Floor-A-Matic

Having friends who are just as weird as I am often has many advantages. More often than not they support my wacky life decisions with heartfelt encouragement. For instance, recently while rummaging around at an estate sale a friend came across a vintage floor buffer, complete with all its attachments for only five bucks. He snatched it up, bestowing upon me such a wonderful gift because, and I quote, “ Even if it doesn’t work, I thought it would look really cool in your closet.” 

It does, by the way—look cool. It looks super cool sitting in my closet! And as an added bonus it still works perfectly. The buffer is technically a Penncrest; however, minus a color change, it’s exactly the same as the Hoover Floor-A-Matic. Little to no info seems to exist for the Penncrest, but with some digging I found a manual for the Hoover in glorious ‘.pdf’ form.

The included pictures show the results after giving it one quick polish. All I did was sweep, mop, polish, then buff. Took about 30 minutes total. Not bad for a quickie— even has some decent reflection. I swear though, one of these days I’m going to have the gumption to go through the ultra shine process Doug lists on his blog, The House on Rynkus Hill.

Coffey anyone?

Continuing with the theme of really cool stuff I’ve found completely at random, this week out of pure dumb luck I stumbled across a beautiful set of Kent Coffey Perspecta bedroom furniture. A total case of being in the right place at the right time. I landed the 3 piece set which is in almost perfect shape for the ridiculously tiny sum of $150 bucks. When I’m old and grey and recounting my great thrifting adventures with park bench passerby’s, I will for sure regale them with this tale.

Honestly I have no idea if other people are interested in the Perspecta line. Though a cursory Google search does bring up some Etsy and eBay listing, I think most people seem to prefer the similarly styled and iconic Broyhill Brasilia stuff. I’ve never been one to follow the mainstream though. Always carving my own weird path of destruction and mayhem. 

Please excuse the poor photos. The old bedroom furniture was still in the room then I snapped these. Not a lot of room to maneuver.

the velvet bullfighter and the matching señorita

I know all of my faithful readers are beside themselves wondering what the heck fire Robert has been up to as of late. Well, ok maybe only two or three people are concerned and, in all possibility, no one actually reads this thing. But for all of my imaginary readership, don't believe the rumors. I haven't joined the foreign legion or been press ganged into a life on the seas. I've just been obsessing over my many hobbies. The last few months a group of friends and I have been systematically learning the art of mold making, latex and animatronics. What started as a tiny project got crazy real fast. Sadly that has nothing to do with living in a house from 1960. If the skills I have learned can work their ways into mid century modeling living, you can bet my faithful reads will be the first to know. 

Even though I haven't been working on much of anything around the house, I feel like I should post something. I did manage to pick up some really cool items at an estate sale about 3 blocks from my house so I can talk about them. 

First up, I finally found the perfect chair for my powder room. When I moved in and realized I had a room dedicated to makeup application I had this radiant vision of the perfect chair. I don't know where I had crossed paths with one before but I knew it existed. One of those little ornate metal wire chairs that look so delightful and fragile you are afraid to sit on it. For the last year every time I walked into a thrift store I hoped to stumble across one. It never happened but at this estate sale, buried in the corner of the basement, covered in spiderwebs and dust was the very chair, ripped directly from my imagination: a gold metal wire frame with white and gold speckle vinyl seat. The frame is in perfect shape but years of neglect have killed the seat cover. An easy replacement in the future when time allows. More to my amazement, nestled with it was a matching end table. A beautiful set.

While carrying the chair and table up from the basement something large and odd caught my eye. Under the stairs,
leaned against the wall was an old room divider. The wood frame had an unmistakable 60's feel to it but the centers were this horrible 1980's faux brick pattern. The two just didn't match at all. On a whim I set my chair down and went in for closer inspection. After dragging it out from under the stairs, it was clear that the faux brick was contact paper of some sort. I looked for a loose corner and peeled it back just enough to see what lurked beneath. Immediately I could tell I just found something awesome. I remembered an article I had read a while back on retrorenovation.com. It was about some guy who found a stock pile of NOS patterned plastic sheets. The same sheets that were hidden away under the contact paper atrocity. Fearing the price would magically go up if someone saw what was underneath, I didn't peel the paper any further. I re-stuck the lifted corner and took my lucky finds up the makeshift check out area. 

Unrelated, this lamp is one of my all time fav thrift finds.

Check out led me to my third but sadly last awesome find of the day. Two velvet paintings were resting against the table. After inquiry, I found out they had been set aside when the last person to check out discovered they had spent too much. I happily picked up where they left off and snatched up the set. When one finds a velvet bullfighter and matching señorita, you figure out a way to buy it! 

All in all, a great estate sale adventure and some real cool additions to my slowly evolving home decor. 

Just livin'

What’s new around the Home of Tomorrow you ask? Not much, just livin’ man, L-I-V-I-N.
We had beautiful weather over the weekend so I did have time to do a few little things in addition to my standard yard maintenance. 

