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Chill, people! It’s Blair Fridge Project time, commencing with Paul Bubel’s classic bachelor’s fridge:
“I travel for work and pleasure and always pick up a fridge magnet wherever I go,” announces The Mongrel. “The magnets also extend to the other side of the fridge, not shown in the photo.” Let’s take a look:
That’s a magnitude of magnets. And there’s more: “The closeup shows my pride and joy, a complete set of Carlton premiership posters, probably the only complete set in Bondi. Just along from these is a magnet of Lord Buddha. The messages of Carlton and Buddha are essentially the same - suffering is eternal, all joy is transient.” As a Collingwood boy, it harms - Wayne Harmes - me to post this:
Look at how wrong that is. Damian Penny, soon to be fridging couple-style, writes: “Here it is, in all its glory, with pictures of my nephew and my Malawian foster child, and several dozen magnets holding up several dozen coupons and stuff.” We in warmer climes merely marvel at the need for a Newfie to even own a fridge:
“It’s a standard fridge,” emails Nilknarf. “A bit too small for my liking, but still does the trick. It keeps food cold or frozen depending on where I put it. What’s not to love?”
Nilk continues: “As you can see, I like my food rare.” You don’t say, Nilk:
Reese, a student of the fridge, observes: “One can learn a lot by a person’s fridge magnets, and what’s being held by them.” And also by what’s on top of a person’s fridge:
But what would Reese learn from Andrea Harris’s fridge?
“As you can see,” writes Andrea, “it is a blank canvas. Perhaps you can hold a contest asking commenters what sort of magnets and artwork I should put on it. The inside of the thing is almost as bare as the outside, too.” It’s the fridge of mystery!
Less of a conundrum is Craig McF’s fridge: “It’s 23 years old, which is a long time in fridge years. It’s probably chewing a tonne of brown coal every day.” This is one hungry device:
More damn Carlton art. Next we venture to Tucson, Arizona, where Steve & Phyllis Stephens maintain a wonderfully Australian kitchen apparatus:
That fridge features GPS tracks of Steve’s first five trips to Australia; magnets from Cobar and Lightning Ridge; a bookmark from a cookbook store in Fitzroy, Melbourne; and photos of Bicheno penguins. With that amount of exterior Oz Power, the Stephens fridge can probably convert Budweiser to Victoria Bitter.
“I’m working on the refrigerator photo,” snarls Rodger Thomas. “If I could just get my wife from in front of the thing ...” Meanwhile, our photo-barricaded friend sends a shot of Paris Hilton’s prison shiv:
Beloved reader Pogria has no need for jail weaponry. Her fridge displays “the usual detritus of family life; rego needs to be paid, picture of junior before he hit the terrible teens, cheaper petrol receipts and my collection of silver serving trays on top.”
Ah, but Pogria has a second level of armoury: “My pot wall. These are just the ones that are hanging. I have others and each and every one is used!” Behold a fine wall:
Writes Nora Charles: “Our fridge is probably very boring compared to the others ...”
“ ... so we’ve also included a picture of our 1950s cocktail cabinet. which is much more interesting.” Indeed; it’s alcolicious:
Label genius Barney Greinke forwards a shot of Ken Layne’s fridge from olden days:
“I think this was taken during the month or two when he’d moved out to LA to house hunt while Laura was still in DC finishing up work. Or something like that,” emails Barney. “But, really, as I’m sure you well know, this is what his fridge ALWAYS looked like during his bachelor years.” Well, not always; there was that month with the human heads. Speaking of bachelor times, Robert C. sends an image not of a fridge “but of something that came out of my fridge. It started as a jug of iced tea ...”
“The left half is frozen solid.” My apologies to Jimmy Mindspring, whose fridge pic is frozen sideways:
“This is our refrigerator pig that we found at the flea market in Woodstock, Georgia for $10. Yes, you can put lipstick on a pig!” Maybe so, but I can’t make the damn thing turn the right way. Global warming, I guess.
(Thanks to all for these outstanding examples of local cooling. Several images - hello, Michael and Ben-Peter - were too large for my weeny system to process; please send again.)
UPDATE. Further fridgey goodness to be posted tonight, Sydney time.
UPDATE II. Or maybe tomorrow night. Lots of fridge pix are arriving.
Nora, I love those canisters on top of your fridge. Are they retro or are they originals?
Love the cocktail cabinet, too. I have been trying to convince my husband that any decent household needs a drinks cabinet. He’s coming around. He likes the idea that his bottle of vodka will have somewhere special to live.
::Blushes:: why thank you for your kind words Paco and ak.
The anodised aluminium canisters are original, we bought them at a swap meet in Toowoomba at the same time we found some fabulous late 1960s romance comics.
The cocktail cabinet was another swap meet find, this time on the Gold Coast. We paid a princely sum of $50 for it (and they delivered).
It has a valve radio to the left and a slide out turntable to the right of the cocktail cabinet.
It’s our second anniversary blogging today and if you’re interested in retro things, Nick and I have started a second blog:
Nick and Nora’s Nifty Knick-KnacksPosted by The Thin Man Returns on 2007 06 12 at 05:01 PM • permalinkOh! Interiors are OK, I see. Silly me. I should’ve taken one before.
::SEND::
The inside of the Hedgehog’s power-hog 1980s-era fridge is on it’s way.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 06 12 at 05:07 PM • permalink#1 paco
And Nora’s cocktail cabinet is beautiful; the kind of thing Detective Paco would probably find when he visits one of the uptown swells.
