Vintage Radio Revamp with a Bluetooth Boost

 My husband and I have a soft spot for all things vintage. We are constantly thinking about several vintage meets modern projects and keeping an eye out for pieces to convert. Earlier this summer when we went to the Porter Flea in West Nashville, we both came home inspired by all of the wonderful artisans’ wares we saw. For my husband, that was a vintage radio that streams music through a bluetooth receiver. Here is our Vintage Radio Revamp with a Bluetooth Boost.

Needless to say, when I found these two radios on Craigslist (for $20 and only one street over from our house), I had to pick them up. As you can see, this radio (an Airline) was actually in worse condition than the other (a Westinghouse). You’ll just have to come on back next week to see what I do with that one!

Since we had two, he decided the Airline would be our trial run. Boy are we both pleased with the trial results. Unfortunately, all the innards of the Airline were completely fried. Power source, amp and speaker, even the antenna was like tissue paper and crumbled when we pulled it out. The Airline’s box was surprisingly made of pretty nice wood covered in dark brown paint. It was also completely covered in dust and paint splatters, plus filled with crusty dead spiders. I immediately abandoned Brandon to his endeavors at that discovery.

Since I wasn’t breathing down his neck, he skipped the usual approval process and made the executive decision without me to pull everything out, clean it and strip the box of that nasty paint. Then he came and got me to take pictures and discuss next steps. He’s pretty sharp. 

Since this was our experiment radio, Brandon volunteered to take this one to work with him after it was up and running. Since it was going to be “his” I suggested painting the screen a masculine army green to play up the nice wood tones. He also let me choose a bronzy copper to paint the knobs and needle. It looks manly and professional, very subdued compared with how the Westinghouse is turning out.

So that takes care of the outside looking pretty for the most part, but what about the actual “radio” part? Well, remember how I said the speaker, amp and power source were all shot? Yep, that meant there wasn’t really anything we could salvage for future operation on the Airline (but not the Westinghouse I’ll show you next week- squeee!). So we had to add not just a Bluetooth receiver, which we already had (we bought this Logitech Bluetooth Audio Adapter), but also a rechargeable potable speaker speaker (like this Mini Speaker System). It might have just been easier to buy an all in one like this Portable Wireless Bluetooth Speaker. [Affiliate links]. While he was at it, that essentially meant there needed to be a new power source too. Now she sings like a nightingale (or Katy Perry). We did keep the original base with the serial numbers and tags. Nostalgic until the end.

Because I love a dramatic before and after comparison, let’s take a little stroll down memory lane, shall we?

I admit my expectations were not so very high for this one, but she turned out beautifully. I really love the green for my veteran husband. I’m positive he loves listening to pandora streamed from his phone out of this cute little number. What do you think? She’s lovely right? Don’t forget to come back next week to see what I do with her sister, the Westinghouse!