Retroranchrevamp's Blog

I have to admit — I like a cocktail every now and then — but it has been a while since I’ve actually done shots. All that aside, when I saw this cute little shot glass caddy with polka dot glasses at my local antique mall, I knew it had to come live with me.

Sadly, it only has 5 matching glasses — and one of those has a chip on the rim, so it shouldn’t be used — but the polka dots totally make up for that, right? The shot glasses are also more narrow than your average shot glass, so finding a few replacements might be difficult. I’ll have to keep an eye out on Ebay, Etsy and at yard sales this summer.

I was thinking — if I could find two more glasses that were this size, the set wouldn’t look too strange. Maybe if I find glasses the color of one of the polka dots they would look like an intentional mismatched set — red, yellow, clear?

Even if I can’t find another shot glass or two for this set, I still enjoy its retro appeal. The set fits nicely in the glass cupboard side of my Broyhill Brasilia dining room hutch — looks like it found a home with me.

I recently scored this retro wire decorative bowl at an antique shop. I like the flower shape of it, but I’m not sure what to fill it with. Any ideas?

There is some chipped gold areas, so I may repaint it too — maybe black? Maybe white?

For now it is sitting on my end table in the den, next to my retro radio and my favorite lamp.

A few weekends ago one of my best friends was in town for a visit. While the mid century bug hasn’t quite bitten her — she does love to go to yard sales, thrift shops and antique malls — so we always make it a point to spend part of our visit out looking for new old bargains. Since she is not into the same style of vintage goods as I am — we never fight over who saw anything first — making for enjoyable and leisurely vintage shopping and an overall good time together.

On this particular trip to one of my favorite antique malls in the area, I happened to spot this fantastic brass plant stand — it even has a convenient carry handle!

If the handle didn’t sell you — those atomic hairpin tripod legs might…

Or the fact that it has enough rings to hold 10 4″ clay pots…

Apparently it is not impressing Leo much — but I love it.

It just so happened that Menards was having a sale on flower pots the same weekend — so I picked up 9 terra cotta pots to fill up the planter. The tenth spot is hard to reach (in the center of the base) and I like groupings of odd numbers, so I decided to skip it for now.

I’m planning to put this on my front porch (even though I’m photographing it in the Tiki Lounge) because our front porch gets more light to make plants happy, everyone will be able to see and enjoy it from the street, and our front porch is not really big enough to put a chair or anything else on it so this plant stand will help dress up the porch for summer while only taking up a little bit of floor space.

Now all I have to do is figure out what to plant in the pots — maybe a mix of colorful flowers and vines? I’m open to suggestions! The front porch is shaded until after noon and then it gets full sun. Bonus points to anyone who can suggest orange and pink flower varieties — my favorite!

When I found these cool vintage numbered tacks in their original packaging during my last trip to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore — I wasn’t sure what I would use them for, but I thought they were so neat that I brought them home anyway — thinking they might be useful somewhere around the house.

The tacks can be pounded into wooden screens and window trim to make sure that each screen can be easily matched to the proper sized window without any guesswork…

The tacks I bought only go up to 25, but apparently they were made to go all the way to number 99 — that’s a lot of screens!

It wasn’t until this year (the third time that we put up the porch screens) that I noticed we have the exact same Acro Hold-Tite tacks on our screened porch screens and frame. Up until this point, we had been using the letters that the second owners of the house wrote on the edges of the screens in Sharpie marker to make sure we were putting each screen in the  in the correct location. The second owners must not have realized these numbered tacks were here either.

I’m going to have to repaint the porch screens and do some general repairs next year — with the looming start of the master bath remodel and the number of yard related issues that need to be taken care of this summer — I won’t have time or energy for that type of project until then. When I do get around to tackling it — I can replace the original tacks with brand new old stock, courtesy of the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

If you wondered why I didn’t post at the usual time on Sunday night this week — it was because I was out in the yard raking, weeding, planting grass seed and putting up the screen porch from morning until night. After a day like that, all I could manage was a hot shower, some Advil, a few squirts of icy hot and a nice long nap. I’m feeling much better today and ready to fill you in on the somewhat mysterious conversion between chain link fenced yard and cool mid century screened porch that takes place twice a year at the retro ranch.

In all my excitement — I forgot to take photos until we had already put up a few screen panels and the door (in the photo above) but you can still see that the fence is in place, bisecting the porch and preventing a certain Border Collie mix from exiting the yard in hot pursuit of that bunny he’s watching…

This panel of chain link is used to keep the dog in during the winter months when we bring the screens into the garage to avoid them suffering damage from ice, wind, snow and the soggy spring melt.

On one side, the piece of chain link fence is bolted to the secure, set in the ground with cement end of the fence. It takes a few cranks of a wrench to set it free.

On the other side, the fence is hooked to the garage wall with two long bolts — one at the top and one at the bottom of the panel —  that go through the wall and are tightened with nuts to hold the fence in place.

In the photo above, you can see we have put in all the screen panels on the yard side of the porch…

The screen buts up against the chain link without a gap making it safe to let the dog out once again…

There are three more panels of screen left to insert…

As each panel goes in, they are secured with these screen clips — the largest screens have three on each side that hold the panel in place.

Ta-da! The Tiki room is back for another summer of service — all that is left is to move the furniture back in and hang up the tiki decor.

Hopefully this helps you to understand how our amazing screen porch — a.k.a. the Tiki Lounge — my favorite spot in the house during the spring, summer and fall months makes its transformation.