Decorating with…Vintage Pulleys!

Displayed on their own or as part of a grouping, vintage pulleys can become really cool, sculptural pieces of art. The combination of the distressed wood and aged patina on the metal adds a rustic and industrial element to any room. We recently added a selection of old pulleys to the Ampersand Vintage Modern shop.

While they serve as artifacts and evoke a bygone time in our history, vintage pulleys aren’t just nice to look at—they’re incredibly functional. Granted, you probably won’t be hooking them up to use on a ship or to lift bales of hay, but there are interesting and unique ways they can be used as decorative options around your home.

Something as simple as propping up books on a shelf looks amazing with pulley bookends!

Photo credit: Mamie Jane’s blog

These upcycled lighting fixtures made from old pulleys are pretty awesome (and probably would be pretty easy to duplicate)!

Photo credit: wendyumanoffstyle blog

Photo credit: Benclif Designs

Anytime something needs to be suspended from your ceiling or wall, adding a pulley makes it way cooler.

Vintage pulley art display. Photo credit: houzz.com

Bathroom mirror installation. Photo credit: houzz.com

Hanging a pendant light. Photo credit: Cottage at Rooster Ridge

Great way to display two collections: pulleys and lanterns. Photo credit: Serendipity Refined.

However you decide to use or display these old pulleys, they’re a great conversation starter and an easy way to add a little history and industrial charm to your decor. Thanks for looking!

Quick Tip: Gardening

I came across a little gardening miracle the other day while taking in my first harvest in the garden. I love salads and wanted to try planting my own lettuce even though I had been warned that planting lettuce was only great in theory. The “only great in theory” is because it takes forever to clean out all the dirt from the leaves, this effort makes the payoff not worth it for some time-strapped gardeners. I don’t know if that’s everyone’s experience so I decided to try it for myself this year. Here’s how I got lucky…

I ran out of room after working out the spacing in the main garden, I looked around and grabbed an empty window box I had taken down last season.

I decided to throw caution to the wind and threw the four seedlings I had in there, I figured it was better to try than waste it right? What I learned from this little move, is that the lettuce looks beautiful in a window box! But what’s more important was that by having the heads held together by the box it keeps the heads tighter. Whether you plant in a box or not, the next tip to get clean lettuce is all important, you must gently root water to reduce soil splash into the heads. Root watering is where you apply water directly to the ground instead of showering the whole plant, there are MANY benefits to this and truly the way it should be done. Between the box keeping the four heads of lettuce away from surrounding dirt and by root watering , I virtually eliminated all the loose dirt that could possibly soil these bad boys! Sorry, couldn’t resist the last pun.

TGIF: Craft Beer Salute of the Week

This week, we travel to the nation’s Vacationland. No not Disney, we’re talking the great and beautiful state of Maine.  If you have never been to Maine you are missing one of this country’s most beautiful coastlines.  This weeks microbrewery, Peak Organic Brewing Company, resides in Portland. This is the largest and coolest city in Maine and where portions of Kevin Costner’s flop, Message in a Bottle, was filmed. One thing I promise not to bring you in a bottle this week is a flop.

Portland has become well known for it’s amazing food, having been named the “Foodiest Small Town in America” by  Bon Appétit magazine in 2009.  Having spent some time there, I highly recommend, Figa Restaurant and Bar Lola. Both of these are easy choices. Bar Lola was founded by two former architects and, although it lacks our beverage of choice, it is beautiful in every way. Also, Portland is home to lots of fun artisans and designers too. It’s a great place to spend a weekend–or even a week. You won’t be disappointed!

On the beverage side, it reminds me of what should be its west coast sister city, Portland, Oregon, with it’s 9 microbreweries. Hello, beercation! Peak Organic Brewing Company is a gem among the many breweries located throughout this historic port city.  Brewer Jon Cadoux started brewing in the 1990s and sources his ingredients from local organic farmers whenever possible, putting sustainability at the forefront of his business plan.

We cracked open their big bottle of Peak Espresso Amber Ale and immediately fell in love. This is the first Fair Trade Certified beer brewed in the United States.  This amber ale draws its organic espresso from right down the street where it is roasted at Coffee by Design.  The espresso is detected the minute you pop the cap. Below that, you smell the malts and light hops.  We poured this out in a pint glass and it has a really great appearance: rich dark amber color with a nice off white head that laces the entire way down the glass. Judging by the stronger, coffee aromas, I found the taste to be more balanced than I thought.  It still leans toward the coffee flavors, but the malts do a great job balancing the beer out.  For me, this beer has a high level of drinkability that I want to pair with a nice weekend brunch on a patio somewhere, or open this puppy up any summer evening after a long day at work. Speaking of which: drink up, it’s Memorial Day Weekend, and the summer bell is a ringing!!!

