My grandmother has been alive for a very long time. She was born in 1912, and we celebrated her 100th birthday last summer. Just to give you a bit of perspective of how long ago that is, it's the year the Titanic sank, Harriet Quimbly became the first woman to fly across the English Channel, and New Mexico became the 47th state of the United states. Cowboys were still kicking about. World War I hadn't even happened yet! In other words, she's lived along time, and acquired a lot of cool, old stuff.
She's recently moved to an old peoples' home though (recently, as in after her 100th birthday), and as she won't be moving back into her house again and can't take everything with her at the old people's home, the process of dividing her things and selling her house has begun. At first I didn't think there would be that much I'd be interested in. I knew she had a lot of books, but I didn't think I'd want anything else. Once I was there though, it was a whole other story. There were so many treasures!
As you can see, I ended up with a lot. These pictures don't show everything though. I ended up completely falling for a set of china (not the teacup set pictured above), and two chairs. One is briefly pictured above, while the other is a wooden chair that was painted bright orange by mother in the sixties, as part of her orange painting spree where she painted half my grandmother's summer house in the same colour. We used to spend summers there when I was a kid and I loved the bright orange then, but the coluor has faded a bit now so I have grand plans of giving the chair a new lick of paint. Mint? Grey? Or maybe follow my mother's bright example and go for a bright pink?
I also ended up with these adorable dessert bowls that I've already started using to keep my make-up, jewelry and hair accessories. Makes my dresser that much easier to keep tidy.
And yes, the coat hangers. I know this is potentially where I got a little bit too carried away. But then I hate wire or plastic hangers that get stuck in each other and break easily. These are all lovely and wooden, and I love the lettering on them. Not to mention the awesome coat hanger (pictured way above), with Svanhild embroidered. Yes, that's my grandmother's name, and yes, I'm named after her. Also, if you notice the coat hanger in the middle with the initials A.H. in the picture above, those are my great grandmother's initials. I don't think I've ever been this excited about coat hangers before.
Then there's the chest, which is probably my favourite. This chest once belonged to my grandmother's step father, and has his initials E.G. on the front. He was a train driver and this was his travel chest. As you can see, a sticker from Lillestrøm is still there. I absolutely love it and feel like I've got my very own treasure chest!
Oh and of course, a million books. I feel like I have a whole library wing now. Honestly, I don't think I'll ever have time to read them all!
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