Then it hit me, Home Improvement flashbacks dropped all over my frontal lobe. I use to watch that show, like all the time. Granted, I didn’t love the show, maybe didn’t even really like to the show, but it was on after school and was right before the Simpsons.

I was drawing blanks with any of the shows details, so I hopped on the INTERNET!!! and read the entirety of the show’s Wikipedia page. Man, first-rate times, I guess. Besides the super cute mom, the rest of the cast borders on unbearably obnoxious. Ugh, and the later seasons with one son being goth, and the other a preachy liberal constantly talking about environmental nonsense; fast forward to the Simpsons please.

I looked up some quotes from the show and had a good laugh. From the quotes, I’d have to say my favorite character is head honcho Tim; and the way I’ve been acting around power tools lately, I think I’m becoming him.

Before buying a house, literally, all my tools fit inside our apartment's junk drawer. Pretty much a common hammer and screwdriver, cheap ones at that. And now, here I am at Home Depot, lusting over specific kinds of hammers. You mean there’s more than one kind of hammer? Yes my lad, there’s a plethora of diverse hammers; and check this out! You can choose a different weight for the same kind of hammer, you know, for comfort and smashing power.

Sure, Home Depot is a good choice for up-to-date power tools and items you lean towards wanting new; but lets not forget my first love, secondhand! More specifically, estate sales!

For anyone thinking/needing to build a tool collection, estate sales is the place to get the most bang for your buck.

We’re not talking cheap made in China or Taiwan garbage; your average estate sale generally reaches back to the late 50s early 60s, sometimes the 1940s 30s, enough to be considered common, and on the rare-ish side 1920s or before. Everything back then was tough as nails and made in the USA; built to last a lifetime baby. I highly recommend, purchasing your essential hand tools this way, you’ll get what you need dirt cheap, and be able to give new life to a piece of American history.

Not much time left before Christmas! Go hop on estatesales.net, find some killer sales, and start popping on some tools for the Tim Taylor in your life.

What time is it?

TOOL TIME!!!

When we saw this sale on estatesales.net we knew we had to be there (check it out, its insane). We literally showed up at 8:30am for an 11:00am sale. We were 14th and 15th in line. The guy holding the "list" said that there was someone who showed up a 12:00am the previous night. What the hell was he thinking? The sale, advertised as, "all midcentury modern" was awesome. Danish furniture throughout the entire house, and all in perfect condition. The only thing that we found that was even reasonably priced was this "Lane Sweetheart" cedar chest. Everything else was priced, seemingly at retail prices. One dealer remarked, "$5,000! That's retail in New York City!"

Since we were in the first group to get in, I ran up the stairs (everyone else seemed to head for the living room), and found this piece in the master bedroom. The price seemed pretty darn affordable considering there was a 5,000 dollar dresser sitting next to it. I ripped the tag and made it mine.

Craigslist here we come.

Manly Vintage will be running an estate sale.

Its going to be messy and disorganized, and we'll probably screw up a lot of things. But we're trying something new. Why? Because we wanted to see what it looked like on the other side of the curtain. Here's to the other side.

Sale Dates and Times:
9/11/2010 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM (Saturday)
9/12/2010 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM (Sunday)

Morgan's:

Jayson's

Who has the most appealing bowling pin?

After the Vintage Heaven sale in Wicker Park Jayson and I did some serious evaluating of our friendship up to this point, you know like; do you like my new glasses? You owe me twenty dollars? I can’t stop thinking about your wife, is this going to be a problem? Do you think we should start selling clothes?

Well the answer to the last question is yes, Manly Vintage will start having men’s clothes available, at least at the next Vintage Heaven and Vintage Bazaar. Nothing against chicks selling men’s clothing if done right, but from what I’ve seen it has been poor selection and quality; we had one seller admit at Vintage Heaven she literally grabs stuff for guys without even looking. You know, and damn it, those fashion obsessed male hipsters deserve better than that.

I don’t know what will happen in our individual online shops, and I have tried to sell some clothes before with little success, there are some guidelines I’m going to stick to. Like modeling the clothes myself, or one of the other hot married dudes I know. Also to never look like those virgin douche bags modeling men’s clothes on sites like Etsy…I guess that’s it. So lets review 1) model the clothes, no shirt on a hanger, on a wall 2) model in a way that does not suggest I go home at night to a bottle of lotion, but to a wife who has dinner ready when I get home.

Thoughts anyone? Let the wild rumpus begin!

This hat cost me 50¢

Thank you Colleen of Colleen's Estate sales.

In the last two weeks I’ve added two pretty spectacular fans to my collection, a Kenmore 124.8055 and a Westinghouse 16SD4. The Kenmore is a little floor fan with a industrial art deco get up, that reminds me of something from Batman: The Animated Series.

I was pondering a couple days back how I would depict my home décor taste, and I came up with something I’d like to share. My home decor tastes are as follows: primitive Americana with a shot of Wisconsin basement chic, and a shotgun blast of the film noir- art deco- atomic age styling of Batman: The Animated Series. God I love that show, love like, I bought all the seasons on DVD, and make my kids watch it with me. Anyways back to the fans.

The second fan, the Westinghouse, is the first fan I’ve owned that is truthfully silent. If you have the occasion, go find an antique fan forum, and at least one thread will be a bunch of dudes in disagreement about just how silent is which and what model. It’s actually a little frightening how noiseless it is, you feel the gust throughout the room, the overhead light is swaying, and pictures frames are lifting off the wall, all in complete silence; they don’t make em’ like they use to.

You may have noticed the Westinghouse is taken apart a bit, it still needs some more cleaning, and I’m going to be painting the cage and the blades. I’m going to keep the cage white, and maybe a light blue for the blades? What color would you do? Please tell.

Ha, and when I say collection I mean stock, just about everything in my life is for sale right now, the Kenmore will be hitting my Etsy shop tonight.

The coolest thing that I found, by far, was three turquoise metal boxes of 8mm film. You know, the kind that you could play in one of those old school projectors. The canisters were nearly snatched up right in front of my eyes. But I got 'em.

So for two months, I had been jonsing to see what was on those things. You see, I was just completely bewildered with the idea that this house was totally abandoned. Tons of family pictures, slides, and these home movies were just left for garbage. How could this have happened? Why were there kids and family and no one was there to collect and love all of those memories? Of course, in my mind, the 8mm could hold these answers. They could have revealed a sordid tale of murder, infidelity, or natural disaster. My mind raced with the possibility of intrigue. So I kept my eyes open for a projector. And boy did I find a doosey. An absolutely flawless Bell and Howell projector.

Anyways, I set up the projector in my basement. It was a lot of fun figuring out how those old projectors work. I spent hours going through the reels of 8mm film. I watched nearly every family movie. That's literally HOURS and HOURS of family vacations, holidays, easters, birthdays, and graduations.

What did I find? Not exactly what I was looking for. You see, I was looking for a tale of tragic and woe, some sort of disaster. What I actually saw was a completely well adjusted suburban Chicago family. They loved nature, as they went on probably 20 different vacations out west to national parks. They were both (the husband and the wife) geologists, although neither of them worked for a University. I got to see Paris in 1959, Disney Land in 1960, The Grand Canyon. I watched them ski and fish, I watched them grow up. I watched them get old.

It made me realize that there is a Wertz family, out there, somewhere, who wants to know about these things. David, Julie, Sydney Wertz. Where are you?