TGIF Craft Beer Salute of the Week

We’ve had a busy run here at Ampersand Vintage Modern over the past couple of weeks, from road-tripping to get new inventory to being at Somerville, MA’s, Drill Hall Flea Market, to being a featured vendor on fab.com—our lives have been nothing short of fun and fast-paced. And it’s only going to get busier as we get on the road again to search far and wide for the most unique inventory to add to our collection. So we thought, what better time to introduce a special new blogger to our TGIF Craft Beer Salute of the Week, someone who can hold down the fort while we’re gone, someone who loves and knows their craft beer (almost better than we do)! Without further ado, we introduce writer and beer enthusiast Claudia Ward-de León, this girl has also done the music critic thing for publications such as VenusZine, Skope, and Spin. For this week’s craft beer salute, she’ll give you a preview of Uinta’s BaBa Black Lager.

I have to admit, I’m a sucker for good design and pretty labels. That’s really what first drew me to Uinta’s Baba Black Lager. I know you should never judge a book by its cover, but this beer is one exception that proved the old chestnut wrong. At first glance, this beer resembles a porter or a stout and despite its lager classification, for a color this dark, I just wasn’t expecting a beer that was so pleasingly smooth and downright delicious. I know some of you may be turned off by beer that pours out the color of black coffee, but trust me on this one, the texture is smooth and the body is deceivingly middle-of-the road. Now I’m not saying middle-of-the road is bad—I think that’s what makes this beer ideal for warm weather when not many of us want to be sipping anything as heavy as an IPA or a Belgian-style quad.

Oh, and did I mention Baba Black lager is available year-round, rated USDA organic and the brewery’s operations are 100% wind powered?  Hailing from Salt Lake City, the Uinta Brewing Company started off as a small operation—we’re talking the founders started brewing in a renovated mechanic’s garage—and is now a 26,000 square foot craft brewery. Perhaps most famed for being founded by Mormons, S.L.C. has some other cool things going for it like being host of the 2002 Winter Olympics. It’s also the place where indie-rockers, the Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights,” video was filmed, and home to three classic turn of the 20^th century movie theatres such as the Tower Theatre, one of the venues used during the annual Sundance Film Festival.

With 20 years of calling S.L.C home, the Uinta craft brewery currently offers three distinct lines of beer (classic, organic, and crooked; the latter of the three defined as beers with bolder tastes) and more than 20 different beers, all with labels as original (queue in Tiilted Smile,  Hazel, and 19^th Birthday Suite)  as one little black sheep I’ve come to love. Bottoms up and see you next week!

TGIF: Craft Beer Salute of the Week

This week I apologize for missing the last two, but sh*t be cray, cray. Even though I needed to play hooky for two weeks, I’ve been drinking some good beer. Our TGIF taste buds are traveling to the Boring Lava Fields, otherwise known as Portland, OR, this week. This “City of Roses” might be a slice of heaven for its microbreweries/distilleries, food carts, coffee and for being one of the most environmentally friendly cities in the world, this is one green stop on the beer road that we needed to make.

We have to take a moment to applaud and recognize Portland as the home of the most breweries in the world. How could you find any reason to dislike a city officially nicknamed Beertown in January of 2006? There are more than 40 breweries in Beertown that seem to fill all nooks and crannies of the city, including the renovation of buildings of historical significance once slated for demolition. Love the beer initiative to reuse.

We’re rolling up to MacTarnahan’s Brewing Company for a little Spine Tingler action. This is a golden Belgiun-Style Triple that comes in at 8.5% ABV, is available in the spring and is the 3rd of a four beer specialty series they have developed in the last couple of years. They use pilsner malts and wheat, soooooo, not gluten free, with hops from Northern Brewer and Perle. Portland’s climate is not only ideal for growing roses but also ideal for supplying the local breweries with an abundance of local ingredients, including barley and hops. Everyone ready, here’s the pour… beautiful clear pale golden body, doesn’t appear to be to overly carbonated, nice head with no lacing on the glass. Immediate citrus aroma comes through with hints of herbal spice, not very malty or hoparific to the olfactory system. The malts do pop up on the pallet, as do the hops, but they’re subtle. It’s almost as if  a Heffeweizen and Duvel had a baby. You also get the sweetness of the sugar and I have to say this is something I’m not used to.  This is a decent,  drinkable Belgian-style triple, not a memorable one, but not a bad beer.

TGIF: Craft Beer Salute of the Week

This week, we are once again saluting our Mid-western friends with a beer that comes to you from The City of Fountains. Kansas City, Missouri has a beautiful network of boulevards and parks, it’s home to some major architectural firms in the national and international spotlight, and sports two private residences and a church designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Since the city is full of creativity, and over 200 fountains flowing throughout, we felt that the Boulevard Brewing Company’s Sixth Glass Quadrupel Ale was a craft beer worth taking a looking at.

