This is the easy way to tell what is still available. Just click on the link below. Otherwise, look at the bottom of the post. If the item is sold it will read GONE! SOLD!
ADDRESS: The Estate Store of the Community Warehouse 3969 NE MLK Jr. Blvd. Portland, Oregon 97212
The Estate Store
Hours: Open 10am to 4pm Thursday through Monday. Closed Tuesday & Wednesday Closed Monday May 28th For Memorial Day
THE Garage Sale
Hours: Open 10am to 4pm Thursday through Monday. Closed Tuesday & Wednesday Closed Monday May 28th For Memorial Day
Telephone: 503-445-1449
Email: Ed at communitywarehouse dot org
West Side Donation Center:Open Wednesday-Saturday, from 10:00 am – 4:00 p.m. at 8380 SW Nyberg Rd. Tualatin, Oregon 97062. TUALATIN STORE NOW OPEN 10:00 am – 4:00 p.m. Friday, Saturday & Sunday!
Not in Portland but want an item? We can ship most things to most places most of the time. Shipping costs for furniture are often prohibitvely expensive! If you still think you want it, contact Ed to see if we can ship what you want where you want and how much it will cost you.
In the Portland Metro area and wondering if an item is still available in the store? Contact Ed.
There is little space between the island of genius and the raging sea of madness. In fact, the sandy shore where they meet is characterized by crashing waves of wild white horses.
Wild White Horses is the title of this work and it was originally executed by Violet Skinner in the early 1960′s.
It measures 37 inches by 22 inches and originally sold at Meier & Frank so it was a mass-produced item not a kitschy one-off.
Genius or Madness?
Art?
Take a look at the slide show below then vote in the poll. Remember to vote early and often, it is an election year!
Barra, a soulless community of glass and aluminium high-rises, is known for its jolly churrascarias – steakhouses that work on a $20, all-you-can-eat system. With waiters bringing a different cut about every three minutes, the trick is to hold off until the better beef arrives. Try: Baby-Beef Paes Mendonca (1510 Avenida das Americas; 399-2187) New York Times WHAT’S DOING IN; Rio de Janeiro, May 24, 1992
And if the beef isn’t to your liking feel free to take the salt and pepper shaker, some table linens or perhaps a waiter as a souvenir of the unforgettable experience of consuming Brazilian Beef (“Amazonian Fresh, with the rainforest goodness you’ve come to expect”).
I’ll admit that ‘modernist art print’ isn’t exactly the most evocative turn of phrase, but I’m a second-rate charity fundraising sales hack with a penchant for furniture, not flat work or art history, so you’ll either have to bear with me or go in search of a real art blog.
If you’re still reading I’ll presume you’re ‘bearing with’ and move on.
This is a big print 48 1/4 inches by 76 1/4 inches. It’s numbered 193 of 210 (or 250) and signed in a scrawl that would do a doctor who is the seven doctoral son of a seventh doctoral son proud.
In other words I can’t figure it out even though I’m fairly certain the artist’s name begins with ‘M’.
The print was framed in Anchorage, Alaska, which could be a clue or a frozen red herring. I’ve chased the herring angle and come up with nothing, not even a bit of bait, oil slicked rock, or traces of cocaine done off an oil drum.
Apparently what happens in the frozen north stays there even if it is an interesting art piece that is sort of evocative of a bastard stepchild of Chuck Close’s work crossed with a flat color cubist paint palette and the Cartesian grid system as seen in a parallel universe.
Or something.
It’s an interesting piece but it’ll need a big wall to look its best.
Is this more fun than a barrel of monkeys? I don’t know because we’re fresh out of monkeys but it is a neat piece none the less. Some one took an old barrel and made a custom one of a kind bar out of it. The barrel bar features a built-in ice bucket accessible through a trap door in the top, lined receptacles for glasses and bottle, casters so you can move it around, and a hasp on the doors so you can lock it to keep honest people out.
It stands just under 32 inches tall and is about 24 inches in maximum diameter.
Mr. Fox, we’re just here to help you clear up this matter and our records indicate that “a few days late” was roughly 37 years.
Details! Details!
