-SELTZER
EMERSON
DRUG CO.
BALTIMORE, MD.
So far I’ve left the ancient earth inside.
More from my parents’ 1915 house—the clock nook in the bathroom. While I relied on this General Electric timepiece while growing up, I don’t think it was until I became an old house nut that I noticed the clock pulls out of the wall and lives in a nook designed especially for it. What happens if old reliable ever gives up the ghost? Well, I guess we’ll just have to fix it.
Happy holidays to everyone with some inspiration to preserve old house details like these from my parents’ 1915 house in Cleveland:
I’m pretty sure this is why I was obsessed with having marble in my bathroom renovation here.