Founder John McDonald finished construction of his vintage Bravarian brewhouse in 1989 and delivered the first batches of beer from the back of his truck.  Boulevard Brewing has certainly expanded since those early days, becoming the largest specialty brewer in the Midwest. They use both new and traditional brewing techniques that seem to be working well for them as they’ve taken home a GABF® gold medal for their unfiltered wheat beer. Aside from their brewing, this is another company that wins a gold medal for their efforts in sustainability. Their new brewhouse and packaging facility has a green roof and they started the first local glass recycling program, Ripple Glass, in Kansas City, among other great programs!

The Sixth Glass Quadrupel Ale is a Belgian Quadrupel that packs a punch with 10.5% alcohol, so be careful with this one!  While it wasn’t my favorite of the beers I’ve reviewed,  it is another award winner for Boulevard. In fact, it’s a world class beer having taken home several international awards…so you know it’s good.   

If you like a sweeter beer with mild hops that’s on the effervescent side, then this guy is for you. It pours with a deep, auburn coloring and has a malty sweetness upon opening. The taste has a malted toffee sweetness with a small hint of nutmeg or clove spice. The high carbonation left a rolling tingle on the tongue that lingers in the back of your mouth. Kansas City is known for it’s barbecue, and if there’s any sweetness in in your sauce then I would not bring  this beer to the pit. You would be better served pairing this with something on the saltier side for a little balance.

Once again my friends, you reached the end of your work week and this beer is a great way to unwind. Have a great weekend and enjoy!

TGIF: Craft Beer Salute of the Week

Craft Beer Cellar really is an adult candy shop and I love writing this entry each week.  I picked up one of their make-it-yourself sixers where I found this week’s Friday candy. It comes to you from New England’s “Vacationland,” the great and oh-so beautiful state of Maine where the  Baxter Brewing Co. resides in the historic Bates Mill Complex in downtown Lewiston. Baxter regularly brews three beers that can be found on draft and all three are always available in a can.  This brewery is right up my enviro alley as they have many green initiatives in place but my favorite is that they are a can only brewing company.  Their cans are made of 70% post-consumer recycled material and are infinitely recyclable but this effort in sustainability is two-fold. Aluminum cans block UV light from the beer inside, making this smooth beer last and stay fresher longer.  That’s right, no more UV light-induced “skunky” beer for you my friend.

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the beer. Baxter’s amber ale, Amber Road, was really good.  Overall this was a very smooth, balanced and drinkable beer that pours beautifully with a nice head that dissipates into a nice lingering lacing on the glass.  This beer has a nice rich red hue and smelled of light toasty malts and hops. As far as Amber ales go, I would say it’s on the heavier end of the spectrum with a malty toastiness with definite hop notes to it that linger on the tongue without being bitter at all. It is a very nice alternative a lager or pilsner when you’re craving something a little more bold, but not as heavy as a stout or an IPA.  Baxter claims that this beer “refreshes year round” and I’d have to say I agree.  I hope everyone gets a chance to stop by their favorite watering hole and enjoy this beer at some point this weekend cause once again you’ve earned it!

TGIF: Craft Beer Salute of the Week

Our TGIF Craft Beer Salute of the Week comes from the flavor forward CBC, a.k.a. Cambridge Brewing Company. This  local favorite makes “flavor-forward, creative beers featuring local ingredients as an expression of the brewer’s art”. Their artwork has garnered both national and international recognition as one of the foremost craft brewers in the U.S.  But don’t let that fool you. CBC is all local–using local ingredients and following a model of sustainability by keeping their distribution within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. For you locals and out-of-towners, head on over to Kendall Square and dabble in the brewer’s artistic pallet that resides there.

The design aspect of this week’s beer lies completely within it’s flavor. Sgt. Pepper is a sturdy farmhouse ale with complex flavoring that starts and ends with pepper. We were skeptical and really didn’t know what to think of this one. But I have to say, it gets an A in our book.  We are not even that crazy about Saisons/Farmhouse Ales, but it really shows you that they know what they’re talking about at the Craft Beer Cellar. It has a great drinkability, a robust pepper aroma, and a taste that is also earthy. But don’t worry, the pepper isn’t too overpowering. The after-effect is incredible as the pepper matures with a mild heat. This is a great beer to pair with food and wins with flavor and creativity points big time! Drink up and enjoy your weekend everyone, you deserve it.

Think green.

The downtown Asheville, NC local merchants association designed these cool posters to promote commerce in their neighborhood.

Shopping locally is always the better choice to help the little guy and stimulate the local economy.