Category: Off-Grid Self-Sufficient Living

Amish Made Products

Old-fashioned online General Store offers Amish-made products, handcrafted goods, and wares from over 100 Amish shops and factories across the USA.

Many know of the Amish for their beautiful handcrafted furniture, quilts, and wooden crafts.  What most don’t realize is that the Amish are still making the old vintage non-electric products and goods that were being used at the turn of the Century.

These old-time products are still available online at Cottage Craft Works .com an online general store filled with hard to find vintage products being made and used by the Amish.

From solid wood, Amish, handcrafted furniture, retro vintage kitchen wares, to Amish organically grown grains and flour you will find it in this refreshing trip back in time when quality USA made products were made to last a lifetime and beyond.

While many marvels over and collect these vintage antiques, the Amish are still hard at work in their small shops and factories continuing to make these old-time products to support their continued horse and buggy lifestyle.

As the country rebuilt from the Great Depression and electricity became readily available a great shift in the types of products in demand also began to occur.

The country moved forward but the Amish way of life stood fast.  The old-fashioned off-grid products the Amish so depended on to support them soon began to be no longer available.

The Amish are very industrious and great business minded people so many began to either make those products again from the patterns and molds being discarded or they contracted with companies to continue making them for just the Amish people.

Even the Janome sewing machine company makes a treadle sewing machine for the Amish communities.  It has crossed over to become popular with non-Amish women who claim that it is easier to control the speed than their electric sewing machines.

People living around or within driving distance to the main Amish communities in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, have purchased Amish made products for years because of the quality and durability they offer.

It was not really until the Y2K that the buy Amish products phenomenon really began to materialize.  Before then it was simply buying American made to protest the massive loss of American jobs and the lacking quality of imported products.

The Y2K fear of losing grid power was a real concern of many who sought out the Amish off-gird products to prepare for possibly the worse.

Even though the clock struck midnight on the year 2000 and the world woke up just like another day, the discovery of just how well the Amish products worked brought on a new wave of people looking for the Amish American made products.

The reality of losing grid power for extended periods has materialized on smaller scales from more frequent catastrophic storms.  The threat of terrorism or an attack on our grid is still very real.

Adding into the blend to be less dependent on the grid and modern day products is a strong desire to escape the fast pace lifestyle and return to a simpler time.

Others looking to find safer food supplies are unearthing back yard lawns and turning them into vegetable gardens. They are finding the cheaply made imported garden tools are just not worthy of serious gardening to support a large family so they too are in search of American Amish made tools.

The proliferation of fast and prepared foods is taking a toll on our overall health. Cooking from scratch using all natural chemical free ingredients as the Amish still do is becoming very desirable making Amish made kitchen wares, products, and Amish organically grown foods also desirable.  Especially, when cooking for large families as the Amish do.

While most people won’t go back to the horse and buggy for transportation, do away with air conditioning, or even do away with television, the other aspects of living the simple life are gaining traction.

Most just want to once again have the opportunity to purchase an American made product that they can depend on for a lifetime as early generations were able to do.

The Stevens family founders of Cottage Craft Works searched long and hard for over 30 years to find quality Amish made products for their own use and now offer these hard to find oddities via their online general store at www.cottagecraftworks.com

Many of these Amish products are not available on the mainstream Internet or anywhere else. Cottage Craft Works has developed exclusive relationships with several Amish shop owners to supply unique products for them.

Products such as the folding Singer Featherweight reproduction card tables and J & P Coats thread spool cabinet were developed by Paul Stevens and then contracted with an Amish shop to build for just for Cottage Craft Works customers.

Categories: Amish made products, Hand Crank Kitchen Appliances, Kitchen Wares, Made in America Home and Garden Products, Off-Grid Self-Sufficient Living, Old-Fashioned Vintage Kitchen Gadgets Tags: Tags: , , , ,

Vintage kitchen gadgets, old-fashioned kitchenware

Old-fashioned vintage kitchenware gadgets from the Amish. Old time vintage products, goods, wares used by Amish self-sufficient off-grid lifestyle.

At the turn of the Century most, every household used some these durable kitchen gadgets and cooking utensils to prepare meals at home.

As electricity began to develop most people opted to become wired creating a monumental shift to electric-powered appliances and kitchen gadgets.

Interesting today families with the most modern gadget equipped kitchens typically eat more meals outside of the home than did their parents and grandparents who grew up in the early 1900s.

The Amish with their large families has held steady to the traditions of old-fashioned cook from scratch home cooked meals. They still prepare and cook all that food without grid power.