Yes Mr. Fox, details. Our records also show that you never paid the fine for this transgression which was assessed at 1/2 sou per week.
Let me see . . .1/2 sou per week at 37 years, 1,924 weeks, divide by two . . .so you’re here after a debt of 962 sou? 962 sou in a currency that went out of circulation in 1795? Seriously?
If it were only that simple Mr. Fox . . .you see there is the small matter of compound interest. If we were to calculate it at this moment in your time it would be the trifling sum of only 166,528,734.54 sou, or 33,305,746.91 livre, roughly equivalent to 133,222,987.60 United States Dollars.
That’s a lot of cash; would you take a check?
We’re not done Mr. Fox. as you may have noticed we’re not your average debt collectors, sure, we may LOOK like your average BEMs, but we are rather different. You see we recently took payment on Dave Lister’s unpaid* light bill. We’ve now travelled from three million years in the future and we’re going to assess you at the rate from that point in time.
What?!
Well Mr. Fox we wouldn’t want to upset the time space continuum and alter the course of history or anything, now would we Mr.Fox?
I suppose . . . so exactly what is due by your reckoning?
Mr. Fox we show that you owe us one Galactic Reynard.
A Galactic Reynard?
Yes, it is a unit of currency that we named after you; you should be honored at such consideration. The Reynard represents all the wealth of all known species plus one dollar and fifty-seven cents.
So . . . would you take a check?
No.
Visa?
Sorry, but your visa is expired.
Damn.
Well Mr. Fox?
Uhhh . . . would you care to step over to the ‘banking cage’ and I’ll be by in just a moment to give you the funds….
Of course Mr. Fox!
Suckers.
Reynard would like to take this opportunity to announce the sale of two (TWO!) genuine bug-eyed-monsters. The proceeds from the sale of these monsters will (of course) go to repay his massive library late fee debt and will not (of course) be squandered on a chicken dinner.
The big green monster is 5 inches tall, the not-so-big purple monster is 3 inches tall. Although they have travelled from 3 million years in the future and bear small amounts of dust (or the soul-dirt that all debt collectors bear) they are in good condition.
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*Holly: Also you left seventeen pounds, fifty pence in a
bank account. Thanks to compound interest you now own
ninety-eight percent of all the world’s wealth, but since
you’ve hoarded it for three million years nobody’s got any
money except for you and NorWEB.
Lister: Why NorWEB?
Holly: You left a light on in the bathroom. I’ve got a final demand
here for one hundred and eighty billion pounds.
Lister: A hundred and eighty billion pounds!
Years ago we had a little creepy clown figurine. Somehow* it ended up in a mandolin slicer box that was then put on a sales shelf. Poor Margaret found it and was not pleased. I think that’s understandable, how would you feel if you opened a box to see if all the parts were there only to be greeted by a little purple haired creepy thing?
He stayed around for a while but then we sold him to one of Margaret’s friends who was traveling out-of-state with her so that the clown could make another unexpected appearance.
Oddly we haven’t seen much of Margaret since.
We’re pleased to offer a slightly less creepy, but still sort of sketchy clown doll. This one is too big to fit into a mandolin slicer box, but small enough to fit in carry-on luggage. He stands (sits?) 14 inches tall and has a ceramic head and hands.
It is in good condition.
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*”Somehow.” I put it in the box intending to surprise the person pricing when they checked to see if all the parts were there. They didn’t check and so the joke had an unintended victim.
I wonder if furniture, were it sentient, would ever question what it was. Would it wake up in the morning and think “I am not a sideboard, I’m really a table?”
If so it might look like this.
At first glance this is a sideboard of buffet with two drop leaves. It is 42 1/2 inches wide, 19 inches deep and 30 1/2 inches tall with two 12 inch drop leaves. There is an open shelf and a drawer below that.
However if you pull out what appears to be the top drawer you discover that it converts into a massive table. Or at least converts into a table with the aid of six 15 inch leaves and some long table slides. In the largest configuration it can be as much as 122 inches long.
The table is unmarked, but it came with several Leg-O-Matic folding chairs with the same finish so I suspect it was made by the same folks.
The table is in fair condition, the biggest problem is that the folding leg which supports the middle is a bit wonky to use.
