this hawks nest

A few weeks back, a Whitefish Bay church hosted, as they have for the past 45 years, The Annual Antique Show. I'd never ventured to it or to anything like it before. And as I knew a few of the show's organizers, they let me walk around before it opened. I wanted to snap so many photos of things I found, but time was short and many of the vendors thought I was some teenager dazed and confused--they were less inclined to my photo snapping that I would hope. 

There were dozens of booths with items set up like this:

 I was drawn to almost everything on this shelf (and not the shelf itself). I like the pitchers on the second level, the wooden baskets on the third--particularly the black and green--the large pottery/jar on the fourth, and the storage boxes on the bottom.

My grandfather willed to our family two cedar chests: one from my grandmother's father, and one that my grandfather made and then gifted to his new bride in the 1930's. I love the wood grain you see below and the latch attached.

I turned around and found this, circa 1850's and going for just under $500:

Which I noted looks an awful lot like these, circa who-knows-for-sure and free from my grandparents:

I like ours the most. Both my mom and dad's moms would hunt around for antique furniture (they found what were considered antiques in the 50's, 60's, and 70's, where we might think of antiques as items from those decades!) and then, they would spend days and weeks refinishing and restoring them. We have a number of beautiful items passed down from both women. My sister owns a century-old pie rack (which is like a huge cupboard), and we each own a cedar chest. Momma Shedd is keeping the rest safe and sound for us. 

Back to the dresser. I'm eager to find out just how old our dressers are. One has wooden pears for handles, the other shows grapes in a bunch. And while the darker stained dresser on the right has the drawers pulled out, you can see how unique it is (and yet both have them) to have drawers on the top of the dresser with space between.

I can't wait to make better use of them!

Lastly, I coveted these items for the majority of my visit:

The smallest were being sold at around $50, while the larger neared $200. I love everything about them: the color, the numbers, the color of the numbers, the little image below the numbers, the handles, and the general feel beneath my fingertips. I could have made happy use of every single one of these.


Sigh. Maybe someday.


Happy Wednesday! Check back later, we'll be highlighting, at noon, a guest post that we think was lost in the shuffle.


icj,
~j

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