Friday Favourite ~ No more pencils no more books...

Last Friday Frankie said good-bye to school forever. He has had a fun 5 years at CHAC. Where has that time gone? Now its on to other adventures. First thing on the fun list has been Schoolies this week.

WW1 Badges ~ always sad

I always find old badges like these sad. I wonder who the fellow was. Was the badge made because he was off at war or because he would not be coming home ?

I think I have posted earlier a picture of a Kookaburra War Widows badge. I have had a few of them over the years, but they have all been bigger than this one. I wonder if they started making them smaller because they had to make so many once the AIF moved to the killing fields of France. The number on the back is Q4523. Which would mean I guess this is 4523 badge like this issued in Queensland to war widows. And to put that number in even more context I imagine the great number of war dead were sons rather than husbands.

These badges will be going up on ebay tonight.

Friday Favourite ~ Long Lazy Queensland Summers

You might have noticed that posting has been a little light the last couple of weeks. I guess without noticing it, we have gotten into the rhythm of Summer in Queensland. It was probably those light, tingerly, breezes that start just after the Jacarandas bloom. Those breezes that make you feel like it is Christmas already. I wonder if that feeling only comes from being in Queensland as a child, for many Summers or just last year.

I like to fully get in to the spirit of a languid summer, but it can get hard with 3 kids and a full time business. But I will try to be as lazy as befits a Queensland summer as I can. So I will be doing only a couple more weeks of ebay auctions till sometime in January, keeping a lazy eye on my spaces at the centres and postings will probably only be now and then.

Of course you never know what can happen, what you might find or as the last picture shows what a Queensland summer can bring.

Old Post Office counter and Bric a brac

Wonderful old counter from a Post office. The pine top has a warm and welcoming feel that only a hundred years of use can bring. It would make a fab preperation table in a kitchen or bar. My favourite in the smaller items is the lovely antique, marbled, French enamel ware basin and soap dish.

To contact please email boathome@bigpond.net.au

Late Friday Favourite ~ Mad Men Addiction

My Friday Favourite is a Saturday morning posting due to the fact that Kristen and I, with the kids being very cooperative, mainly due to Lotte sleeping and the boys being out, watched an entire season of Mad Men in one day. It did not finish until well into early this morning. So Mad Men has to be my Friday come Saturday Favourite this week.

New pictures of the garden centre

Dont forget to ask for your 10% off when you buy anything from theoldboathouse at the cottage garden centre 999 Stanley St East, East Brisbane.

Some of the items going up on Ebay tonight

These are some of the items I will be listing on ebay tonight.

Click here to go to my auctions on ebay.

Nan inspects the load

My Mum, Nan, often helps out on a Saturday when we have Garage Sales early in the morning (though today was the first day Kristen had gone to them in a fair while, I have been doing the right thing all along HAHA) and stays on to help out sometimes to the afternoon, when we have ebay pick ups. Down the front can seem like grand central, with all the comings and goings.

Nan often takes a keen interest in the loads Kristen brings home as when we get far too much for our house we have to push her one car ,out of its two car garage, to fill up with our overflow (Thanks Nan). We can't put anything in her back shed as it is already full of old stuff we will one day get to.

So when Kristen got home with this load from an old house at Enoggera this afternoon Nan was very interested,for the sake of her car, as she knew we were all ready full up this morning under our house.

But who would not want to have these 1940's to 1960 kids rides in their home or carport

; thankfully certainly not Nan

PS I have also included a picture of just some of the great smaller items Kristen got today from the same old Enoggera Home.

If you want to contact us just click on our email address boathome@bigpond.net.au

Friday Favourite ~ Lost and Found

This dolly size table and chairs belonged to my mother, Helen and her sister, Pamela, when they were children. They were made in the early 1940's by their Dad, my Grandfather Bertie, as a Christmas present. I am not sure if they were originally red but they were no doubt painted by my Grandma. She, like myself, loved the colour red, and every year all the painted furniture would be given a good freshen up and a new layer of paint would be added. I too played with this set, when as a child , I would stay with her in Miles and then in Roma. I loved them. When her house was sold, we were living in Victoria, and we thought this set must have been forgotten, thrown or given away. For years I nagged and hounded my Mum to ask if any one in the family new of its where abouts. ( or the other wonderful toys etc that my grandfather had made for his girls) It was so exciting when my Uncle found the little table and chairs in his back shed and now I have found a home for them in my hall.

