Showing posts with label Vintage Source. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vintage Source. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Weekend Economic Stimulus Guide - The Vintage Source Weekend

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Forget about Washington and the feeble attempts by the White House and Congress to do anything to help us. They have their hands full with health care. For over a year health care seems to have filled their hands in fact. In the meantime the real people in the real world face the same economic uncertainty, struggle to save money while Congress struggles to blow money, and stuff like that in our lives.



Well the Coltons Point Times has our own economic stimulus program in which deserving merchants with quality service and exceptional products who are a little on the eccentric side are recommended by us because you will find very good bargains on very good old stuff. You will be served by very entertaining women who realized if you give people what they really want and need, and are fair, you can do quite well in spite of the politicians and bankers.



The women of the Vintage Source Antiques and Social Club who decided to only open one weekend a month will be open this weekend and with the weather the finest we have had this year you would miss a real experience if you don't go to the Vintage Source.



Bring lots of money and plan on taking your time to enjoy the experience and while you are at it check out the incredible non-vintage Hot Dog and everything else stand. Buy a couple of designer dogs there and kick back and imagine how no matter what the fools do in Washington there will always be folks like those at the Source to help us forget our problems and save our money.

Here is Michelle's latest invitation to the Vintage Source.



The Vintage Source
It's a Vintage Source Weekend!


Sat & Sun, March 20th & 21st, 8am-4pm!

Hi Folks,

Do you remember the old cartoon character, Pepe Le Pew? He was a swarthy skunk always laying the love lines on extra thick and failing miserably due to his odious nature. Recently, Pepe came-a-calling to The Vintage Source. And just like all the other ladies in his life, I wanted no part of him. After a week of traps set with tasty treats we had to pull out the big guns and and litter the place with moth balls! I think he got the hint though, because he finally moved on and took his stench with him. Really, we lead a very glamourous life over here at The Vintage Source.

Onto the good stuff...an "atta girl" goes out to our very own Sheryl Tart, whose slipcovers were part of a magazine spread in Romantic Country (the summer edition)! Park Hall resident, Patty Andreoli's home was a feature article in the magazine and showcased Sheryl's slipcovers and if you look closely, you'll recognize some Vintage Source furnishings as well.

Lastly, there are lots of pictures up showing off just a portion of the New Arrivals in the shop! Beautiful, functional, affordable furniture...it's all waiting for you.

I will leave you with a quote from my friend Pepe, "When you are a skunk, you learn how to hold your breath for a long time."

See you this weekend, March 20th & 21st, 8am-4pm.


Michelle

Michelle Radez
The Vintage Source
www.thevintagesource.net
thevintagesource@verizon.net
240-925-1060

The Vintage Source | 22080 Newtowne Neck Rd | Compton | MD | 20627

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Through the Looking Glass at The Vintage Source - Another Lost Weekend

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I took my monthly outing to see the ladies at The Vintage Source, the Fine, Funky Home Decor and Social Club of Southern Maryland where nothing is as it seems and not the least the four ladies who never seem to lose their thirst for living or good wine.

Of course there were the bargains, hundreds of them, and hundreds more had already been purchased before I got there. If you are not waiting in line before daybreak the third Saturday and Sunday of every month you lose out on the best buys. I tried it once but prefer to wait until the crowd thins and I can get the latest news from the most unusual proprietor and partners on the East coast.



If you haven't made it there you are missing out on great bargains, great conversation and the opportunity to see the world through their eyes, from the back side of the mirror, and a most bizarre view it can be. You see there are no rules when it comes to creative thinking when this gang gets together.



There is Michelle, who set out on a dream to build a business from a tent in her front yard and wound up building a spectacle where people line the street before it opens waiting to get in the doors. She actually thought she could be successful being open one weekend a month and did it. Outside running the Hotdog Wagon serving the best dogs this side of Manhattan is Tyler, her husband, a vice principal during the week and dawg hawker on weekends.



Then there is Cathe, the blueblood of Philadelphia and debutant of the Pocono Mountain resorts who shattered all the strictures of the Philly upper crust and ran off and married a Sicilian who joined the Navy. This girl was so sheltered that when she got married she had never driven a car (why when you had a chauffeured limo), cooked a meal or even seen a washer and dryer. From Dirty Dancing to Navy housewife it was a heroic transition.



The third wheel of the original gang is Cheryl, Miss perpetual motion from the Texas panhandle who also married into the military and used it as a stepping stone to learn every craft there is related to furniture, homes and unusual things. Cheryl took hands on experience to a whole new dimension with a desire to understand how everything is made, repaired or reconditioned in the world of antique furniture.



Finally there is Joy, the survivor of a vaudeville family upbringing who was once lost as a child in her mother's collection of over 600 antique dolls. I have never seen her not laughing about life even though she is also married to yet another military dude. But then I had the pleasure of meeting her rather eccentric mother and I could see how Joy was so full of joy with a mother like that.



