Monday Memories--Mom's crystal goblets

We've been moving and shifting furniture for about a week, redistributing books to various resale locations, removing our huge cabinet for the TV, hanging different paintings, digging things out of cupboards, and washing what has been stored for years. None of this would have been possible without our son-in-law who not only has a dollie, but knows how to move furniture. The huge TV entertainment unit which had 6 pieces was the biggest challenge--two parts are in the garage awaiting a new home, and four have been rearranged for our living room. Yesterday I was explaining various pieces of glassware and china to my daughter, and which belonged to whom, me, my mother, grandmother, or great grandmother, my in-laws, or what country the memorabilia from our travels came from and what I found at garage sales 45 years ago.

 

 All I had was family lore for my mother's crystal water goblets. I knew my father bought the dozen for her at an estate sale during the Depression. Not sure she was thrilled since they had one baby and one on the way, but the goblets always had a place of honor in their home, and were rarely used. Now they are mine, and rarely used. My daughter sat down at the computer and in a few minutes had identified them as Cambridge Caprice clear, 1936-1958. Cambridge is in Ohio so I've been browsing the museum website and looked at the latest newsletter. Churches and community organizations would die for this sort of support. Hull Pottery which was also produced in Ohio and closed its doors years ago (I have a number of pieces) also has a very strong association with conventions and media. http://www.cambridgeglass.org/articles/ecb/ecb201611.pdf

 

Ready for dinner, tonight and tomorrow

We're having a casual Christmas Eve dinner before church. So I decided to set the table in the kitchen and then also set the table in the dining room for tomorrow. It will be a little cramped, but I can put all the food on the counter.  I have two sets of Christmas dishes and am using them both.  Unfortunately, they don't have serving pieces, so I have to do a work around. This Paul McCobb mid-century modern set was our original dining room table (has 2 leaves) with a matching china cabinet, and we purchased it in 1964 when we had a very small dining room (house on White St. in Champaign, IL). The house originally had a very large dining room, and we built a wall down the middle to make two rooms.  When I say "we," you know who did the work. In the mid-90s this set resided for awhile in our daughter's home until she bought a dining room set.  Recently I checked on buying two additional chairs thinking I'd move it back to the dining room, but it appears it is now the most expensive furniture in the house.  Two additional chairs would be about $3,000. All the tree lights, inside and out, are ready.

Our new living room couch—Friday Family Photo

Monday we went shopping for a couch—stopped at 3 stores, and finally purchased one at Kittles we had seen last week. When they told us the delivery charge we decided to take it with us—we were sure it would fit in my van because we’d moved one of our couches to the lake house during the summer (which is why we needed a new couch). So for 2 days the couch was in the garage in the van.  Wednesday our son and another man came and moved our living room couch to the family room, and brought in the new couch.

This is the couch in the van.

This is the couch in the living room. This couch is larger (taller) so we may have to get a larger painting.

This is the couch with a brown sheet from a twin set.  The stretch elastic bottom sheet works really well over the back cushions.  And they have already paid for themselves.  Last night our cat throw up her supper on the sheets, so I’ve already washed them.  Usually she throws up on the white carpet.  They were very inexpensive (100% polyester) and are an exact color match.

I’m now looking for pillows that will have both blue (chair) and brown.

Our new old couch for the cottage

We bought our 2nd home in Lakeside, Ohio (Lakeside Chautauqua) in 1988.  On the first walk through we said we’d definitely get rid of the couch which was probably about my age, sagging, and very heavy (had a pull out innerspring mattress). Well, we’ve finally done that, after 25 years!  We brought up our family room couch, purchased in 1993, which has all the colors of our cottage.  And I use the term “we” loosely, since my husband and son loaded it into my van in Columbus, and a neighbor helped unload it with a friend of his and helped my husband get it to the dump. It looks very nice, and isn’t as oversized as we thought.  In fact, it’s about 5 inches less deep.  Because it is a lighter color, the room looks larger.  Now then, at home the living room couch will go to the family room/office and we’ll have to shop for a new couch.

Paul McCobb retro furniture

Anything you search on the internet turns up in ads on anything else you read—online news sites or Facebook, etc. Early in our marriage we purchased Paul McCobb design furniture (modern for po' folk), and we still have it. Now it's worth more than anything in our house. After checking some retro-modern web sites, those ads are now pushing out the wigs and athletic shoes I looked for earlier in the summer.

Garth's Auctions--mid century modern

Early in our married life (1960s) I admired our friends who had Eames style furniture, but I think they are uncomfortable, and there must have been a million knock-offs in all sorts of weird colors.

I'm beginning to see why my Mom wasn't too excited about Grandma's furniture from the 1920s or 1930s. You hate to see your era become an "antique."

Garth's Auctions, Inc. - Auctioneers & Appraisers : Full Details for Lot 216

So I looked up a few Paul McCobb pieces of furniture (mostly designed late 50s) for the budget conscious that we bought around 1963. The prices are astounding, so I guess they are antiques now, too. But also, they are comfortable.