I want to be able to see and enjoy them and keep my eye on them so they never will get lost again.

To see previous Friday Favourites please scroll down.

Some wonderful vintage items from todays estate

I just love old deck chairs and I think with a bit of a clean these ones would be shabby fine as is and the stripy canvas is fun. We also got a laundry trolley full of old linen, tea towels and doileys etc. My favourites today though are the small Singer machine and the petit point dresser set.

If you want to contact us please email boathome@bigpond.net.au

Some of the items going up on Ebay tonight

We will be listing 30 items tonight on ebay, which include all the items above aswell as lots of great garden benches, hardoy chairs and some of the items pictured recently in other blogs.

If you want to contact us please email boathome@bigpond.net.au

Some great old vintage items from last Friday

Finally some success with working out the camera, the joys of working out new electronic items. Most of the items from last Fridays 2 house estate have been packed away or moved on already. But I still have many of my favourites yet to sell, and I have pictured some of them in this blog post. You can only post 5 pictures per post. So I chose my 3 favourite things and Kristen has chosen his 2 favourites. I love the paint work and feet on the old meatsafe, I had to include the little gold horse shoe with the cup being tomorrow and I always love old fancy unpainted cane which is getting really hard to find these days in good order. Kristen choose the old copper lightening rod made from, in part, an old bomb shell because it may be pretty unique if not worth a great deal, while I guess he crassly chose the Rolex Oyster because its the opposite.

If you want to contact us please email boathome@bigpond.net.au

Local Brisbane weekly vintage Auction

I have solved my computer problem by buying a new computer, (No skill involved). I have also solved my camera problem, buy also buying a new camera, but I have not yet figured out how to make the new camera work with a memory card (Some skill involved). So I cannot take any new pictures.

But I realised I have some pictures on my memory card of items that will sell this week at well known Brisbane Auction house, McDonald Auctions http://www.mcdonaldauctions.com.au/ . Mcdonalds is a general auction house that sells every Tuesday from 9.am. They often have some fantastic vintage items for sale. I generally have 20 to 30 items sell there each week, 3 of which, pictured in this post, will sell this Cup Tuesday.

I have been selling and buying items at McDonalds since 1993 and have never had a problem. If you click on the McDonalds auction link above and then go to the Gallery section you will see a cross section of the items for sale this week. Most of the smaller items pictured are ours and they will be going off like all items at McDonalds at no reserve.

Happy Halloween ~

"Double, double toil and trouble.

Fire burn and caldron bubble" Shakespeare

Last night my youngest son Chauncy and I carved our wonderful Halloween pumpkin. By 9am this morning he (the pumpkin) had already left our house as my son is going to a friends party tonight and wants to use it to help decorate. So no pumpkin for me. lol. These particular pumpkins, which are so easy to carve, used to be very expensive to buy here in OZ and you had to especially ask your green grocer and order one in. This year I was amazed to see them everywhere even in Woollies. The good thing is the price has now come way down. I hope you get a chance to do something fun for Halloween, and if you've never carved a pumpkin you should try it as its great fun no mater what age you are.

If you wish to contact us please email boathome@bigpond.net.au

Friday Favourite ~ Hidden treasures

One of the little joys about our job is the fun of discovering what I call hidden treasures. This week there were a few, but one I thought I would highlight as a favourite was this cute bedroom or occassional chair.

I love this style of chair and am always drawn to them. You may remember it, as it looks in the first picture, from a previous blog earlier this week. When I had a chance to have a good look at it I realised the covering was a slip cover that some clever person had made. Usually people do this as the fabric underneath is damaged, stained etc. So initially as I saw the first peep of the original fabric underneath, I thought damn, the original fabric is so lovely what a shame!

So you can imagine I was very pleased when it turned out that not only was the original fabric lovely but I can find no trace of damage or stains and it has lovely pleats, piping and upholstery studs on the back. So it is off to find a new home for this lovely hidden treasure.

To see previous Friday Favourites please scroll down.

