Written by Eileen
My friend Barbara and I always talked about how we were going to open a sort of thrift shop and call it “Tattered Treasures”, and we joked about how between the two of us the shop would have a full inventory. I love almost anything old. I will go to flea markets and rummage sales to scout out any old piece of lace or embroidery, chipped vases, old tin cans, anything time-warn that looks useful (to me) and can be re-purposed. I especially love old furniture. I was never attracted to ‘fine antiques’, but old, used, even abused furniture sitting on the side of the road is something I have a hard time passing by now. Peeling paint, beautiful! Scratched and marred, what history! Ring marks, even more endearing! Most of my family and friends know this, and my husband and I have acquired some of our most prized possessions because family and friends were kind enough to rescue them from the garbage and deliver them to our home. My friend Barbara was just telling me how she recently picked up a small chest of drawers that was put out for the trash, she took it home, painted it, changed the drawer pulls and is using it as a lingerie chest. I am so jealous!
There’s a warehouse near us filled with both antiques in excellent condition and what I like to call the tattered treasures. My husband and I go there quite often just to browse, and invariably I’ll find something to my liking, to which Ray always protests “But where are you going to put it? We have no more room in the house for another piece of furniture!”, and he’s right. The salespeople of course always side with me and say that a place can always be found for something you love, and they are right too. They also go on and on about how they will ‘fix up’ and ‘recondition’ whatever it is I have my heart set on and my response is a resounding “NO!!” I love the broken, the bruised, and the battered.
I no longer want my house filled with furniture that anyone has to be afraid to use, I love that my family and friends can come over and feel very comfortable about putting their feet up on coffee tables, and relaxed enough to put a cup down without first searching for a coaster, our house is a very ‘lived in’ home and we do not have nor do we want a museum quality to anything in it.
I didn’t always used to feel this way. I used to fret about every spill, about every tear, and about every little nick in the furniture. I really did a disservice to my kids when they were young. I’m sure I sent them the message that my ‘things’ mattered more to me than they did. Believe me, I do not advocate having a lack of respect for your home or the things provided in it, I just learned over the years not to place such an importance on having/keeping my furniture pristine.
I think it struck me years ago when one of our dogs ate through the leg of an oak dining chair (brand new dining set), and then he went on to chew the bottom of the buffet, along with a corner of the china closet, and I decided it’s not worth having nice, expensive things. Then a light bulb went off in my head. That dining set has long been given away and replaced by an almost indestructible marble table (hot dishes and spills have no power here), and big, old, heavy mismatched dining chairs, almost equally indestructible (but hard to lug around when you are vacuuming!). I love all my old pieces, and I think my most favorite is an old teak, beefy-looking coffee table that came complete with scratches, deep grooves, and water marks, just waiting to be perfected with even more abuse from family and friends. And as I replace each piece of furniture I do it with an eye for comfort both for my own family and for any guests, and also for my own sanity. ‘New’ furniture has no attraction for me anymore, in fact, I look around my house for things that can be replaced, and I have my family saying, “Let me have first dibs on anything you’re giving away!” Most people replace the old with the new, but I’m looking to replace the new with tattered treasures.
Loading ...
Comments
12 Responses to TATTERED TREASURES
Eileen- I love this whole piece. I like furniture that can actually be used as well. I like to be comfortable. I absolutley adore little shops like the one you have described. I like the smell in those places….. weird I know.
Really nice post, Eileen. You need to come over to my parent’s house. Of course, to my mom, they are all antiques and all worth quite a bit of money. I always tell her that they are only worth what you can actually sell them for. I love old furniture and old pieces also. Not necessarily for my house and how I have it furnished right now, but I do love them.
I love the idea of furniture you can use w/o worry. I will always have those few treasured pieces I try to keep nice, but I want everything else to be functional and/or comfortable. I love to go to yard sales and flea markets. My dad started taking me to auctions and indoor flea markets when I was very little. He was always looking for tools and I would get a couple of bucks to spend, usually on books, I don’t remember many toys back then. But, I do remember him buying me the game Mousetrap at an auction. Going to the flea market has been a long-time family past-time. I love the auctions for deals on modern furniture. By modern, I mean the 70′s classic, maybe 60s. The nice solid Duncan Phyfe or Lane stuff when they still made that style out of real wood. Everyone is interested in the antiques. The non-antique furniture can usually be bought for a song. It’s “criminal” for how cheaply some pieces go or may not even be able to sold. The trick is getting it home as you must haul it yourself. Since it’s a lifestyle, I’m very particular about what I bring home. I have been trying to simplify for years and I still seem to have too much. My younger days had a silly purchases that sat in the garage. Now the fun is to stand there and decide if I really really want it while a friend pushes me one way or another. We have a lot of fun. I also like to find those special treasures for friends to use for a gift giving time.
Eileen, wonderful article. And I really like your larger message about a home being made for comfort and not to display “things.”
I have to admit in my younger days, I was probably guilty of thinking “newer” is better. Sometimes I still think that way. I have to change my way of thinking, however. It’s amazing to me the craftmanship that went into furniture 50 or more years ago. Nothing like the throw-a-way pieces from Ikea today.
