Thrift Store Porn

I don't want this blog to turn into a "look what I found at the thrift store" bragging platform, but yesterday I hit the mother lode, and I need to share.

I stopped in at Alpha Thrift on Milpas to see if I could find the last item on our list to complete our new house-- the coffee table. And I saw this beauty:

It didn't have a price on it, so I asked the guy working near by.

"Oh, that one? Um, I think that was $39.99." 

I've been trying to work on my thrift store impulse-control so I don't end up on the next episode of hoarders, so I started to walk away. I got about 4 feet and the fear that someone else might swoop in and grab it overcame my body and I snapped back around. I stood in front of it staring. The guy came over again: "You could turn it over and see what it says." DUH!

I turned it over. There was a tiny little engraving... that said "Made in Denmark".

That thing was in the back of my car so fast, Usain Bolt would have been impressed.

Our new place is shaping up nicely! Thanks Alpha Thrift and you sweet, naive man that priced this table!

Oh and then I did some internetting and found out some official info about the table. Never again will I practice impulse control. Thank you Oh Mighty Gods of Thrift.

The Starr King Rummage Sale

The line at 8:30 am.

Oh. I forgot to tell you about the Starr King Rummage Sale. 

No I did, I forgot.

It's not because I'm a selfish, aggressive, hoarder of a thrifter and I wasn't going to encourage any competition at this high-stakes rummage sale, how could you think that?

I saw this, and took this picture with my phone to send to my friend Jayne, who's looking for a dresser. I love this thing!

I was thinking of you Jayne. At least for a minute.

I didn't actually send it to her however because I saw this chair and jumped philanthropic ship, sprinting across the courtyard and yelling "THAT'S MY CHAIR". 

That may have actually happened.

Do you want to know how much it was? 

$5. 

Yeppers.

It will be making another appearance on this blog as I steal practice Morgan's method for restoring wood furniture, from my favorite blog The Brick House.

Oh, and the kilim pillows? $5 for both. What a bunch of idiots! Oh come on, I kid, I kid.

Put in on your calendar for next year. It benefits the Starr King Parent Child Workshop, which  is a really rad pre-school that  encourages both child and parent development.  It is located at 1525 1/2 Santa Barbara Street, and is part of the Unitarian Church. LOVE those Unitarians. They have a lady-reverend! Hallelujah.

Santa Barbara Sunday Afternoon

Hey! It's been a long time. Let's just pretend it didn't happen like the psychologically healthy people we truly are.

Compelled to get out of the house on Sunday after being sick for a few days,  coupled with the guilt of feeling like a  lazy, uncreative waste of life after watching the movie 180° South, I grabbed my camera and went for a walk around my neighborhood on Sunday afternoon.

This town is so beautiful.

I'm headed to St. Helena and Petaluma this weekend, and I'm taking my camera! See you soon.

 

             

The Random Store

Surprise, surprise, my lack of discipline and inability to commit has revealed itself in my very infrequent blog posts. Bloggin's hard, y'all. I'm trying.

Today I want to talk to you about the Random Store in Santa Barbara. At 1207 State Street, it's conveniently located next to McDonalds for maximum bum interaction and harassment. You won't know that it's called the Random Store, as the storefront lacks any kind of signage, but when you see the chaotic window displays of large wood sculptures, bizarre doll collections and blown glass knick-knacks, you'll know you've found it.

If you like a treasure hunt, this is the place for you. They are constantly bringing in new items from "auctions, leftovers, surplus, odd lots, tag sales and other (legal) means", according to their website. I cannot believe this place has a website. 

One time I found several beautiful Moroccan rugs strewn over some old comic books in the back. The 4X6 rugs were $25 and the 8X10 was $45. I don't know much about rugs, but I knew this was a deal. I walked home to get my car, and when I came back they were gone. "Some lady bought them all up", the Ichabod Crane-like employee shared. I was bummed. And I was considerably more bummed when I found them--the same rugs, to be sure-- for sale at Wendy Foster in Montecito for $4,000 a week later. Hmph.

You can find Good:

Bad:

Questionable/Awesome:

Bizarre:

and I forgot to mention, Plumbing Supplies:

See you there.

Tuesday is Fantasy Day!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a model-turned-painter and to have a country house in Upstate New York that you share with your talented photographer boyfriend and your adorable dog and you have a garden from which you prepare lunch and you look annoyingly cute in cut-off shorts and a big t-shirt and your house has that perfect bohemian artist quality without being too dirty or disorganized and you have time to work on your art and wander around the garden like a little woodland fairy? Me too. 

Wonder no longer. Thanks Todd Selby. 

That's Dan Martensen and Shannan Click. Jerks.

The lower Eastside

Santa Barbara's lower Eastside is generally considered the Dooneese of the  beautiful and affluent neighborhoods of our community--she is the ugly little sister. 

When the first Spanish explorers landed here, they saw a vast expanse of salty marshland extending east from what is now Ortega and State Street, down to the ocean, and they called it "dismal". If you're driving in to Santa Barbara from the south, you would probably think the same thing today, as the freeway brings you through the industrial and poorer residential neighborhoods before you get to the more scenic and tourist-friendly areas.

The minority population of Santa Barbara has gravitated to the lower Eastside since the 1920's, when the Mexican lemon packers at the huge Johnston Fruit Company Packing Plant built homes for their families nearby. Today it is still home to a large Latino population, and it also houses the town dump and much of Santa Barbara's commercial industry, including my office. On my drive to work, I pass machine shops, warehouses, auto wreckers and lumber yards. 

It can be gritty, but it's cheap (used here in the relative sense). Home prices for the lower Eastside hover around the $400,000 range, while nobody seems to have told the rest of Santa Barbara about the housing crisis.  As I've explored the neighborhood, I've started to realize how cool it is. Many of the homes are meticulously cared for with bright paint jobs and beautiful gardens.There are some great business that have cropped up in the past few years-- wineries, breweries, thrift and vintage stores. Obviously the taquerias are delicious and ample. The lower Eastside is what I imagine San Francisco's Mission District was like 15 years ago. It's still in that edgy state where it could go either way-- total  hipness, or a slow slide into more poverty and gang violence. 

I frequently catch myself thinking that I know every nook and cranny of Santa Barbara, and lament living in a small town.  I think to myself "man, if I were in a city, I could still be surprised, I could still explore." I have a real bad case of grass-is-greeneritus, which is of course why I started this blog, so I went out exploring the neighborhoods east of Milpas yesterday. 

Here is what I found.

I met a lady architect named Gale who said everyone on her street knows each other and they all look out for one another. She asked me from across the street, "what are you doing?" She was fun and friendly and has a Saab like I used to have.

I don't know if it was the rain clouds or the energy I felt exploring a new place, but I was overwhelmed by the beauty I found, even among the things that are typically considered unsightly. I kept thinking about Ricky Fitts in American Beauty when he said "sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in". 








All historical knowledge of this neighborhood was taken from Walter A. Tompkin's book The Yankee Barbareños