Cabinet of curiosities #2 inside

One last post from this room – and it is back to the cabinet, which contains my mother’s baby book (it’s blue taffeta, so I’m not sure if my grandparents were hoping for a boy). I can’t remember how I came to have this object, however it is (naturally) in the original box. Due to its small size it fits nicely onto the glass shelf in a standing position.

Inside my grandfather has completed each page to give a running commentary of my mother’s early years, from her first word – Teddy – to first journey by bus at 11 days old. There is also the original cutting from the local newspaper announcing her birth. Albert, my grandfather was an avid diary writer, so I imagine that he would enjoy the task of dutifully completing all the relevant information. 

My own baby book has been completed but with less rigour by my Mum, it doesn’t seem to have been a priority and after a few entries, my early years remain a mystery! 

Flowers Echo Throughout the House (Dogwood Blossom)

Didn't really want to spend any longer in the upstairs bathroom, so we're walking back down the stairs now - often music (of every kind) fills every room in this house - but sometimes, when I'm on my own and 'over-thinking', the most evocative track is Dogwood Blossom by Fionn Regan. Beautiful and melancholic.


Keep climbing into my head without knockin'
And you fix yourself there like a map pin
On this ghost of this street where I'm livin'
I'm in a chrysalis and I'm snowed in
Darling, darling that dam's gonna give
It's inevitable the way that you live
Bottles in brown paper and a mouth that slurs
All the shit that it stirs
Let that dogwood blossom
There'll be hell to pay in heaven
For you take every street home
What happens when you're into deep to break
Loneliness keeps you constantly awake
What happens when the passage of time appears
You see yourself as a child and it brings you to tears
You say that you're troubled and you always have been
Uncomfortable in your own skin
So you contemplate the riverbed
Turn off the dark thoughts in your head
Darling, darling that dam's gonna give
It's inevitable the way that you live
Bottles in brown paper and a mouth that slurs
All the shit that it stirs
Let that dogwood blossom
There'll be hell to pay in heaven
For you take every street home

A rose amongst the ruins ...

As you come out of the bedroom, immediately on your left (at the top of the stairs is the bathroom, (if you can call it that). It's the one room that we have done no work in, after ripping up the (soggy) carpet. It's a mess, stripped back to original floorboards, most of which we'll have to replace, and also a large chimney, which would've orginally been part of the oven in the kitchen downstairs. It's going to be a job probably for next year, but will be great to enjoy having a bath in nicer surroundings when it's finished!

You can see the chimney immediately left of the door. Also the holes where we have taken off the hardboard door panel are clearly visible. Lucky to have the original glass underneath!

An ironic painting hung on the bathroom chimney.

You can see that old 50's yellow colour that the bathroom used to be painted.

Cabinet of Curiosities #1 – inherited

In a former life this glass cabinet was a shop display for cakes. It’s not particularly beautiful but it does have a certain oddness that I like.

The display and choice of objects was never really planned, it’s more a case of what actually fits onto the limited shelf height; several objects are in groupings, namely the tin robots, boats, glasses, sardine tins, and D’s collection of VW camper vans.

The photographs of Jayne Mansfield and Cary Grant are purely incidental, I bought the old frames from a market stall in Banbury, and these photographs were included, I have never got around to changing them, and have now become quite attached to Jayne and Cary – were they ever an ‘item’ I wonder?

My favourite things are the set of ten wooden soldiers that I inherited from my grandmother; these were used to decorate my mother’s childhood birthday cakes, although we have no idea where they originated from – my great grandfather was a baker, so perhaps they were handed down? 

Souvenir

 The level of the garden at the back of our house had sometime ago, been made higher, to enable Audrey (in her later years) to tend her garden without having to bend down. When we moved in, there were lots and lots of daffodils out in bloom, nodding their yellow heads welcomingly, in the April sunshine. Audrey's Brother had planted all the bulbs (as a gift) before winter had set in, so she would have a "nice show come spring time," so Margaret said.

It was such a pity that Audrey never got to see them.

Though I did, every day - until they too, died. I so appreciated their glowing abundance.

I found these pieces of blue and white when I first dug our garden, a few years back now. There were quite a few more pieces, but I have only kept these two (the rest are back in the garden soil). I put them outside on the kitchen windowsill for a while, yet that now have come to rest on the wooden shelf unit in the bedroom. I wonder if they were pieces from Audrey and Albert's old china plates?

I especially like the larger shard as it has a beautiful wing painted on the back of either some kind of creature or Angel type figure.

The Inherited Sewing Basket

There is actually quite a lot of furniture in this room, some of which offers really good storage; from the practicalities of the plan chest, to the chrome locker, to a white – reasonably new – cabinet (or should that be side-board? quite an old-fashioned name).  Hidden in here is an eclectic mix of ‘stuff’ – including my inherited sewing basket; I have decided to show this item purely because you were asking questions regarding its appearance in a previous post. So here is my quite unlovely sewing basket, inherited from D’s mother after she died, because none of his three sisters wanted it. As you can see, it is not quite as orderly as yours!! But despite the tattered, unstuck braiding, and the broken handle, the contents were what attracted me most. A little bit of family history in a box. 

A - I wasn't sure whether or not I should be waiting for the crochet (blue) part of your post - so apologies for slipping this in...P

Kimono + Crochet (Blue)

So, after entering the bedroom looking round to the left hand side now, following the wall we have something that I enjoy looking at a lot - a hand painted silk kimono, hung on a bamboo pole on the wall. I don't wear it, as I like to admire it this way instead. You may also recognise the wooden shelf unit (from the studio in an earlier post) which is much more suited to being up here in the bedroom - I think it also takes on quite an eastern appearance being in close proximity with the kimono! There are quite a few different items on the shelves now that weren't there before - wondering if I should do a few close-ups if there's anything you'd like to see a little better?

Ok, here are a few close up pics from the shelves:

50's belt buckle

'Cures' Key, Japanese Tin, Luke's Plate

'B' ring, Taiwanese Shell

Recipe & Red Riding Hood Books, Strange Rabbit Ornament

Small Metal Box, Portrait Postcard

Plasters Tin, Wind-up Bird, Ginko Postacrd

Crochet (some of the Blue ones are my favourites)

In the ottoman below the shelf are lots of crochet doilies which I have acquired from a few different places - an amazing charity shop in Denmark had some lovely ones, and over here ... well, I've bought them from various ladies at craft stall and charity shops, and been crocheted some especially too. Some are made by hands that are no longer here.
They are testament to a believed lost craft, but with a recent resurgence of 'the handmade', there are many new crochet blankets and doilies in the shops again, if you look carefully.

(I laid the doilies on the washing basket near the bedroom window to take this photo, as it was a little too dark for the colours to shine, over the other side of the room, on the ottoman today)