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(More customer reviews)Whether we call ourselves collectors, buffs, aficionados or even pack rats, let's face it - we like stuff! One need only to note the proliferation of garage sales or the thousands who cram flea markets to know that we're a nation of accumulators, and Mary Randolph Carter, author of "American Junk," now hones in on the heart of our homes and serves up Kitchen Junk, the ultimate guide to everything culinary that's fun to hunt, costs a pittance, and will give a kitchen retro charm.
An unlikely candidate for "Queen of Junk," Ms. Carter is the Vice President of Advertising at Polo/Ralph Lauren. With her husband and two sons she maintains homes in New York City and Duchess County, New York, where, as she says, there's too much junk. Nonetheless, she abides by her motto "Never stop to think, do I have a place for this?"
With over 400 lush colored photographs and a state by state guide for junking forays, Kitchen Junk is the ultimate guide for shoppers. Helpful information offered includes a dress code and tips on haggling: "Most dealers worth their junk expect a bit of a tug-of-war."
One of the most appealing chapters, "A Checkered Life," is devoted to red and white checked items. These pages are replete with tablecloths, napkins, dish towels, aprons, gingham, oilcloth, mitts and even a rooster in those trademark all-American colors. Ms. Carter demonstrates how to set a table with these items and create an atmosphere based on "the fantasy of the farmyard."
Such aprons you have never seen - a bib apron embellished with a picture of a young girl cleaning her plate, a half apron fashioned of a cloth decorated with kitchen tools, a "Some Like It Hot" barbecue apron for him, a strawberry pattern for her. Prices of the items and where they were found are also noted.
Stating that 50% of kitchen time is spent at the sink, the author spruces up that area with an enamel soap dish found for $3.00 at a New York flea market, French agatewear bowls - a steal at $10.00 per, and vintage cut glasses discovered at garage sales for an average of 50 cents each.
Everyone knows what the staff of life is and bread boxes abound from "A hinged lift-top bread box decorated with a frieze of teapots and kitchen ware. It beckoned from a yard sale in Virginia for $3.00." to a "1930s English enameled bread bin."
Few how-to's and where-to's are overlooked in this enthusiastic paean to collecting. With Kitchen Junk in one hand and a Mapsco in the other many will prove the old saw that one man's trash is another man's treasure. Happy hunting!
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America's triumphant Queen of Junk homes in on where the heart dwells--in the kitchen--with vintage treasures that add spice to life and cost next to nothingIn the effervescent yet practical style of her American Junk and Garden Junk, Mary Randolph Carter tracks down and rescues kitchen gems everywhere from thrift shops to tag sales to country auctions. Kitchens are often the source of our earliest memories--eating oatmeal before school, lingering over a cup of hot chocolate. If the kitchen is old, with appliances that challenge decorative instincts, or characterless and crying out for touches of nostalgia (old Tupperware is more and more in demand), the answers lie in Kitchen Junk. From the era of "good housekeeping" come bib aprons and blue feather dusters, wooden ironing boards and handcrafted scrub brushes. Dinette sets, gingham notepads and oilcloth picked up coast to coast for $2 to 10 cents...vintage cookbooks and old milk bottles...a porcelain-enamel table top and sentimental kitchen samplers...midcentury calico roosters and white granite-ware pitchers a hundred years old but timeless...the stoves, toasters, and clocks of yesteryearall contribute to the author's signature arrangements and inspire readers to create their own. Before and after photographs, prices, and hints on junk hunting and haggling mingle with tips on cleaning old linens, avoiding rust on baking pans, and much more. With an extensive Junk Guide that lists flea markets and other "junking sites" countrywide, Kitchen Junk is the reference for thrifty, evocative, eclectic furnishing of the hub of the house.
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