Portland Pickers: Part Two

Part two of the basement dig that happened on Friday. All of this stuff was found in a house in North Portland that's being emptied out before it's sold. Included were: a wonderful floral tea cart, mid-century lamps, round beveled mirrors, 1940's mirrored pictures, knick-knack benches and shelves, decorative planters, old 50's prints, retro glassware, and Xmas goodies. Everything is very clean and quite wonderful! All stock is now available on the store floor and ready to go home with you!

Portland Pickers: Part One

This past weekend was a flurry of picking and finding vintage treasures. I'm going to show the bounty in a few blog posts. I will also include a post showing some REALLY great finds that I got just driving to "Mom & Pop open up their garage" type of sales. Below are some of the goodies I got from a Friday "dig". Stay tuned for more fabulous finds.....

Frog Friday

The frogs have returned to Beech Street Gardens (my backyard). These noisy creatures appeared in the water garden bowls about a month ago. A few years ago, we added some tadpoles we got at a local garden center. These babies were put in the water bowls and left to "do the frog thing". Every spring and summer these frogs fill the night air with a concert of croaking. Even our neighbors across the street can hear them! They are quite tame. If you approach the bowls slowly.......the frogs will sit for a picture. They don't like sudden movement or birds. Frogs are easy to add to your landscape and they eat all kinds of bugs & garden pests.

April Stroll

An April stroll through the Rita Deco Nostalgia Shop reveals many treasures and recent arrivals.

Assorted vintage pottery and ceramics. I look for this kind of stuff all the time in my travels. I have a personal interest in art pottery and like to share the finds with customers.

These black memorabilia items arrived as one large collection.

Who can resist "Lady Ellen Hollywood Klippies"...? We always have fun ladies hair doo-dads and vintage styling tools in stock.

A 1950's kitty cat TV lamp in amazing condition.

We carry old clocks, music boxes, and unusual accessories. I love this art deco salt & pepper travel set. It's made from old-school green plastic.

Ceramic "whirling dervish" figurines from the Middle East. I don't have a place in my house for these or else they would be there...!

Stop in the store today and take an "April Stroll" through the Rita Deco Shop. Vintage treasure is waiting just for you!

Hughes Water Gardens

On Sunday, we took a morning trip to "Hughes Water Gardens" located south of Portland. This nursery and garden center is heavy on water features and water plants. It's an amazing resource for water lilies and water specimens for bowls and ponds. They also have goldfish and koi. We saw a great array of cool fountains and garden art also. The prices (in my opinion) are high and you really have to love it to purchase it. But Hughes is a great destination for browsing and getting ideas. We had a good time despite a very surly cashier and the fact that they have no real toilet facilities. Hey, when you are selling fountains that cost $1450.00, could you please have a private, clean toilet and a place to wash your hands? That's just my complaint/hang-up. But this garden center is worth a look if you want to venture south of the city.

Hughes Water Gardens

25289 SW. Stafford Road / Tualatin, Oregon 97062

503-638-1709

Sunshine arrivals.....

The recent spring sunshine has resulted in a flurry of vintage finds arriving at the shop:

A very nice (large) paint by number landscape.

Vintage kitchen tins including this amazing "dutch boy" potato chip tin.

A whole new gaggle of vintage flour sifters including many with amazing paint jobs.

I made more retro state magnets. Very colorful and perfect for the vintage kitchen.

A whole collection of "Guardian Service" aluminum cookware. Awesome vintage style with glass lids. We have many hard-to-find pieces including roasters, casseroles, and rare handles.

Vintage kitchen ceramics and doo-dads.

1950's roulette set for home parties.

Nice early 60's world globe (older than I usually see).

All stock in the store right now! Hurry in for best pick!

Vintage Photo Treasure Trove

I got a box of vintage photo albums from the 1960's and 1970's recently. These came from a man who shot the pics here in Portland and on various trips. There are tons of train photos and many albums of vacation trips to Europe, US East Coast, and California. He also liked buildings and took many photographs of local Portland landmarks being constructed. But in this mix, there were several sections of "interesting" subjects......

Vintage Timberline Lodge and Mount Hood (that's pretty standard).....

It got more interesting with a drag queen fashion show circa 1972.....

These shots show a college fraternity hazing including a display of paddles and some actual spanking of the underclassmen....

A sprinkling of very cool vintage automobiles.

A retro cat show......circa 1973.

Spectacular vintage photos of cactus taken on an Arizona vacation.

Late 60's Rose Festival parade floats and the Portland Mayor standing next to the Mayor's trophy award winner.

Several pictures of interesting-looking women.

Many pages of vintage homes and people (Grampa & Grandma) doing fun things. Holiday photos of the same house over many years.....

A groovy 1970's cowboy smiling for the camera.

And finally..... many pics of men doing tasks and posing for photographs while on vacation.

This is only a fraction of what I found. A few select pieces will go into my own collections. But the majority of the photos will be available for purchase at Rita Deco in Hollywood and also at the Fremont location. These old pics make great collectibles and can be made into artwork and cards. So much fun!