Because of the concerns of how large companies have manipulated our countries food chain creating less healthy choices many people are trying to turn back time to cook more family meals at home from scratch.

Many are also trying to become less dependent on the grid power concerned with its vulnerability from storms, terrorist and computer system overload and glitches.

They can become frustrated quickly because most of the hand operated kitchen gadgets of today are cheaply made copies of the originals used at the turn of the century.

The cutting edges dull very quickly, the gears don’t mesh well, the plastic parts often break or the product just doesn’t work at all.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the Amish began to see their mainstream suppliers of these vintage products disappear as the new more modern electrified items were in higher demand.

The Amish began to transform into making their own old time gadgets to supply the next generations of Amish families.

The scale began to tip back to the Amish American made goods when the large discount stores began driving down the prices with cheaper made imported products.  At some point along the journey companies also figured out the concept of making things to wear out quicker so that they would have the opportunity to resell the item again in a person’s lifetime.

The loss of American industrial jobs has created a strong movement to buy American made products.  Many of those products are made in and around various Amish communities across the nation using Amish factory workers.

The year 1999 really placed a spotlight on the Amish quality products as Y-2K buzz had a lot of people worried if they would have grid power when the clock struck midnight into the year 2000.

Even though the Y2K computer shut down never materialized the threat still remains a real potential of losing grid power for extended periods of time due to some type of attack on or a malfunction in the computer networks that control our nationwide electrical power.

Those who have experienced major storm damage can already attest to the fact of living without grid power for weeks and months has become a common reality.

Finding some these old time kitchen gadgets and cooking utensils is not easy as Amish off-grid also means off the internet.

Sure you can find all kinds of Amish handcrafted furniture and quilts online but finding the really good stuff comes to finding sites specializing in Amish self-sufficient old-fashioned products like Cottage Craft Works.com

Cottage Craft Works is a small family owned business who still answer their phone and provide old-fashioned one on one customer service.  The Stevens family have spent several decades exploring the Amish back roads finding vintage products for their own home and have been offering those products online now for over a decade to others who want to buy American made quality products.

Cottage Craft Works is one of the largest sources of Amish made products, goods and wares anywhere on the internet allowing for one stop shopping from the comfort of your easy chair.

You can explore this one of a kind emporium at www.cottagecraftworks.com

It’s like waking up in an earlier transformation back into time exploring an old country general store chalked full of vintage merchandise and wares.

 

Categories: Hand Crank Kitchen Appliances, Kitchen Wares, Off-Grid Self-Sufficient Living, Old-Fashioned Vintage Kitchen Gadgets Tags: Tags: , , , , , ,

Discover Amish USA Made Products, Wares, Goods, Furniture

Handcrafted Amish products, wares, goods, furniture. American made products are very desirable, Amish American made products are in even higher demand.

Cottage Craft Works.com is one of the largest online retailers of Amish USA made products from over 100 Amish cottage based shops and factories.

Shopping the vast online store is like taking a trip back to the late 1800s and early 1900s in a time machine.  It was a time when America made products were made to last lifetimes and beyond to the next generations.

Serving the general public for over a decade Cottage Craft Works has developed a solid reputation of old-fashioned integrity and customer service.

The folks at Cottage Craft Works have explored the deep back roads of America in search of high-quality Amish made vintage products that are still being made and used just like they were before the country moved over to electricity in the most rural areas.

The results of their searches have assembled one of the most comprehensive Amish product listings on the Internet with many hard to find items not available anywhere else.

Products and gadgets are made from durable materials for hand power off-grid use and work with ease.  Handcrafted furniture is made from solid wood to become family heirlooms.  Planned obsolesces is never a consideration.

Products are simple, geared for common sense practical uses and not to simply mass produce as cheaply as possible to sell products to the masses.

Somehow the Amish never got caught in the middle of Americas move from a self-sufficient conservative stewardship of the environment to a prefoliation of cheaply made toxic imported products to fill landfills.

In the mid-1900s the Amish who were dependent on the same products used in an off-grid America soon discovered those products were fading as the rest of the country moved on to more modern times.

They began to transform their farming and woodworking skills into small metal working and machine shops to continue to make and supply those goods and wares to other Amish communities.

Many Americans who became fed up with wasting money and throwing out the cheaper made products turned to the Amish communities to continue to purchase the durable USA made products.

It was not until the Y-2K scare that the general public took stock in the dependency on the modern times in their everyday life.  Amish products became in high demand as people prepared to live off the grid as the clocks struck midnight and presumably the computer controlled world would cease to operate.

