What I Did While I Was Snowbound

It did finally get old and I'm grateful for the thaw and the warm temperatures but I LOVE snow days!  I get to stay home.  I get to focus on me and mine.  I get to CLEAN! 

In fact, I went so laundry crazy in my newly-unearthed laundry room that I broke the washer!  

On snow days, if I so desire, I get to exercise one of my favorite freesourcefull challenges:  having to work exclusively with what's on hand.  I want X.  I have to come up with X out of only what I have in the house.

This time, what I wanted was shelves between the kitchen and the living room.  I know open spaces are good but, in my world, keeping the cats out of the living room became the priority.  The cats definitely do NOT need their own sofa!

My initial vision was of two neat, tidy tower shelves flanking some vintage windows that I had on hand from a house that was torn down.  This plan quickly blew away with the realization that I had nothing on hand that would suffice as towers.  So I took a quick prowl through the garage.

For years I have gathered old wooden fruit and vegatable crates whenever I find them for a steal ($2 or so).  They've been stacked on the fridge in the garage awaiting inspiration.  Inspiration finally came!

I stacked the crates and nailed one set of them to the wall and the other to a support board. 

Then, as I always do, I had that panic moment where I was positive this was the worst idea ever and that it just looked totally rinky dink and shabby (and not in a chic way!) but then (as it always does) it all come together and I think I like it.

My teetering towers semi-secured, I prowled around for fun stuff to put on the shelves -- stuff I WANT to look at (my mantra is: "shelves mean you get to have more cool stuff!"): Mark's milk bottles, Coca-Cola bottles, and vintage soda bottles with obscure names, little drawers, a couple of vintage Fiestaware pieces, my vintage recipe file, chalkware ship bookends, a trio of clocks, a red teapot from my friend Kathy, the toy car that Matt's father played with as a child, an old Army first aid kit box, a favorite basket made of a wicker woven together with an old coffee can, and a vintage photograph of construction workers eating lunch on a soaring beam during the construction of the Empire State Building.  There are also sign letters -- a capital "R" and a lower case "a" because, back in the 70's when CB radios were all the rage and my grandfather and I were fishing and driving buddies, my grandfather's CB "handle" was "Big R" (his name was Romayne) and mine was "Little a".

Two boxes of my mother's and grandmothers' cookbooks came out of the attic.  I've felt guilty for stashing them there.  There is so much family history in those books that they needed to be a part of our daily kitchen -- especially now that the girls to cook so much.  There are cookbook compilations from schools we've attended, family churches, junior leagues, the air force base in my home town, even a departed cousin's memorial cookbook.  There are two sets of Helen Corbett's cookbooks -- clearly my mother and grandmother respected this woman in ways I will have to discover.  Also included on these shelves is my grandmother's copy of Julia Child's cookbook "The Art of French Cooking" that I gave to Emily a couple of Christmases ago along with copies of the book and the movie "Julie and Julia" (a great concept story about a woman named Julie who set out to cook every recipe in Julia Child's cookbook in 365 days).

On the backside of the stacked crates I hung simple burlap curtains and added three globes from my collection and a vintage ice chest on top of a vintage chalk-painted sideboard.  I am quite pleased with the way all this looks from the living room.

As much as I love them, I keep catching myself feeling a bit reluctant and ashamed to present these shelves to the world.  I worry that they might look trashy and junky.  I often find myself trying to fit into a cookie cutter concept of "perfection" (whatever that is) that I think I see around me.  But then I realize, when I shake off the "shoulds" and the "perfects", that I find so much more meaning in the old and the imperfect, in those things that have character showing and stories to tell and that have survived time.  Like the rich roadmap of wrinkles on elderly hands, these items present family history, social history, and a visual journey that sleek perfection simply cannot.  I hope you concur.  If you do not, I believe you're missing out -- and you're probably reading the wrong blog!

Laundry Relics: An Historical Tour

I promise this is the last post about my laundry room! 

When I excavated the laundry heaps recently, I unearthed a lot of family history that I had forgotten was even in there and I am delighted to be reacquainted with it.  It means a lot to me to have the spirit of my foremothers in there working alongside me.  I almost feel like they keep me company during the mundane tasks of laundry.

This trio of implements from the past is a composite of grandmothers.  The iron stand belonged to my paternal grandmother (Elizabeth Carlock Sturdivant) and probably belonged to her grandmother (Georgianna Scott) as well (it says 1894 on it and my grandmother wasn't born until 1908) and definitely belonged to the aunts that raised her (Aunt Emily and Aunt Bess).  The rug beater belonged to my maternal grandmother (Gladys Bacon Baker).  The iron handle used to lift the covers on an old iron stove belonged to Matt's grandmother (Ida Burgess Harjo) (Matt is not the least bit of a saver of objects to I've glommed on to his family heirlooms to keep them safe for our girls).  I love how these three items hang together and bring together three sides of my daughters' family tree in one spot.

The larger of these irons belonged to my grandmother (Elizabeth Carlock Sturdivant) and the smaller one (on top of the books) belonged to Matt's grandmother (Ida Burgess Harjo). 

The larger of these two washboards belonged to Matt's grandmother (Ida Burgess Harjo).  It's been chewed on by rats which makes it all the better!  I found it in a shed behind her old farm house in Wolf, Oklahoma.  Matt's father was born in that farmhouse and returned to live there in his retirement years.  The smaller of the washboards, I must confess, I bought at a thrift store. 

If you look closely, on the near under the washboards, you'll see my mother's honey bottle that I use to hold stray buttons.  I also use the cork stopper as a pin cushion.  Next to that, is an old coke bottle with a shaker top that belonged to my maternal grandmother (Gladys Bacon Baker).  I remember her using it to sprinkle water onto clothes before she ironed them in the days before spray bottles.  It was eventually replaced by a repurposed windex bottle filled with water but I will always remember fondly this old-fashioned precursor to a simple spray bottle. 

I slipped my grandmother's (Elizabeth Carlock Sturdivant) vintage floral china into a little nook (upper left) where it would be safe but where I could also see it.  AND it goes with the wall color!  These pieces are not something that I would use or display in any other room, I am so happy to have a place to honor them.

The stack of violet print towels (upper left) came from my father's house.  Actually, they came WITH my father's house when he bought it because they matched the violet wallpaper in the little under-the-eaves bathroom adjoining the room where I always stayed when I went to visit him.  Once the maid's room, I loved the little room with the sloped walls at the top of the back stairs that went up from the kitchen -- TOTALLY my kind of room!  The towels take me right back there and remind me of those days.

Though not an heirloom, I LOVE keeping the iron and the ironing supplies in this reproduction metal bread box.  The metal means that I can put away a hot iron and not have to worry!  Plus, it just looks neat -- AND, the girls know what it means if someone says "Is it bigger than a bread box?"!

On the shelf above the washer and the table for folding are a glass measuring bowl, two vintage glass juicers, and a fancy glass lamp.  The bowl came from Matt's grandmother's farm.  One of the juicers belonged to my maternal grandmother (Gladys Bacon Baker).  The other I bought for $1.  The glass lamp, though it didn't belong to a grandmother, looks like it could have and probably DID belong to someone's grandmother!

I made these basket labels using one of my favorite techniques.  I color copied a favorite striped pattern from a shower curtain onto cardstock and then cut it down to make labels.  They have a paper clip glued to the backside that hooks into the wicker basket to hold them on.  The baskets I found at a place that no longer exists.  I miss it because they had tons of baskets for $5 each (and larger baskets for $10 each) so it was easy to get lots of matching baskets for very little money.

Ok, now I'm done with the laundry room!