What’s better than making things out of endangered species? Making trinkets out of extinct species! this piece of native crafted art uses fossil Walrus ivory, Mammoth ivory and Whale baleen
Signed J Kokuluk (for Jon or John) and originally sold at the Scanlon Gallery in Ketchikan, Alaska. It stands 4 1/2 inches tall and is in good condition.
In John Wayne‘s world* it’s always a minute before high noon, the sun is in your eyes and there is a cheery benevolent looking guy named Marion gazing down from on high. But with the investment of one AA battery it could be anytime you like, even party time, and the fake sun will shine in the face of Marion all through the darkest night.
10 1/4 inches wide, 12 1/4 inches tall.
“*It’s Wayne’s World, Wayne’s World, party time, excellent!
Whoever painted this was a far better artist than you might think at first glance. It’s a simple design but it is well executed. In frame it is about 16 inches by 20 inches and signed by Anna.
Is it just an idea? A commentary on the human condition? A commentary that we are candied apes? Just art?
Many, many years ago a madmen worked for a large local scrap metal dealer with a yard on the Willamette River. Every day he’d take a choice piece of scrap iron home in his lunch box and that night in his basement laboratory he’d try to combine it with living tissue.
Since his wife wanted nothing to do with this crazed experiment (and in fact soon left to go live a “normal life” at an organic asphalt commune in Eugene) he had to draw on the nearest supply of tissue that wouldn’t run away. The cat was smart enough to get the heck out of there so only the dog remained to donate living material.
After years of patiently working and with the energetic help of one well-timed thunderstorm (It’s ALIVE!) he finally succeeded in combining living flesh and iron and created not just one, but two steel hounds.
Unfortunately they were not stainless ones AND they were located in sunny Portland, Oregon.
It was one of those small oversights that mad scientific geniuses are prone to make, but that prove to be a fundamental error upon further review.
At first the dogs were able to go out for their ‘daily constitutional’ walks with no trouble, but as the rainy season progressed they moved slower every day. A record rainy March proved their final undoing and they ground to a halt, subdued by the great nemesis of the iron dogs of mad scientists everywhere, rust.
Although they were a failure in the end he decided that they were technically a success and better planning with materials would make the next one a stunning success. The next day he requested a transfer to the non-ferrous metals division.
The iron dogs, now completely immobile, were confined to a far corner of the overgrown garden, where they spent the next several years looking more and more like figurative sculpture and less like an experiment gone awry.
The longest one is about 9 1/2 inches long, the other is the tallest at about 7 inches. We offer them as both a cautionary tale and as decorative objects. We categorically deny any and all responsibility for what might happen if you were to dip them in a vat of a powerful rust removing solvent. Besides, they’re probably quite hungry after all this time and neither of us is the master they knew so long ago.
Set of four uranium glass coasters, perfect for fining your drink at the next rave /end of the world black light party you attend.
Or as a curiosity for your paranoid extremist Geiger counter wielding crypto-syndicalist neighbor.
Or you could just use them as coasters to keep the sweat from your iced tea or lemonade from damaging the table.
These coasters were made by Jeannette Glass and are in the Floral pattern (sometimes referred to by other names, including Poinsettia). They are 3 1/4 inches in diameter, bear an embossed floral and leaf decoration and are in excellent condition. $35
Unfortunately it was the “smooth-textured sausage of minced beef or pork usually smoked” rather than the mathematician and founder of cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, who was way more fun than a giant wheeled sausage.
Oh well.
Another in our recent series of Wallyware items, this time featuring Wally, a tube-meat shaped car (there’s a bit of symbolism for ya’) and a possibly illicit government grant.
Set of six vintage pastel colored and wood wrapped glasses by Siestaware.
Several of them still have a paper label that notes the wood is genuine walnut and the wood has small printed designs upon it.
These aren’t rare but they are hard to find in such good condition. Most of these I’ve seen have been through a dishware a few times which is unkind to the wood and especially hard on the spray coloring. What’s particularly unusual is that we have a variety of colors instead of three of one kind, two another and one lonely ‘good’ colored glass. There are cracks in the thin sheathing of wood due to the age of the glasses but the wood is still largely intact and well adhered to the glasses.