Rosie's done one thing right

Her chair. I saw a photo of her today in USAToday doing her Sirius XM radio show on satellite. It appears she's sitting in an Aeron Herman Miller chair. Oh, how I miss mine.

She's irreverent, irrelevant and irritating, but she loves Obama so she won't get get hassled for her opinion by the White House, which only complains about right wing opinions and tries to close them down. She'll probably have Anita Dunn, the Mao-admirer who told high school kids he was an example of choosing your own path in life (not mentioning he was responsible for the deaths of 70 million.) Maybe they could discuss body disposal.

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Flat Panel TVs

The other day we saw our neighbors' children haul away their TV armoire. They have a new flat panel TV which fits in their den (I use our den for my office and a 12 year old TV is in the living room in a nice cabinet and a 21 year old TV is in the family room).

The WSJ suggests as many as 40,000 armoires may be looking for new homes by the end of the year as they are moved out of hotels. Craig's List is loaded with them. Some liquidators have dropped the price to $50!

We have a cable box for that TV, so I think we can keep our living room set, although it's not HD. We watched a few minutes of a football game on an HDTV flat panel the other day, and I must say the picture was spectacular. But it still invades the room, so I don't mind keeping it behind closed doors. Maybe we could have someone remodel the back so it would be the same depth as the side units. I use the side units for displaying glass and pottery items and the drawers for table linens. I really need this unit!

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The Amish Vault

Returning from the lake yesterday, my husband stopped in Bucyrus to take a photo of the mural to use in his perspective drawing class which starts in two weeks. I assured him I already had it, but since the van was parked I hopped out and went across the street to see what the store Amish Vault was all about. Lovely store! Wonderful Amish made furniture, accessories with delightful gift items and artificial flowers with a coffee shop inside. Within 2 minutes I saw it. A headboard for our headless bed. In 1963 we bought a bedroom set, contemporary in oiled walnut, that we still love and wouldn't dream of giving up. But we didn't buy the bed--good thing too, because in those days there was no queen size. About 10 years ago, we bought something, but I really have never liked it. It's impossible to find a match--I haven't seen oiled walnut anything in years, and besides 1960s modern is collectible, but not in fashion. However, elm in a honey sugar stain is close, and mission style will work with modern, so I flagged down my husband who couldn't figure out where I was and he came in and looked. Within another 2 minutes, we'd grabbed the saleswoman and were talking about how we'd get it to Columbus. We've spent more time deciding which gas station will save us five cents a gallon on a ten gallon fill-up.

We made a down payment to hold it, and will come back with our Explorer on our next trip to the lake and hope it fits. The delivery charge was reasonable ($1 a mile) but we're about 60 miles from Bucyrus, so that would be $130 just to deliver it.

The matching dresser and chest had been purchased by someone else--and they didn't want the bed. Forty-three years from now they'll be sorry.

477 The Reunion

Books in my house have conversations with each other and me. They complain that they aren’t happy here at the condo because of the stationary shelving. They have to congregate and socialize with volumes of similar size instead of similar interests--as though our home were some sort of storage facility!

Books aren’t the only physical objects that speak to me. In the morning I take out a china cup decorated with rabbits that belonged to my Mother, and I say, “Hi, Mom, let‘s have tea.” When I need just a little coverage from the fall breezes I slip on Dad’s oversized, shabby, royal blue baseball jacket and say, “Thanks for the protection, Dad.”

Today I’ve planned a reunion for my parents’ bedroom suite from the 1950s. I’m guessing that the pieces have been separated for over 40 years. My father always suffered from painful back spasms and was a restless sleeper who rose before 5 a.m. to go out on his truck. So the earliest bedroom suite I remember is a deep reddish brown, hard rock maple set with twin beds, a dressing table with a mirror, and a five drawer tall bureau. There used to be a dressing table bench, but that seems to have disappeared.

In the 1960s I believe my parents converted to a king size bed and tried several styles, including a waterbed. The twin beds and dressing table went to the farm home of my grandparents which my mother was converting into a religious retreat center. They kept the bureau for their own use. After they gave the farm to my brother in the late 1980s, the beds and dressing table came to us in Columbus, and in a few years they migrated to our second home in Lakeside on Lake Erie.

Mother died in 2000 and Dad in 2002. Because his house was to be sold, children and grandchildren took what they could immediately after the funeral. We could just get the bureau into the back of the SUV. It came to live with us here in the condo guest room, and we brought the dressing table down from the cottage to keep it company. Today my husband and son-in-law are driving to the Lake in the remnants of Hurricane Ivan to bring the beds back to Columbus. Our double bed from the guest room and my daughter’s baby dresser (both green) will settle in at the Lake house to welcome guests there.

The room is freshly painted and matching bedspreads and sheets in moss green and pastels have been purchased. A “South Hannah Avenue” street sign will be attached to the wall. A painting of lilacs similar to those on the bush that decorated our yard on Hannah Avenue will hang in the room, and a 1950s photo of my parents will be on the dresser. Mother liked to read at night so I may put a book or two from the 50s near one of the beds. If my memory has failed here and the set originated in another house in another decade, just don’t tell me. I’m having too much fun planning this reunion.