Old Soul

I have become utterly and entirely obsessed with old things, as you may have noticed by the last few posts. It started out as a mild love but it is taking over my life, friends. TAKING OVER MY LIFE. I must be secretly 90 years old and my parents just never told me the truth about my birthday because they were ashamed to admit that they, along with my grandparents and older brother, are over 100 years old. 'Fess up, mom and dad... I'm on to you.

Yesterday I so forcefully begged Dave to help me make this beauty out of some old wooden crates we found in a storage barn last summer. He was all, "but I've already worked two jobs today and I have a headache. I need to relax." And I was like, "what's not relaxing about building some vintage storage shelves for our living room at 10 pm when you have to wake up at 5 am the next day?" Also, sorry about the super terrible picture. It's a phone picture from 11:00 pm.

I still need to find junk around my house to fill these little shelves with. Since it's right above the giant bean bag we have (ugliest/most amazing thing in our house,) I need to find things that 1. won't impale people sitting below 2. wouldn't break if they fell off 3. will be awesome. And because I left Missouri this weekend with some serious "old stuff" loot, I've got lots of goodies lying around.

Here are some pictures from the barn I picked on Saturday. (Side note: this barn is not from the farm pictured in yesterday's post. Yesterday's farm was not for picking... just for visiting and photographing; that house is on my grandmother's side of the family. Today's barn is from my grandfather's side of the family.)

This very cool orange crate came home with me and is now in my living room holding shoes. It's got a divider down the middle, so there's a bin for the husband and a bin for me, and it's big enough for me to fit like 8 pairs of shoes. There's hardly anything I like more than kicking my shoes off when I come home. And as an added bonus, now Dave won't have to trip over my shoes in the doorway!
Oh heavens do I love a good typewriter. That loud click-clack click-clack is one of the best noises, right? This sucker hitched a ride home with me and makes 2 vintage typewriters in my possession. One from each side of my family - a neat white and teal one from my dad's side and this one from my mom's.This lamp got a nice deep scrub when it got to my house and now sits patiently in the closet until I have a nursery someday.

I actually squealed when I uncovered this, which I'm sure is a shock to you. There were about 5 little trays like this full of beautiful costume jewelry. I snagged 2 lockets, a red and gold necklace-bracelet-clip on earring set, a little garnet heart ring that is much too small for me but much to small to pass up, a beautiful gold and salmon colored cameo ring that DOES fit me, and a couple of other miscellaneous bobbles.
Knowing that these things came from my great-grandma Etta (in the blue suit) is definitely special. It means much more than finding all the old stuff my heart could want at the flea market. I just need to start building more storage for all these old things.