I do have a few tables and a typewriter from my grandfather. The typewriter, in particular, evokes a sense of pride and belonging in me. Maybe I’ll write about that someday…
Oh, my furniture is well-worn. I think I may be calling it “tattered treasures” too. It has a nice, comfortable, inviting ring to it, doesn’t it? Eileen, I have never seen your home, but I feel like I’d be comfortable and welcome there.
I am a real 50s – 60s type person. I was born in the 50s and have very fond memories of my childhood in the sixties. Anyway, I love all of the furniture from that period and I think it is because of that.
Does anybody else here like going to yard sales?
Great piece Eileen!
Some of my favorite furniture were “found” items! An old veneered sideboard in my living room was purchased for $30 in 1987 from one of my first roommates who thought it was old and ugly. It looks like new – hardly a scratch on it! I have an old armoire from my brother’s estate (he passed away in the early nineties). It still has the garage sale price of $30 on the inside of the mirrored door!
My living room sofa and chairs were my mother’s and grandmother’s – they were purchased in 1968 and were covered with plastic slipcovers for nearly 40 years. When my Grandma died a few years back, I asked my mom if I could have her red sofa and gold club chair. My mom had another gold chair just like it, so now I have a pair! Besides the fact that they are literally like new because they were covered for years, I love that they are all “normal” sized furniture items – something that very hard to find these days when everything is BIG!
I began collecting old bridal portraits several years ago and eventually I will have a wall or a room with all of them on display!
Pam – I have a triple dresser and mirror from the sixties – I think it’s Lane brand. My dad found it in the alley when I had little to no furniture. He restored the entire top with tongue oil (?) and you would never know it ever looked shabby. We have it in our guest bedroom. I love the clean lines of the 50-60s items, too. They fit nicely in smaller spaces!
Ann, I love yard sales, thrift shops, flea markets, second-hand stores, and garbage-picking! I have found so many treasures in other peoples trash piles!Nancy, I love your idea of the vintage bridal portraits. I have been collecting vintage baby clothes and I’m trying to collect vintage baby hangers for them. I hang them in the windows of my back (three season) room instead of curtains!I never used to look at furniture this way, I hated old furniture at one time and would never think of allowing it in my home. Now I see an old piece and I want to give it a home! And I’m loving that whole shabby chic style of pastels and faded florals, it just all looks so comfortable and so inviting to me.Unfortunately my house is now all beige, brown, rust, gold, and green! I’ve been told to paint everything white, but I really have a hard time taking a paint brush to old wood. If it is in it’s original state, then I have a tendency to want to leave it that way.Thanks, everyone, for all your kind comments!
I do yard sales. I love them as much as the flea market. Nancy, that is going to be a neat wall of vintage bridal pics. I love the idea of how that will look. What an original idea.
Eileen -
The baby clothes for a valance in your three season room is so fun! I
love it! I’m getting ready to have some old artwork of mine and my
hubby’s framed for one of our two very long hallways!
Don’t paint your woodwork. I LOVE old original woodwork. You can always paint the walls a fun color – paint changes so much!
Lily -
There are still many I have yet to frame. I just saw a way of matting a
vintage bridal portrait that I really like. It’s a solid black matte
behind the photo and then an off white matte around the top – leaving
the photo floating between the two mattes. One of the other reasons I
haven’t hung them up yet is because I’m not sure if the room I want to
hang them in will eventually be a baby nursery again! Ha ha. Guess I
need to get my priorities straight! LOL!
Loved this article. I have to admit, I do like nice furniture but years of kids and dogs and cats, bicycles and tricycles in the hall, salamanders frogs and turtles on the kitchen table, and I gave up. My beautiful Pottery barn velvet couch had to go, otherwise I found myself trying to keep the kids from ever sitting on it. At some point you do make the choice between a house where the kids are more important or the furniture is, and I don’t want to live in a museum with velvet ropes around my “nice” things and the kids sitting on the floor!
I have been lucky to get old furniture from my grandparents, parents, and even siblings when they got new nice matching sets of things and have made a very eclectic family room that way, that actually manages to all hang together, with a fat leather couch that looks better the more worn it gets, along with a prized end table where my daughter was practicing writing her name when she was small – on paper, but clutching the pen in her fist so tightly it scratched the finish, and that 14 year old graffiti I would never sand off, along with the rings from endless cups of juice or soda during movie night. My one hold out is the dining room, because we never use it, or use it about twice a year, I did go nice in there with a new set, and that room somehow makes it okay for me to have more relaxed and battered rooms elsewhere – I just tell myself, this is what your whole house would look like if you didn’t have a family, and that chills me out!
I can always go in the dining room and observe its pristine beauty, but very thankful not to have a whole house like that where you never trip over anyone’s sneakers or have the vacuum marks stay in the rug longer than 20 minutes. I know in another 8 or 9 years the house will be too clean and quiet anyhow, I will be wishing for a skateboard propped up somewhere or a bowl of tadpoles instead of a perfect hibiscus, on the kitchen table.