It all started innocuously enough, there was the theft of a chicken and a nice meal, followed by a little nap. But then after waking up Reynard decided to take a nice, leisurely stroll.
His promenade, theft, and relaxed countenance apparently upset every dog in the world (and a cat).
As loyal cousins of Isengrim and Hersent the Wolves (whom he’d wronged so many times) they decided (like they had so many times before) that this time he must pay. The cat came along just because it was a contrarian (and might have been looking to sell the inevitable movie rights).
En masse they sprang after him and after a long and involved pursuit the dragnet finally culminated on the sheer precipice of a snow-clad cliff, just upstream of the Reichenbach Falls.
Since this started off as an innocent and slightly sleepy-eyed after dinner stroll Reynard had neglected to bring along his usual bag of escape tricks (including a second-hand parachute stolen from Her Majesties Secret Service). Normally this would be a serious and fatal oversight.
However Reynard is as cunning and quick as befits a legendary literary fox so in the moment he used the best tool at hand, his brain.
”WAIT! Just listen to me a moment!”
The pack stopped and grew hushed.
Like a politician stepping out of a clown car of third-rate presidential primary candidates Reynard turned to present his best 3/4 profile.
“My fellow canids, we’ve had a long, hard race. It seems like we’ve come to an inevitable impasse that will only result in us tearing each other apart like a pack of dogs (at which the crowd begins to growl). I mean, we have certain differences that we must set aside for the sake of the party. Among you I am not the 1%, I’m a regular 99% working canid like yourselves, you know with a castle and friends who own chariot racing teams (more growling). Um. . .Yes, I urge you to set aside our petty differences and quit this race in favor of me, the obvious best-candidate. Besides, you’re a bunch of domesticated floppy eared curs and I am not!”
They surged forward, with the light glinting like budget-cutting knives on their teeth and the smell of anticipated highway fund ear-mark blood in their noses.
“Hey, I know what we can join behind! A common enemy! Look! It’s a CAT!”
It was a close save but can he do it again in Florida? Have politics gone to the dogs?
If so and you’re looking for a dog of a candidate we can help you out with this great collection of figurines. Most are $3 or $4.
But Wally’s personal historic timeline is fuzzy. Did he move to Portland before or after he overdosed? Wally’s lawyers and press people aren’t saying, but they’re both possible.
We’re looking into it and we’ll get back to you as soon as our private detective tells us.
A Wallyware coffee cup, approximately 4 inches tall.
Because I suspect that everyone (including myself) is tired of the post apocalypse uranium theme that I typically reference I’ll skip it, just this once, and give you the straight dope.
The sugar bowl is 6 inches across the handles; the cream server is 5 inches from tip of spout to end of handle.
They are vintage pieces that glow under blacklight.
What do you get when you anger thermonuclear armed bovine?
One could see this as a future star of one of those ‘badly repaired stuff’ blogs. Or one could see it as an item that was loved or needed and kept well beyond the point when most families would have replaced it.
I prefer to see it as the latter.
I suspect this dates to the period when reusing and recycling wasn’t a fad or political statement but was part of the realities of life.
It started life as a child’s size bent back Windsor chair but over time some of the spindles broke out of the back. But even with broken spindles it is still useful if only . . . there was a way to make it so one could lean against it.
Enter the noble plank.
Some bricoleur had a sort section of board sitting around. All that needed to be done was to carve a groove to match the bent hoop back and find a way to keep it in place.
Although there are many ways of doing this they chose to peg the bottom then glue a piece of thick (probably also recycled) veneer across the gap at the top.
The result may be a bit inelegant but it is surely better than not having a chair at all.
It the aesthetics aren’t quite your style it might make a good vehicle for participation in the Community Warehouse Chair Affair in 2013.
The 2012 Community Warehouse Chair Affair will be held March 15th at 5pm. If you happen to be interested in attending this year’s event (see previews of the art here) you better get cracking since tickets are on track to sell out soon.
This pair stands 30 1/4 inches tall to the top of their finials, 19 1/2 inches tall to the top of their heads.
They’re in ‘age appropriate’ condition, meaning the have flaws. The female figure is cracked around her waist and the male has a crack across the base.
