Thursday, March 26, 2009

5 Pounds of Stuff, In a 2 Pound Box....

This cabinet resides in my dining-room. It has a lot of hand carving and is massive, to say the least. It could use some TLC. We tried to sell it a while back, but you just have to have the room for it. It is made up of three sections, top, bottom, and a marble slab in between. It is stuffed, (and I mean stuffed), with various china, cups, silver, and collectibles. You can see the spill over onto the top. Steven loves this piece. I need to clean it out, sort, and get ready. You see I want to host a tea. Goodness knows I have enough things for one (okay, maybe a few). This is one of *3* cabinets in the room, which is a large dining-room. Our home used to be a Parsonage for the Church next door. While the kitchen is small, but efficient, the dining-room is quite large. There are four windows, lovely oak french doors and the kitchen door in it also. My table seats up to 8 quite comfortably, but could seat a couple more in a pinch.
For now though we I will just share this cabinet.....
I will show you a peek at the middle section, behind the glass.  I would show you behind the closed doors but I have so much stacked and packed in there, well it isn't pretty. So let's just look at some of the things behind the glass doors. Let's start with the Tea pot, it was for sale at my friends garage sale for $5.00 (it has a chipped spout). So you can imagine how surprised I was when two years later, walking along at a flea market, I spied the creamer and sugar bowl! They were not very much, as the sugar bowl has a chip on it also, but they were so pretty and what a happy find.  The bird in the back is one of my "flamingo's" from a set of them. My one main collections has been these "shiny birds". I have packed many away, but have again filled a cabinet in the front room with them (I will share that another time).
This is the bottom shelf and you see here a small sampling of my collection. Even though I china paint I love collecting the works of others. I seem to go on tangents, I collect bits of  painted china, glass cake plates, old silver pieces.... but I will always collect my birds.
Two little boyd bears sit atop my tarnished tea set. I need to get busy and polish it up, that is if I plan to have a tea soon.
See the pretty painted casserole? My friend Cathy Teller painted it for me one Christmas. I love receiving her painted pieces, they are so pretty and well done. The blue salt shaker (Steven broke the pepper) was painted by me. There is the tiny cruet set I got from my neighbor across the street before she moved. I love heating water for tea, or serving coffer from this old percolator.
So there it is, just something to share. I love seeing old things and collections and thought it was time to share a little bit of mine. I hope you found it interesting, and perhaps I will share the contents of the other cabinets at another time.

5 comments:

Her Art Nest said...

Your stash is very impressive, Deb! Thanks for having me over to actually sip from your precious pink and white tea cups! Your china is lovely! Had a great time making our little treasures today. Hugs, Nance

Anonymous said...

the cabinet is indeed very beautiful! we just got a house with a dining room again and with the Fostoria (sp?) given to me by my mother-in-law, I'm looking for an oak hutch now. she would be drooling over the contents of your cabinet!

Renee said...

Deb this is beautiful, that cabinet is huge. And the beautiful things you have in that cabinet. It looks like a treasure.

Thank you for the birthday wishes. Cheers.

Love Renee ooxoxo

Peggy Parker said...

Gorgeous cabinet! I would love to explore it's contents in person - I've just started a shabby "cottage" look in my dining room which was inspired by pieces I picked up at garage sales - their colors are just like the plates behind the teapot!

Renee said...

I know I should go Debra but I just can't right now. The monster under the bed has a tight hold on my head.

It is the old, once I get the results scenario then I can go..... But of course only if they are good results.

I'm not going to drive you crazy here like I am driving my self crazy.

Thank you though.

Love Renee xoxox