No kidding. I want one.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 06 12 at 05:12 PM • permalink#11 Pogria,
A few months ago, I was seriously looking for one, and all I could find in furniture stores were far more than I could afford, so I thought about making one (using pre-made doors), but it still seemed like more project than my limited woodworking skills can manage.
I’ve been doing the yard/garage sale routine on weekends looking for that and a (oak) corner bookcase…
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 06 12 at 05:47 PM • permalinkI hope my images weren’t too big for your weeny system, Tim. (Btw, what’s a weeny system, anyway?)
Alas, they didn’t make the cut, but I also sent a pic of my pull-down bar, Nora. It’s in a massive piece of furniture filled with shelves, cupboards, and drawers, called a schrank, which we brought from Germany. It’s much nicer than my fridge.
#5: Nick and Nora: I once saw a prohibition era “secret cocktail” cabinet for sale in an antique store. It looked like a large end-table, but if you slid the top just so, a mirrored tray popped up with decanters, glasses, the works. I could kick myself for not buying it. I did find a Philco radio cabinet at a yard sale for 15 bucks a few years ago. Mahogany and satinwood, probably from the 1940’s. I refinished it and turned it into a real pretty book case.
I like old stuff. I suppose it’s a good thing that Mrs. Paco and I were poor when we were first married, otherwise I’d have a house full of curiosities. Although, even if I had had money, I doubt she would ever have let me buy the rosewood china cabinet with gargoyles purched on the corners. Man, I really loved that thing!
#17 Re secret cocktail cabinet - oh wow, that sounds sweet.
Nick and I are fortunate we share the same tastes.
One of our more quirky pieces is a free standing 1970s telephone box. We’ve painted it red, installed glass shelves and turned it into a display cabinet.
A friend of ours found the phone box in his backyard where it had been serving the home’s previous owner as a garden shed.
—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2007 06 12 at 06:40 PM • permalink#12. Spiny: Pity you’re not near Miami, Florida. There used to be a warehouse there called Wholesale Antiques, chock-full of art deco bookcases, cocktail cabinets, oak dining tables, curio cabinets - even a rosewood piano and a complete mahogany bar from an English pub. Fairly reasonable prices, too, at the time.
I saw an old fridge in a car magazine once, painted up like this. Very cool.
Posted by dean martin on 2007 06 12 at 07:38 PM • permalinkWith that amount of exterior Oz Power, the Stephens fridge can probably convert Budweiser to Victoria Bitter.
What convert water into piss?
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 06 12 at 07:44 PM • permalink#20 paco,
There used to be places like that here in Cali, too. The “fairly reasonable prices” part is long gone, sadly.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 06 12 at 08:25 PM • permalink#25 Dave S.
The fact that the Collectivists cannot understand market economics and their business model is worse than WebDreary’s is not the problem, it’s the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy™ that’s locking them out! This is why they are pushing for the re-institution of the so-called Fairness Doctrine, where stations will be forced by Federal law to carry their vacuous preening, whining and sniveling.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 06 12 at 08:53 PM • permalinkHey Spiny, I didn’t realise you lived in the US. The info I gave you earlier won’t be any use to you. Sorry ‘bout that. Keep looking though, something will turn up.
Whenever I have had my heart set on something, quite often I’d find it in the most unexpected of places. You just have to realise the moment and grab it.
If Nora’s canisters are genuine ‘50s they are good money - that kind of kitchenalia is sort after these days. My mother still has her complete set of 1950s anodised aluminium canisters sitting on the mantlepiece over her No.0 Metters woodstove, in daily use.
Posted by walterplinge on 2007 06 12 at 11:26 PM • permalink#29 Hi Walter, I paid $40 for the canisters and I was a little reluctant because I thought it was a bit high.
I’m not sure the canisters are 1950s, I think they’re 1960s because the knob handles are very similar to the lids on the aluminium saucepan set my mother had.
—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2007 06 13 at 02:01 AM • permalinkPaco: I did “meet” (well, we said “hello” to each other - I guess that counts) the two Pets of the Month on the left. Rather amazonian they were too. Believe it or not it was at geeky MacWorld, not at the AVN Expo (I’m still looking for a tax-deductible way to go to that).
The girl on the right is a local (Kimberley) appearing at an ARIA (oz music) awards night. She deserved a prize that year for most imaginative use of gaffer tape, but they forgot to make that category. She managed to parlay that photo into a brief-as-Seaborgium-289 music career.
As it happens, it’s a great disappointment that there aren’t more plastic hot-pants, FM boots, blue pop-wigs, and gaffered nipples on the streets these days. I thought it was a winner at the time.
reese: I seek an uncluttered, Zen-like life. (Note: chainsaws are so helpful in getting rid of unwanted… clutter.)
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 06 13 at 01:54 PM • permalinkMay I congratulate undercover operative Nilknarf on her successful mission? She has managed to trick Right Wing Tool of Satan, Tim Blair, into catblogging. Hurrah for Nilknarf! Next mission, Nilknarf will trick Tim Blair into attending and enjoying a grogblogging event (featuring not-so-expensive wine) with members of the leftist blog glitterati!
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I’m rather partial to Andrea’s minimalist approach, although Mongrel’s baroque style has much to recommend it. And Nora’s cocktail cabinet is beautiful; the kind of thing Detective Paco would probably find when he visits one of the uptown swells.
And Craig McF: are those, er, personal acquaintances?