A phenomenon was discovered by many that some of those old-fashioned hand-operated gadgets were actually easier and quicker to use than their electrical cousins.

Although you can find much cheaper copycat products being imported they just don’t work as smoothly as the Amish made products. Just a simple imported egg beater can be very frustrating to use compared to the Amish made Country Egg Beater.

The same goes on down the line with cooking utensils to gardening tools.  Amish made products are just made to last and to serve large families.

Many women are going back to the treadle sewing machines used by the Amish as they feel they can better control the speed of the treadle sewing machines over the electric sewing machines.  The Janome 712T sewing machine was built for Amish families but surprisingly it is one of the most popular items order with a reproduction treadle sewing cabinet from Cottage Craft Works by non-Amish women.

As simplicity goes so does the practicality of routine household chores. The Amish don’t use dishwashers but still take care of mounds of dishes produced in a day by their large families.  Clothes dryers are not an appliance that you find in an Amish home.  So, the Amish rely on air drying of dishware and laundry using a variety of drying racks.

A large stainless steel kitchen sink drainboard is a very popular item at Cottage Craft Works as well as the many different folding wall and floor clothes drying racks.

Many order the Amish organically grown grains and stone ground flour.  Whole and sprouted spelt is some of the most popular grain products as well as the rolled oats.

It would take an entire website to discuss all the wonderful Amish products available so take a look yourself at www.cottagecraftworks.com

 

Categories: Hand Crank Kitchen Appliances, Kitchen Wares, Made in America Home and Garden Products, Off-Grid Self-Sufficient Living, Old-Fashioned Vintage Kitchen Gadgets Tags: Tags: , , , , , ,

Water Well Hand Pump

Water Well Hand Pumps, American made since 1886.  Heller Aller deep and shallow well water pumps. Force, pitcher, windmill, deep well pumps and parts.

The oldest and most reliable water well hand pump companies has survived centuries up against modern day electric water well pumps.

These quality water well hand pumps are still being used on ranches and remote off-grid locations across the US and around the World. Paired with an Aermoter windmill the 50L Double Acting Force Pump is still the standard for Western ranchers to keep fresh water available for remote pastures.

 

model-fig-t-hitzer-pump-5

Heller Aller Fig-T Brass Cylinder Pitcher Cistern Pump

The Brass Cylinder Fig T and the PHB force pump has been the standard for homesteads since they were first introduced in the 1800s.

Both the 50L double acting deep well and the PHB shallow well pitcher cistern pump allow water to be pumped uphill or up into an overhead water tank for a gravity flow water supply.

 

model-50-l

Heller Aller 50L Double Acting Force Pump

The 190-A is a set length pump designed for shallow wells and cisterns up to 20’.  They can be used in deeper wells by dropping the cylinder deeper and adding a foot valve.

The 192-A is a cousin to the 190-A specifically designed to be used with a windmill.

Widely used by the Amish communities which in fact rallied to have a company they worked for to purchase the Heller Aller company and molds to keep the pumps and pump parts available for future Amish generations.  These water well pumps remain as popular by non-Amish who are living off the grid or in remote locations for their only water source.

Heller Aller also offers an offset well cap for 6″ well casings so that a hand well pump can be added to an existing well with an operating submersible electric well pump for emergency backup use.

Don’t be fooled by the cheap imported water well pumps, they are made to be more ornamental yard décor instead of a serious main or backup source of a family’s water supply.

Cottage Craft Works an online old-fashioned general store not only features the complete new Heller Aller hand water well pumps they also carry all the repair parts to fit and rebuild old Heller Aller Pumps.  This is rather refreshing as other self-sufficient homestead suppliers only sell you the pumps and don’t seem to be at all interested in customer support or the parts leaving you high and dry when your pump leathers dry out.

Frustrated with having to replace frost proof yard water hydrants every few years? Cottage Craft Works also carries the Amish made 401 water hydrant.  This hydrant has a child and lady friendly operable stainless steel head and lever built to commercial standards.  The hydrant also incorporates a Stainless rod and can be even upgraded to a stainless pipe and foot valve for those areas that have acids in the soil that corrode and deteriorate traditional galvanized and brass valve components.

 

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Amish Made 401 Hydrant

 

 

 

 

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Clothes Drying Racks, Clothes Lines, Dryers

USA made folding floor and wall drying racks. Amish heavy duty drying racks and clotheslines to air dry laundry items. Umbrella, accordion wall mounted rack

Indoor and outdoor laundry clothes drying racks can save dollars, reduce carbon footprint and assist those who want to reduce dependency on the grid.

