They kept that TV till they bought their first color set sometime in the late 60s or early 70s. I was a newlywed at the time, and we were still using hand-me-down items to decorate our home, so the Zenith made its way to our apartment. Of course, blonde wood was totally passé at the time, so I availed myself of the same remedy everyone else was using on old furniture. I "antiqued" it...olive green.
Not only that, I gutted it, put a shelf in it, put doors on it...and covered the doors with some hideous-beyond-belief flocked Con-Tact paper in a Spanish scroll design...more olive green, but with gold flecks as an added (albeit even more gaudy) bonus. I hung a huge conquistador picture above it and called it our bar. As ugly as the thing was, it saw many a good time roll back in the day.
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| 1956 Zemotj flickriver.com (Roadsidepictures) |
Here is one more TV I found on another site that I had to include in this post. This is a futuristic German entertainment unit from 1958. How wild is this thing? It looks like it's about to blast off.
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| gadgethim.com |
LOL, what a great way to start the day...laughter. I have a mental image of your cabinet and it brought back vivid memories of all the rage to "antique" furniture, cabinets, children. We are pretty close in age but I never got into antiquing. My Mom on the other hand was obsessed with it. She antiqued our kitchen cabinets and anything else that was stationary. Several years later we stripped them only so she could paint them. That woman was a nut with paint and wallpaper.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, I'll take that last one, please!
ReplyDeleteHa ha at one time I allllmost painted a 1930's maple desk in flat black to match the other furniture in the room. Thankfully I refrained and painted a cheap 1980's dresser instead. That got thrown out, but the beautiful old desk is still in my Studio. =)
Yessssss! I was admiring that Komet just the other day, talk about an outrageous design! I love how the old cabinets are being reused for newer TV's. When we were looking for stereo consoles, we came across guys who had re-vamped the insides to hold / play IPODS !!!! That was tempting but we chose to play old scratchy vinyl. :)
ReplyDeleteThat last television is wild! So crazy you post this because just last night I was thinking about how since the t.v. was created, we've struggled to make it pretty. Made it into furntire, hid it inside furntire, made it super flat. I was wondering what they'd try next. Stop reading my mind!
ReplyDelete@Krazy4Mod: We really did antique everything that didn't antique us first! You're right about that. When I think about how many pieces of green, red, and blue furniture eventually had to be stripped and sanded back to their original beauty, I can only imagine that some furniture refinishers got rich when the antiquing craze ended.
ReplyDelete@1950sarh: There were a few pieces that escaped the paintbrush in our house too, thank goodness. But I have to plead guilty to my fair share of antiquing. Another of my hand-me-down masterpieces included...get this...a folding card table that I painted blue, along with matching thrift store chairs that I painted to match and embellished with flowers. That was our dining table till we could afford a real one. If you're picturing a total hippie pad here, you're right...LOL
ReplyDelete@stacey: Thanks for telling me what the last TV was. I found a TV history website with a whole page dedicated to Kuba Komet sets, which said they were made from 1957-1961. I even found my old Zenith on that site!
ReplyDelete@Tanya: Ooops...I revealed my superpower without putting on the tights and cape first. :)
ReplyDeleteAs for what they'll do next, I have it on good authority that they're considering Con-Tact paper. I was sooooo ahead of my time.
Ha ha! I went through a whole shabby chic stage for a while there. Yeah, I know, some might think it embarrassing, but I gave it a try and found while I love looking at it, I don't like living with it!
ReplyDeleteThankfully I painted few things, and while I did learn how to make those one stroke roses everyone paints on shabby chic stuff, I didn't get too crazy and paint my old cathedral radio or vintage metal electric fan!
p.s. I still have the hippy flower stickers in the office room here, stuck to the walls. My late brother did that when we were kids. I will have to scrape them down when I go to paint, but for some reason resisted painting this room for a long time. Gee I hope the hippy stickers come off the top of the wooden closet doors!!
@1950sarh: The first place we lived as newlyweds when my husband came home from Viet Nam in 1968 was an old garage apartment that was in such bad shape it swayed when you walked. I painted Peter Max flowers on the French doors and moved out without removing them. I'm sure I was cursed soundly for that...ha ha!
ReplyDeleteYikes, that German TV would give me nightmares, for sure!
ReplyDelete@TheEnglishOrganizer: It's a tad over the top, no doubt about it!
ReplyDeleteThe last set is certainly a sight to behold! Very eyecatching.
ReplyDelete@Moondoggie: Can you imagine what kind of furniture owners of the Komet sets had, if that was the kind of TV that fit their decor?
ReplyDelete