A friends neighbor cut down a tree and had free fire wood. I nabbed a truck load for myself and artfully used the stack of mysterious center blocs that came with my house as a wood rack. Not the most beautiful thing but the overall price of FREE fits my current budget nicely.

Also, I finally had the time to use the little power washer I received from my mom as a gift. Let me tell you, its a little odd when your mom drops by randomly holding a power washer and saying “this seemed like something you could use.” Heart of gold that lady.

The washer is nothing fancy, she picked it up at a JC Penny’s outlet of all places. Sure as heck fire gets the job done though. It took what I can only assume is 50 years of grim off my stairs and walk ways like it was nothing. Super easy to use and in a weird way, I even had fun doing it. 

Friends call me Snow Miser

It may come as a surprise but our modern day internet doesn't have much information about how to defrost a 70-some-odd-year old fridge. There are no webpages, blogs, or DIY YouTube videos dedicated to the subject. Apparently that’s not something people have to deal with much these days. 

Damn kids and their fancy self-defrosting refrigerators!! They don't know how good they've got it.

While most wouldn't consider this too life-threatening, I have to dissagr... Actually I have to agree. On a list of full blow home emergencies I don't think frosty freezer is even on said list. 

It was a tad daunting considering it’s probably months past whatever the manufacturer suggests, and you might even say, I had never defrosted it. Because I hadn’t...ever...defrosted it. The time had come. Not for any of these reasons, though; for something far more important: it was getting difficult to fit in my ice cube trays. I need ice.

With a lack of instructional videos to stream at a whim from my smartphone, I turned to the next best thing: my mother. A woman of many talents, who just so happens to be a top notch research librarian. If she couldn't help, I was doomed. When I called her in a panic, she just chuckled and said, “ I wondered when you would ask about that. Just do what Grandma always did. Boil some water in a pot and stick it in the freezer. The heat and steam will melt it in a jiffy.” 

Could it really be that simple? Was steam all I needed to defeat the icy arctic sarcophagus entombing my pizza rolls? There was really only one way to find out. I thanked my mom for her advice, told her I loved her (like a good son should) and hung up the phone with as much dramatic force as one can hangup a touch screen phone; for this was not a time for dilly dallying: this was a time for ACTION.

After chiseling out any still edible food items from the freezer cube, I boiled the water as instructed and placed the dangerously hot pot into the icy tundra. Immediately the temperature difference caused a reaction and steam began to rise. I threw my hands up into the air like a mad genius and screamed, “IT’S ALIVE!!” (Okay, I have a weird mad scientist appreciation but that’s another story.)

 To my surprise, it did work. The steam and heat loosened up the bricks of ice clinging to the freezer panels. It didn't come off as easy as I hoped but with a little extra love they broke free. The process took roughly 20 minutes. I did, however, have to reheat the water pot 3 times to keep it nice and toasty. If I’m a bit more vigilant about how long I go between defrosting this will be, as they say, “easy as a cake walk.” 

Open sesame

There I was, thinking another week would go by with nothing of interest to report around the homestead. Then late Friday night I received the modern day equivalent of an Indian attack. The torsion spring on my garage door snapped, trapping all my vehicles inside. Ok so maybe that’s not the best comparison I’ve ever come up with, but I’ve been watching a lot of old westerns lately.

Being the “do it yourself” kind of guy I am, I immediately set about figuring out how to replace the spring. This being my first ever garage I had no idea that torsions springs have a bad habit of killing people if they are installed wrong. Now most people would be deterred by that information. Often to my detriment, I am not most people. 

Ever the optimist, I was positive I could do the repair as long as I took the proper precautions. Really, what could go wrong? Well, I may never know. Apparently you can’t just go down to your local home supply store for these things. Probably because of that death and dismemberment thing. To my dismay, I was forced to turn to a professional. The only other option would have been to order online. Considering all of my many modes of transportation were trapped inside my sealed garage, waiting wasn't an option. 

After some quick internet searching I found a local company that seemed trustworthy. Most importantly they were able to come early the next morning and thankfully didn't cost much more then I would have spent ordering the parts myself. While I had a pro at my house I asked him to check out the rest of my arcane garage door system. With the exception of the rusted and almost non moving guide wheels he said the door and its components looked to be in very good shape: a huge relief considering the cost of garage doors. 

With the new wheels and springs, the door runs so smooth I no longer hear the clanking metal monstrosity inside the house. The repair was worth every penny.

It's all about location

  I have nothing to report on the home front. Other hobbies and vehicle repairs have taken up all my time again. On the plus side, I now have full working knowledge of motorcycle carburetor repair and the home brewing set up at my friends house now has dual zone, low power, automated fermentation temperature control. All thanks to some foam and a Raspberry Pi.

  I did discover that my house is a block away from the local 4th of July parade. That was an excellent surprise. I'm a sucker for kitschy americana like that.