So this month it was a little like joining Alice in Wonderland as they showed me their newest marketing gimmick. There were four antiqued postcards about The Vintage Source, each with a photo of one of the ladies when they were quite young. I was supposed to match them to the ladies. Nothing is as it seems.



You try it if you think it is so easy. Match the kid shots with the grown up shots in this story. I was okay with Joy (the weird dog), then Cheryl (the red hair), and finally Cathe (who else climbs out of a Pocono Mountains resort pool with dry hair). But Michelle, now that was a stretch no matter how hard I studied the photo.



Either the ladies were playing a joke on me and it was not her, or she had been the victim of an alien abduction and they returned the wrong body to her home. Since that happened to me once between second and third grade I was suspicious. You look at these photos and tell me you don't agree.



The little Michelle looks like a midget football player in drag with a strange hair style, a large soup bowl cut, and nothing at all like the rather stunning specimen remaining today. On her worst day of the year she could not look like the little curmudgeon of yesteryear on the postcard. I know when a person was replaced and if that was her back then we need to look for her on Mars today, not at The Vintage Source. In the meantime we will keep the alien.



You really should experience the place one of these days. Maybe you will meet Michelle's mother and you can ask her for the truth about her daughter. Was she abducted and was she returned or replaced? See you at the true Source, The Vintage Source.

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Saturday, May 10, 2008

IN SEARCH OF GENUINE AMERICANA

“THE VINTAGE SOURCE”

By Jim Putnam

I went in search of a needle in a haystack. You see, I love old things starting with my late grandparents, cars, furniture, clothes, houses, and anything associated with them. Make no mistake I am an All American Baby Boomer, and not just any old Baby Boomer but one born in the very first year of the Baby Boomers, 1946. It is truly MY generation.

The 1950’s were my education, the 1960’s my graduation, and things have pretty much been down hill ever since. To be born in an era when people took pride in their work, when a work ethic was really a work ethic, when the things you needed were supposed to last, and when honesty prevailed seems like such a long time ago. I grew up when extended warranties weren’t needed because what you bought lasted.

So I set out to find those things. My journey has taken me from the Great Plains to California, New York to Canada, Mexico to Ireland and Scotland to Russia. I searched the world over for the magical combination of quality and service, pride and competence, the things we used to find in the 5&10, the soda fountain, the auto dealers, and the repair services, things that lasted and people who cared.

Well one day I found it in the strangest of places. You see, after driving through the entire continental USA, Canada and Mexico over and over staying off the super highways and scouring the back roads I was about to toss in the towel and give up. It was when I came to a sleepy fishing village in southern Maryland where time seemed to have stood still that my hopes were finally raised.

How many of you live in a place where there are no sidewalks, no streetlights, no stoplights, no water lines, no sewers, no cops, no politicians, no strip malls, no Wal-Mart’s, no through streets, no plethora of bars and churches, and no fast food joints? Somehow the Potomac River front in St. Mary’s County, Maryland has survived the so-called advance of civilization and remained frozen in time, a time long ago.

One day while driving the country roads and avoiding the Amish and Mennonite horse drawn buggies I came across a remote intersection with a softball field, a lively bar and eating place, and lo and behold, a little store called The Vintage Source. I pulled in, got out, and found the door locked with a sign that said open the third weekend of every month.

This is the 21st century; no one is only open one weekend a month! Stores stay open 24 hours a day to bleed you out of every last buck. Looking through the window of the old storefront I could see there were interesting things inside, everywhere inside, and was determined to come back and see what treasures lay within. Since we were still in the metropolitan Washington, DC area I was also determined to see what outrageous price might be on these treasures.

I returned that 3rd weekend and was in for the shock of my life. It was as if I followed the White Rabbit down the tunnel into Alice’s Wonderland where nothing was as it seemed as I stepped out of my car back into the 1950’s, or 1940’s or earlier. The Vintage Source was no 21st century antique store but a trip in H G Wells Time Machine to an era of ice cream socials, people helping people, no stress and wonderful artifacts of the past to take home with you.

The little store was packed with people but there were no fights over the bargains, no pushing and shoving to get a deal, and no arguing over prices. People were happy, were friendly, courteous and all the other things you no longer find while shopping. This was not a shop full of grandmother’s antiques, those things so uncomfortable they could only be used for display. There was a lot of vintage stuff in there, but it was all things that could be practical in your home.

Now I had often heard that when it come to antiques, Americans have a Neiman Marcus taste and a Sears & Roebuck imagination meaning they love antiques but have no clue how to incorporate them into their homes. They need someone to tell them what to do. If you did not have the imagination to figure out how to use the vintage items, there were pictures all over the place showing how to incorporate them in a home.



