Junk in the Trunk

   I wasn't fortunate enough to appreciate antiques and vintage items when my grandparents were still alive, although I do remember certain pieces like the old armoir that held toys.........or certain delicate looking trinkets on shelves.  And even though there was a basement full of tools that any man would've envied, there was never a trip to "grandmother's attic" when I visited.  I have imagined this scene lots of times from reading books and being a vintage junkie........there's a huge Victorian attic with lots of forgotten treasures hidden in the dark.......and there was always a chest.  You know, the big old chest that had linens and a wedding dress and quilts and tons of stuff put away in it, just waiting for someone to discover many years later.  So even though I never had a personal experience of finding such a thing on my own, I seem to have started one just out storage necessity.........

                                         It's at the foot of my bed in my bedroom.............

                     I realize I am very blessed with this piece, because even though it isn't from a grandmother or a great-great grandmother, it is an antique that my husband and I acquired a couple of years ago when his sister sold her house in New York, and with it some priceless antiques. This thing is ancient......

                                                            and it's pretty big................

                                                those are some heavy duty handles......

           Since I'm a collector and have always had more than I have display room for,
I started utilizing this trunk for storage.  It pretty much holds things I don't want
to part with or have just run out of a place for....

                                                         alot of my quilts are in here..........

                        There's a small collection of Steiff animals that I got as a child........

and a doll of my mother's, I always call her "Mary Jane"......she sleeps on the doll bed my grandfather made for me when I was little............

And I know this is kinda unsettling, but when I was about 6 I had a beloved
guinea pig, and when she died I held a wake on this doll bed.......I remember that so well; I know it's kinda morbid, but I was only 6, so I guess I can be excused on that one..........

There's some old hangers that used to be in my closet as a toddler.... I remember when I finally got the "normal kind" to hold my clothes up when these became too small.......

                             And then we come to the dressers.  For awhile I had this
                                               thing about vintage doll dressers.....

                                       they were sooo hard to find, and I never met one
                                                     I didn't love and had to have.....

there's just something so endearing about their small-ness (? is that a word?).....I'm a real sucker for anything miniature............

             and most of them have those adorable little graphics on them..........

                           this one has it's own miniature version of mirror-silvering........

I did find ways to use them...........a few of them still have little notes from my children tucked in the drawers

this one still has the little craft sticks my daughter made in elementary school to help her with chores.....

My idea was to somehow put these dressers on a shelf up high around her room, they're really kind of hard to display when you have so many. But the collection didn't happen overnight and I never got the shelf up. Eventually I knew she was way more crazy about animals and horses being in her room than old vintage dressers..........

so now the dressers are put away in the trunk, er, chest..........I'm not sure what I'll end up doing with them since I don't really have any space to display them;  It's hard to give up a collection of anything when you remember how long and passionate you were about it at one time!  I suppose if I keep them where they are, in that trunk, maybe, just maybe one day a little someone might be up in my attic snooping around, and open the lid to find these old toys..........

and while she turns away to go look for a box of something plastic to play with, her mother will get to experience the fun of going through an old chest in the attic!!!

                                            Here's wishing you all a wonderful week!!!

                                                                      devon :)


P.s. I've been adding to my Etsy shop lately, hope you will all take a look at the link on the sidebar and check out the vintage finds at Livin' In The Past !!!