FUN wet SCARY frustrating DAY

Today has had it all. When I went to turn on my laptop this morning it had stopped working. It is over 3 years old so we just thought of getting a new one BUT then later on WHAT about all the family pictures inside it. So undecided what to do there now. After getting the kids off to school we went to drop some stuff off at the auctions and then to an estate that was based over two houses. We got one load onto the ute and then it started raining when we were driving to take the items to the auctions which luckily are not that far from the old homes. SO we FIRST got soaked taking the furniture off at the auctions. Then we got soaked again when we went back to look at the other old house, which has the old shed, pictured. There was not much there in that house but the shed did have some surprises.

The folks said no one had been in that shed for years. THEY were WRONG. The cute though NOT at the time possum scared the life out of us as we were looking through an old cupboard in the half light soaking wet. I would like to be able to post some pictures of the various things we got from the two houses. BUT when I got home and we had unloaded I went to take some pictures but the camera HAD decided to stop working. Fortunately I had the pictures I had taken during the day on a message stick. I could take it out of the camera and I can use my kids computers (WHICH they LOVE...not). But posting may be light for awhile till I can sort out all my electronic problems. At least as of right now I have had a shower and I am dry.

If you would like to contact us, please email boathome@bigpond.net.au

Some smaller items from todays estate

It hard to pick my favourites from all the treasures Kristen brought home from todays estate but the last two pictures of the poker work dressing table set and the Royal Winton Teapot and Jug are probably my picks.

You can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them to get a better look.

If you would like to contact us, please email boathome@bigpond.net.au

Some furniture from todays estate

I will try an post some pictures of some of the small items from the same house later today.

If you would like to contact us, please email boathome@bigpond.net.au

Some items from todays estate

If you would like to contact us, please email boathome@bigpond.net.au

Cottage Garden Peek

Here are a few pictures of some of the Items for Sale at The Cottage Garden Nursery 999 Stanley St East, East Brisbane. Just in is the wonderful old milk can. We always try to have lots of lovely, fun and interesting items for the creative and imaginative shopper.

If you would like to contact us, please email boathome@bigpond.net.au

Just in Retro, Beach and Country Vintage .....

Some more cute folding beach style chairs and some fun retro items.

If you want to contact us about anything on the blog please email boathome@bigpond.net.au

Friday Favourite ~ New "Foodie Market at The WAC.

I am very excited about the new " GABBA CORK AND FORK MARKET" which will be at The Woolloongabba Antique Centre. It will be a "Foodie" market with the emphasis on value added Grocery lines, wines, cheeses, bakery, small-goods, olives, etc, with a focus on edible foods. There will be an organic grocer and a butcher doing a sausage sizzle aswell. The date for opening will be Saturday November 7th. The Cork and Fork market will be open from 8.00am till 3.00pm
- Entry into the Cork and Fork will be via the Wellington Rd car park entry, and via the rear door of The WAC building once WAC is open at 8am
To learn more about the WAC visit. www.woolloongabbaantiquecentre.com don't forget to click on dealer profiles to see a bit more about theoldboathouse.

Some items from todays estate

If you wish to contact us about anything on the blog please email boathome@bigpond.net.au .

Chest pattern = WEIRD

There is no rhyme or reason in the vintage business. Take the four chests of drawers pictured in this post. The first, a little 3 drawer cedar chest is going up on ebay tonight for auction. Click here to see it on ebay. The third chest pictured is also cedar. It ends on ebay tomorrow night. Click here to see it. We got them within 3 days of each other. Yet before these two, the last unpainted cedar chest of drawers we had was back at the start of the year. So you go 8 or so months without getting any unpainted cedar chests then you get two in three days. The two very similiar pine chests of dawers are even more odd. They came to us within 2 weeks of each other from different houses. Yet they both have been partially restored, in that they have been stripped of paint and partly sanded back and then given up on by their different restorers.

The 5 drawer pine chest will also be going up for auction tonight, Click here to see it on ebay,while the 4 drawer version sold on ebay a week or so ago. Click here to see what it went for.

Off to the Garden Centre

These items are just new to The Cottage Garden Nursery, 999 Stanley Street East, East Brisbane. I am just as you walk in the door in centre of the nursery between Catherine the lovely Florist and the super guys in the cafe.
If you wish to contact us about anything on the blog please email boathome@bigpond.net.au.