Friday, October 5, 2012

Ode to an iron

Okay, if you've been following along you'll know that Wonder Woman and I opened a thrift store here in good 'ol Fort Myers Shores, FL.

We're a charitable non profit so people donate things to us.

Look what came in.

There it was lying in a donation box.



I know what you're thinking. It's an iron. So what. You're right. But it's a vintage Westinghouse iron with turquoise trim.

It needed a plug. I suspect that's why they gave it to us. Because it didn't work. So I found a vintage looking plug and stuck it on. This iron kicks out so much retro vibe that it almost doesn't matter that it kicks out about 1100 watts of hot clothes pressing goodness. And since it's old and dangerous it doesn't have any cooling off capability. This bad boy stayed hot to the touch for twenty minutes after I unplugged it.


A little washed out, but you can see that it came with the turquoise trim.

Oh, I know. You can spend thousands of dollars on Jens Risom sofas, or outfit your vintage living room in refinished Lane Acclaim side and cocktail tables. So what value is an old Westinghouse iron? Well my friend, if I have to explain it to you, I just don't believe you'd understand.


That little brown piece on the end took this from junk to vintage in five minutes.
 
From the junk pile at someone's house to a cool piece of vintage working hardware. And all it took was an electrical plug that I already had. I just might keep this piece myself for a while.

You can be sure . . . if it's Westinghouse.

My new iron. It'll go great with our wooden ironing board.





We'll be right back with . . . more stuff.



2 comments:

  1. My mom ironed many a piece with one very similar to that...pulling them out of the zippered plastic bag where she had put them after sprinkling them with water out of a ginger ale bottle with a sprinkler/cork attached. She'd let me iron my dad's handkerchiefs, and I thought I was grown. Man, those were the days.

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  2. Just like all the great furniture and other MCM accoutrements, another fine example of things made to last! And pretty too!

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