When I was a little girl, my mother would get out a small vintage toy stove from her childhood for me to play with and I would delight at the detail, weight and sturdiness of the thing. It was no flimsy plastic playskool creation. I would play with it for hours.
And then there were the weekends with my grandmother. She was heavily involved in my life- and having been raised in the South she had a very clear idea about what she liked. And what she liked involved trolling antique stores for detailed wood pieces and classic chintz fabrics. I was enchanted by the musty dusty places with glass cases and fine china- asking what's that? Or that? Or THAT?
At around age 3, I began to get sick. First, I stopped eating and then sleeping too much and complaining of leg pain. My mother got dozens of opinions but doctors assured her I had the flu, an allergy, maybe needed an iron supplement. Then my grandmother got another opinion and demanded blood tests be done.
That's when we found out I had cancer.
I hated not being home. Some days we'd get up so early to make the seventy mile trek to the large hospital where I had chemotherapy that the sun wasn't even up. And the medicine would make me so tired that I'd sleep so hard that by the time I woke up again we were home and I'd sleep again until it was time to go back to the hospital.
Then, the treks stopped and I had to stay in the hospital all the time.
I just wanted to be home. These were the days before children's hospital rooms were decorated to feel like their room at home and I still remember the hospital room on a very high floor of the children's ward where the room was beige and buttons were everywhere. In one particular memory, the nurses tried to get me to take my medicine in my apple sauce and as soon as the bitter taste hit my tongue I started screaming. I don't know why- but I did. My mother and aunt had been down the hall but I was convinced suddenly that they had left me there. I threw myself on the floor and demanded to go home. Eventually it was my aunt who crushed the pill into a chocolate mousse and fed it to me. To this day I hate chocolate mousse. Not even it's velevety texture could hide the metallic sour taste of the medicine. I will never ever forget that taste.
As I got stronger, my grandfather began to put together scavenger hunts to pass the time. And I was amazed at the odd and delightful things I found at the end of the hunt. Unbeknownst to me, after noticing how much I loved to play with my grandmother's old clothes from the fifties- he began scouring antique stores for vintage clothes. He brought me vintage high heels, hats and old I Love Lucy style dresses to play dress up in. More than a few embarrassing pictures still get passed around of me with my little shorn head, wearing an old lacy slip, oversized sunglasses and giant red heels. It became my favorite game.
After I got better we moved from my grandparent's home back into an apartment. That didn't feel like home. And I cried, begging my mother to let me go back to my grandmother's house. As a compromise my grandmother kept a room for me at her house to visit often. White canopy bed, lace curtains, chintz wallpaper and china dolls on shelves.
As a tight single mom and daughter duo, my mother and I dreamed of living in a house with a tire swing and a backyard. But it was tough to pay rent. And by the time I graduated from high school we were still living in the same apartment complex. It just never felt like home. At least not the kind of home I envisioned in my head.
That's the funny thing about home- everyone has a different idea of an ideal one. To one person it could be a pie in the sky apartment in New York city. To someone else, a farmhouse in Vermont. For me, I never forgot the little room I had at my grandparent's house with the chintz wallpaper and the rows of china head dolls. I couldn't have explained my style back then, I just knew what I liked. And what I liked just happened to ooze antiquity.
When I got married in 2006 and found out I was having a baby in 2007 the first thing I thought about was- we need a home! But all we could afford in the big city of Los Angeles, CA was a small 700 sq foot apartment. Six months later we moved to the East Coast with only two suitcases in our hands, a baby in my arms and one paycheck in our pockets. But we had a home. A real one. At least that's how it felt. And I was determined to make it look like one.
I can honestly say that I might never have renewed my love affair with antiques so fervently had it not been for one thing. We couldn't afford to buy a damn thing. And I mean anything.
So I discovered thrift stores, estate sales, community yard sales, craigslist, flea markets and how to use both a sander and a paint brush to change a worn out dresser into shabby chic perfection. I was amazed by the stories behind each dresser, hutch or china cabinet. Many estate sales revealed the piece was a wedding present, belonged to a grandmother or was a cherished family heirloom. And don't even get me started on the items I find inside some of these throw aways. Pictures, earrings, books marked with notes, letters- because this is isn't just furniture- it was part of someone's life- it knows their story.
I slowly learned how to tell antique from vintage, reproduction from genuine and rare from mass produced. And as I learned more and more, I realized this was more than a hobby- this was a passion.
We didn't completely furnish our first home until over a year after we moved in; and I'm not too proud to admit that I scoured a nearby affluent community on trash day- picking up many pieces of furniture ready to picked up for the dump. You'd be surprised what rich people are willing to throw out simply because it's chipped or missing a knob. I once carried a cherrywood headboard two miles after watching someone throw it in on the side of the road.
Tomorrow will be my and my husband's eighth wedding anniversary. We live in a different home now- but many of the cast offs I originally found or rescued still reside in our home. But more than learning how to spot a project piece I've learned that home is wherever you surround yourself with love and treasure.
So, next time someone asks me why in the world I spend so much time in antique stores- and think old stuff is so important- maybe I'll just smile and say- it's a long story.
Until next time,
The Vintage Snob
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