The Vintage Source is the brainchild of Michelle Combs Radez, and if central casting ever showed up she would be cast as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind. Her ancestors came from England about 200 years ago and she is the modern reincarnation of the beloved Scarlett O’Hara. Tough, she was the only girl with five brothers; the Iowa farm girl background of her mother influenced her.

After back packing around the country her first job at 15 was working in an antique store. It was there and traveling with her mother she began to appreciate the need for primitive antiques with character, maybe aged and bruised even, because they could be used for practical purposes without fear of losing their value. She did not fall in the trap of focusing on high value antiques, the items that remain in shops without selling. Appeal to people with high taste but limited budgets and you could succeed she believed.

Like Scarlett, she set out to learn all there was to learn and Michelle set up a tent one weekend a month on her front lawn to chase her dream. It was a wedding tent she found at a sale. A year later she leased an old storefront not far from her family home, then bought the old store, and three years later the business is booming. She still sets out for auctions, garage sales and estate sales in search of the items her clientele is seeking with her trailer and the tireless help of her husband.

She also realized if some minor repairs were made to the items the people were more likely to buy them and she learned wood repair, stripping and painting old items, and became so good at repairs she was asked to teach classes on restoration at college. In the store they tell you how to make repairs and sell items to help you. Michelle never stops learning about antiques or how to use them and never stops trying to find new ways to recycle old items.

But even Scarlett O’Hara could not do it alone so Michelle invited two people to be in house dealers in her shop. One is Sheryl Tort, from the Texas panhandle where life is tough; ingenuity is essential and self-sufficiency the lifeblood of survival. If you were to imagine the star of the story O Pioneer by Willa Cather about the pioneer woman who saved the family farm it could have been Sheryl rather than Jessica Lange.

Married to a Navy man, her story is one of creativity, hard work, a love of salvaging and recycling furniture, and a heritage of packrats. Her uncle back in Texas was a collector and salvager of furniture and her sister also has an antique store in Texas. It was a way of life down there and a passion she would never lose. First she built up a business of sewing slip covers for furniture and then became a dealer in Michelle’s store specializing in finding prized antiques on the Internet through eBay and Craig’s List.

The other dealer invited to join the store was Cathe Chiomento, the Auntie Mame of The Vintage Source who hailed from a comfortable Pennsylvania family whose father was one of the first Arbys franchise holders on the east coast. While Michelle and Sheryl may seem quiet and thoughtful at times Auntie Mame is a fireball of energy and activism. She was also a Navy wife but her journeys throughout the world left a wealth of programs behind that she helped organize to aid military wives and families in fighting drugs and alcoholism, and addressing the many other problems of military dependents.

This same sort of activism and energy was directed toward her obsession with antiques and once she settled in Maryland she decided to give it a try as a leisurely side job. After a couple of starts exploring the waters she came across Michelle’s store and decided this was the place she want to be.

So Scarlett O’Hara let Auntie Mame and the O Pioneer woman be dealers in her store and the result is a store they describe as classic to funky, eclectic to non-traditional. The atmosphere is like a social event or a happening and the once a month opening gives it a mysterious quality unlike most commercial traps.

Make no mistake, this is a very successful business but it is far from typical with very reasonable prices, being environmentally sensitive as it seeks to restore and revitalize furniture thus saving the unnecessary destruction of trees for new and cheaper furniture, and it shows people how to use the antiques and collectibles in ways they never knew.

You owe it to yourself to make the sojourn to The Vintage Source on the 3rd weekend of the month. It is so unlike the crass commercialism, the unfriendly service, the inferior product quality and the stressed out shoppers you encounter every other day it is like therapy for the soul and just might restore your faith in the forgotten quality of American entrepreneurs.

The Vintage Source is located at 22080 Newtowne Neck Road, Compton, Maryland.

From the DC area: Take 495 to Rt. 5 south, towards Leonardtown. Turn right at Rt. 243 (at the McDonald’s and Dash-In stores). Travel three miles. We are on the left, just past the BackRoad Inn Bar.

From the 301 Potomac River Bridge or LaPlata area: Take Rt. 301 north to Rt. 234 south (at Whitehouse Motel). Exit onto Rt. 5 south. Turn right at Rt. 243 (at the McDonald’s and Dash-In stores). Travel three miles. We are on the left, just past the BackRoad Inn Bar.

From South of Leonardtown: Take Rt. 5 north towards Leonardtown. Turn left at Rt. 243 (at the McDonald’s and Dash-In stores). Travel three miles. We are on the left, just past the BackRoad Inn Bar.

From Calvert County:Take Rt. 4 south over the Solomon's Island Bridge. Continue straight on Rt.4 towards Leonardtown. Exit onto Rt. 5 north through Leonardtown. Turn left at Rt. 243 (at the McDonald’s and Dash-In stores). Travel three miles. We are on the left, just past the BackRoad Inn Bar.

Lost?? Call 240-925-1060