The Amish still make and use a variety of drying racks and clotheslines to air dry daily items up to and including the weekly family laundry. Like most, they also struggle with small spaces and weather related elements that make outside drying impossible.

Cottage Craft Works .com has assembled various folding drying racks and outdoor clotheslines on their back-to-basics online store at www.cottagecraftworks.com

There you will find all types of USA made folding floor and wall drying racks used by the Amish. They also provide several outdoor drying solutions from portable clothes lines to fold down drying racks and pulley mounted clotheslines.

Accordion Wall Racks

The popular accordion wall mounted are very versatile taking up very little space when they are folded yet providing several feet of drying space when they are extended. Folding accordion wall racks work extremely well in laundry rooms, mud rooms, and garages. These racks come in finished oak or unfinished poplar wood based on budget and needs.

Folding Umbrella Wall Clothes Drying Racks

Cottage Craft Works offers an economy version and a heavy-duty umbrella folding clothes rack that fits neatly on a wall. They both expand out like a folding umbrella to extend wooden arms for hanging towels and other small garments. The heavy-duty rack provides up to 20’ of drying space and only takes up an 8” wide x 36” space on the wall when it is folded.

Folding Floor Clothes Drying Racks

A variety of sizes of the traditional floor folding drying racks is available. These are probably the most widely recognized drying racks ever made. They fold down for compact storage yet the larger sizes can provide up to 40’ of drying space. They are also handy for drying spices, flowers, and herbs.

Suspended Ceiling Clothes Dryer

vintage-british-clothes-drying-rack

A reproduction of a vintage clothes drying system that was made for small homes and apartments. Often hung from the kitchen ceilings as that is where most laundry was done in the olden days. These are still widely used in the UK and European homes where the living areas have very small square footage and every inch of space is at a premium.

The unit consists of two metal ends holding wooden drying slats. The unit hangs from the ceiling or overhead beam by rope and pulleys to be lowered for loading and unloading of clothing and linens. It pulls up next to the ceiling and out of the way to use the space for other activities until the items become dry. Makes good use of the warmer air that accumulates at ceiling height.

Pulley Mounted Clotheslines

If you have traveled through the Pennsylvania and Ohio Amish communities during weekdays, you can’t help but notice the bright color dresses and Amish traditional clothing blowing in the wind high up from a post or barn peak leading to the Amish house.

These labor-saving clothesline systems allow the Amish housewife and children to load up all the daily wash on to a clothes line standing just outside the laundry washroom door. This comes particularly handy when snow and ice or muddy conditions exist and the weekly laundry must be done.

This concept is not new or specific to the Amish way of life as pulley mounted clotheslines were used before dryers were invented in apartment buildings where clothes lines would span over city streets and alleyways.

The Amish pulley mounted clothes line systems from Cottage Craft Works come in two sizes based on the distance that you will be mounting the outbound pulley. The larger pulley system is designed to out up to 150’ while the smaller system is best suited for under 100’.

An optional elevator pole is available to be used at the base pulley to raise the line up to clear decks or curious kids and animals that might otherwise grab clean clothes off the line.

Portable Clothes Drying Lines

For those wanting more substantial outdoor clothes drying systems but don’t want the permanent post option Cottage Craft Works offers a portable outdoor clothes drying system that can be moved around the yard or in and out of a garage.

The unit consist of slide together square aluminum tubing that looks like a giant hammock frame. The lines stretch across the top using included line tightening devices to provide up to 72’ of drying lines in only a 12’ x 8’ space.

This system is perfect for summer camps, rental homes, vacation cottages or other locations where permanent clothes line post are just not an option.

Small Garment and Sock Drying Ring

This just might be one of the handiest drying systems you will ever own. It amazingly holds a lot of items. It consists of two aluminum rings equipped with clothespins hanging by chains from a single hook. It comes in handy for hanging socks, delicates, dish rags and other small clothing items. Perfect if you have a baby in the house to quickly wash out tops and bibs. It also works well for drying herbs and flowers.

Cottage Craft Works at www.cottagecraftworks.com is a full line online old fashioned general store chocked full of quality practical wares and goods used during vintage off grid times.

adustable-rack-detailfolding-wall-drying-rack-2clothesline-pulley-systemimg_3090-500-x-375drying-rack-wallpulley-operated-clothesline       sock-dry-ring

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