Can you build it? Not in 2018 it seems.

Sears Catalog Homes, Flying Car Kits and DIY Telescopes

[To everyone who came to this page because of the above and are now wondering WTH, sorry.]

I’ve often thought I lived another life in another time because I have an odd fascination with how things were built in the past. Recently Doug, the town historian, posted photos of the Sears Catalog Homes from the 1930s on Nextdoor.com and suggested that many of us in older part of town probably live in one of those original pre-fab houses. His informative post got me (once again) thinking about how life was like pre-WWII and up until Walter Brooke’s Mr. McGuire prophesied to Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin about the wave of plastics that would take over the future.

Back pre-interwebs and mobile phones I worked at the Sears Catalog call center in Tucson, Arizona. For four hours five days a week I would take calls from people all over the country ordering bathroom rugs, nylon stockings, car parts, Craftsman tools and other products we can now get in two days from Amazon. But back then Sears was pretty much the Amazon of home goods. Well it was the Amazon of everything. My great uncle used to refuse to buy anything unless it came from Sears. I suppose I’m not much different because if I can’t get it sent via Prime in two days I just don’t want to bother.

But being a frugal home improvement habiter I started looking up the other mail order kits you could get back in black and white tube TV days. Like these:

Seriously, who built an ORGAN? I want to meet that guy. Or his grandson. Hopefully the handiness is genetic.

I’m totally building this. The FAA won’t mind, right?

You can check these and others out here. And if you’re like me, you’ll wonder how in wild, wild, world of sports a person was able to both afford these and also put them together without blowing themselves up. Granted they had more time on their hands in 50s and 60s, because no intertubes.

All this nostalgia of a time I never lived in made me want to nab these beauties last week. I met the seller on the other side of the galaxy (Arvada) late on Wednesday, enduring Denver traffic, to bring them home in my Colorado-issued Subaru Outback. [Seriously if you’re thinking of moving here just buy the Outback now to save yourself the embarrassment of arriving without one.] 

Alright, alright, so they have a way to go before they are fashion icons. But like my house, and my 93 year old grandma, they have good bones. I’m going to clean them up and paint them either coral or aqua. What say you interwebs masses? Do you have a color preference?