They’re probably from the 1950′s. Both of them work.
At Ed’s House-Of-Ugly we don’t care about these fine distinctions because in our eyes it’s wonderful.
This English cottage garden picture is stitched using yarn and is roughly 22 inches tall by 30 inches wide. Someone spent a lot of time on it and they even had it professionally framed.
I especially like the fancy knot work required to make the flowers.
On the windswept grasslands of the Orkney Islands the restive spirit of James Leonard still wanders his family’s ancient farmstead. He was unjustly evicted from his home and then banished from the land by his landlord, the descendent of the original thief who stole his land through feudalism.
His crime was to stand tall and proud and testify against the practices of forcing people to the very worst lands in the district, while raising rents to unbearable levels, all so that the best lands could be used for grazing sheep and hunting fowl.
He was damned because he said “I will not be cowed down by landlordism” and for supporting the testimony of others “We are telling only the truth.” The collective testimony would eventually lead to the Crofters’ Holdings Act of 1886 which granted tenure to the residents of the land, but also opened the floodgates to armed repression by the landlords.
Who wouldn’t lose their head in such a situation?
Although the ghost is somewhat disturbing to see on dark nights the present neighbors and occupants of the farm are relieved that Mr. Leonard did lose his head. At least then he can’t blow his bagpipes and keep them up at night. Years ago they erected a plaque in his honor, an attempt to calm his uneasy spirit, but a headless ghost can’t read.
Now if they could only figure out how to keep him from getting stuck in the closet every now and again.
This is the lower portion of a vintage Scotch decanter made for the Swank Mens Product Company in the 1950′s. Headless it stands 9 inches tall.
The naming of this lamp is completely arbitrary and entirely unnecessary. I named it after one of our wonderful volunteers who I thought would be a natural fit for this, especially since she was wearing a shirt in very nearly the same color AND since her eyeglasses frames also matched.
But no.
Instead she thought this should either be nominated to join the elite finds at Ed’s House-Of-Ugly or might be best relocated and installed at a nearby brothel.
Ya’ never can tell can you. . .
The lamp is 30 inches tall to the tip of the finial and the globe is about 10 inches in diameter. Impressed into the glass are stylized rose shapes. As you can see in the pictures there is a small light in the lower section as well as the upper light.
The payoff for doing my job and working as part of this blog is that I get to learn new things and feed my research addiction*. For instance, until last Tuesday I didn’t know that there was such a thing as a Stilton scoop or server. That was the day that one of my whip-smart colleagues figured out that’s what these are.
I never thought of having a specialized tool just for a particular cheese. My kitchen seems so inadequate now that I know I don’t own even a single Stilton scoop, and I quail in horror at the missing Cheddar pincer, the lack of a Camembert épée and most regrettably the vacant space upon the counter where a Roquefort chisel should be.
In a city full of foodies (and wanna-be foodies) I imagine you must be at least somewhat sympathetic to this glaring inadequacy. And now, with this public confession, my credibility is shot.
However, there is still time to save your reputation (or that of one of a close friend) with this lovely set of six Scottish silver-plate Stilton scoops.
They’re each 7 1/2 inches long and come in a presentation style box. They were made and sold by Wilson & Sharp Ltd, Goldsmiths Silver Smiths & Watchmakers, 139 Princess Street Edinburgh and Dundee.
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*For example I learned that in the flatware family tree cheese scoops are closely related to marrow scoops and that Wilson & Sharp was a partnership between Robert Wilson and Andrew Sharp which was established in 1880′s. The firm made a wide variety of items including condiment sets, menu holders, hollow-ware, flatware, candle sticks and watches. Sometime in the 1970′s they were absorbed into the English firm Mappin & Webb. This then is a terminus ante quem for when these were originally purchased.
Rupert knew he was special, not just because his mother told his so, but because the light of the world emanated from his hind-end.
Approximately 20 inches tall by 14 inches wide and features a plastic giraffe 3/4 mounted on a brushed copper plate with savannah scene. The photo doesn’t do it justice as it’s not quite as red as the picture above, yet not as pale as the picture below and the strange effect of the light is best viewed in person.
