Over the last few months, I've turned my home upside down. I've been organizing, and still am, pretty much every inch of my home. Last week I gave myself a challenge: to get rid of 5 items every day for a week… I ended up getting rid of over 100 items in that week. Big or small, didn't matter, just clearing out the clutter… and it feels great!!! One thing I got thinned out in is my stashes of magazines!
Back in 2006, I stumbled over a magazine called "Atomic Ranch". As I opened it, my feet tickled and my palms got sweaty. "What an awesome magazine," I thought to myself, and and I went out of my way trying to find older issues of the magazine. That year for Christmas, I got a subscription from my mother-in-law! (Did I mention that she's awesome, and when she goes antiquing, she keeps an eye open for stuff we like? Yeah, she knows what's up and she rules!)
Back to the magazine: over the years, in my opinion, it's gone downhill, not just a little slide, but rollercoaster-style down.
Now when I open it, I actually get mad and the houses' interiors look like an Ikea catalog with a few vintage items in there, like pottery, a painting and lamps. You see before and after pictures of cool bathrooms and kitchen getting torn down and new blond wood, with shiny new chrome handles getting put in. And at the same time it's all money talk. How they bought this killer 50's/60's house for X $ and gutted it and "renovated it" for a triilion $ and bought a few pieces of Jacobsen, Miller and Nelson.
A few months ago I wrote about how I can live with a few Ikea items in between, but in my book, having it the other way around… there is nothing "Atomic Age" about that!
Maybe it's just me and my subcultural background, but to me that is cheating. You don't get style with money, and spending lots of money at once is, to me, not collecting. To me collecting means a little at a time. Looking, searching and finding good deals, with time, having a good collection. AND it's not 'cause I'm butt-hurt that I don't have that kind of money and cant do so! I actually enjoy going treasure hunting! Of course I can dream up an awesome house filled with perfect things, no problem, but why take the cool out of COOLecting!
So I have a stack of Atomic Ranch magazines lying around, so I think I'm gonna try to sell them on eBay and maybe make some pocket shopping money on them, and I can get something cool for my house instead… Wish me luck!!!
Check out Atomic Ranch magazine here
