Tag: Old Stuff

The Thomas Lee House

 While we were out reveling in the glorious 60 degree weather today, we passed an old home heralding the year 1660 – that’s 351 years and the house is in remarkable shape.  Right next to it is a little red school house dated in the 1700’s.   I took some pictures and then came home and did a little online research –

The Thomas Lee House, located in East Lyme, CT  is one of the oldest wood frame houses in Connecticut, still in its primitive state. The original circa 1660 dwelling consisted of a timber frame erected on six 2-story wall posts, enclosing a ground floor with the Judgement Hall below and the Chamber above. Shortly after 1700 the house was doubled by adding the West Parlor and West Chamber.  After two hundred years of Lee ownership, the house was sold to a neighboring farmer, who used the building for a chicken coop and to store hay, intending to tear the building down eventually.   The East Lyme Historical Society, with help from the Connecticut Society of Colonial Wars, the Society of Colonial Dames, the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities,  and several Lee family descendants, was able to purchase the property in 1914.  Today, it continues to be owned and maintained by the East Lyme Historical Society. 

The  old and interior photos is provided from a TL site on the web…the house was closed today and I’m not sure that it’s open to the public. 

 The weather was downright balmy today, I am giddy with spring fever.  And damn it, there’s nothing like spring weather and shedding of the winter layers to smack you with winter weight gain reality. Ah well…

 These are photos of some of my kayaking stomping grounds at the mouth of the Connecticut River…

Osprey nest to the right… there are many along the river and its highways and byways…

Saybrook Light off in the distance…

Ice melts in winter lace form along the waters edge..

Now that we’ve been here a while….

Instead of all the unpacking, I can now pay more attention to the details inside the house.  The dogs run from the mudroom through the kitchen many times a day, and the wear and tear on the wood floors is enough to send Mike into  cardiac.  So.. I’ve been looking for a runner that would protect that particular area, and until now I found the size only in magazines special order for about $400.   Two days ago I found this runner for $70. in Ocean State Job Lot.  I don’t know that I’m crazy about it, but it will protect the floors for now.

Remember those 100 year old Cast Iron plants on the front porch? 
They’ve come inside for the winterand are holding their own…
We finally found antique fire irons for the three main fireplaces  …
I love them – it’s cool to think of how many hands used these tools
to stoke fires during these cold New England months…

  Up on the wall in the family room Mike and Jeff installed a large wheat cradle
(thank you Blacksmith of Ossage Bluff for the correction)

  And on the opposite wall an old saw…

  These are in the mancave on the mantle… does anyone know exactly what they are? 
They were being disgarded as junk.

Finding Joy on a rainy day

  You read it right, folks… RAIN.  And it’s actually melting away some of the 30 inches of snow and ice  accumulation.  The problem lies in the weight of the stuff on  rooftops, causing collapses and wreaking havoc all over the state.

 But this post is about JOY on such a day… and we found it on a trip to our favorite CT antiques haven, the town of Putnam in the “Quiet Corner” of the state, as they like to say.  I blabbed about it last year HERE…

 

First, we had lunch at our favorite Italian Restaurant… Bella’s!…

I’d bet the moon you’ve never had a better tasting meatball. 

 Then we stopped at Victoria Station Cafe to pick up some of these …

 And finally we crossed the street to cruise the isles of the antiques mall to browse through this…

 Do you remember when phones used to look like this?  
 NO,  OFCOURSE I DON’T!
I would have loved these two bottles to put above the linen cabinet in the bathroom,
but they wanted $100. for them, so I walked away.

 Two floors of craziness like this…

 Isn’t she adorable?

 Whenever I see this cobalt blue, I think of my friend Joey –
And if it happens to sparkle,  it SCREAMS Joey.
SO, Jo.. this pic is for you.
I took your advice, and I do revel in  JOY as it flies by…
  I almost bought this, I’m still thinking about it….
 good thing there is an hour’s drive time between us.
My purchase for the day?
These  $5. vintage matchbox cars for my son –
They’re old enough to be MADE IN ENGLAND!
 Because sometimes… I’m cool like that.  
Apparently.

Glass

   I love things made of glass, always have.  When I was very young, my grandmothers house was a refuge – she had a lovely little house full of domestic and exotic treasures.  One piece that I particularly adored, caressed and held in my hands just to feel the smooth surface and heavy weight of it… was this…

This paperweight was gift to my great grandfather at Christmas time from a client in NYC – Acker & Jablow, a fabric wholesaler in the garment district in the early 1900’s.  My grandmother kept this on her desk for many years.  The design is what is referred to as Millefiore –     “The term millefiori is a combination of the Italian words «mille» (thousand) and «fiori» (flowers). A. Pellatt (in his book «Curiosities of Glass Making») was the first to use the term «millefiori», which appeared in the Oxford Dictionary in 1849.   While the use of this technique long precedes the term millefiori, it is now frequently associated with Venetian glassware.”   
This is what millefiore canes look like before they are used to create art –

Some History on paperweights –

Nineteenth century revival of the glass industry -In early nineteenth-century Europe, a new creative potential developed in the decorative arts. An increasingly urban population and an expanding market of goods created by the Industrial Revolution stimulated the manufacture of many new decorative novelties. In the mid-1840s, glass paperweights appeared. They were a wholly modern, functional glass form that drew upon the ancient glassmaking techniques of millefiori and lampwork and the late-eighteenth century technique of cameo incrustation.  

The sudden emergence and popularity of paperweights can be attributed not only to their decorative appeal but also to a growing Victorian leisure-time interest in letter writing. This fashionable upper and middle class pastime assured their profitable manufacture along with many other glass accessories related to letter writing, all of which were purchased inexpensively at stationery and novelty shops.

My collection over the years has grown, most pieces kept in a small curio cabinet in the keeping room.  This is a jellyfish by Richard Satava – the photo doesn’t do it justice – very luminescent in the right lighting, as are jellyfish in nature.

 One of my favorite artists is Peter Raos…
His reef life paperweights are so vibrant…

 This one by Daniel Salazar..

Some of my “sea” collection…
Some reds…

 Other glass – bottle stoppers my mother found on Cedar Grove Beach in SI
– Marbles, a glass heart – don’t break it!

My seaglass from all over –
..and mercury glass. 
*love* 

 

For the Love of Old

 This little farm is a stone’s throw from here.  Its family of many years has grown up, grown older and grown away.  Holding on to the place is no longer a reasonable option for the next generation.  I asked permission to take photos a while back and today I spent an hour walking the land. It’s easy to imagine a simpler time when carriages rode up and down the long drive, livestock occupied the barnyard and the blacksmith was an occasional visitor.  It’s clear the place was loved.  My hope is that someone will love it again, just as it was before.

Yesterday’s Treasures

 In the process of dismantling and reassembling This Old House we found many little treasures, some stashed for a 100 years or more in various parts of the house…

 This little bottle, no bigger than my thumb, was stashed up inside the keeping room fireplace on a tiny shelf. It still has a little cork stopper and contains what looks like gold flakes. These were typically sold by traveling snake oil salesmen many moons ago as an arthritis treatment among other things…

 Arrow heads and the remains of a pipe….
These are the pegs that held the frame, we used most of them when putting the frame back together…
A 1936 coin found in the stone walls out back…
Many old horse shoes found on the property….
These are two of the original wallpapers we found when removing toilets in the old house…
This one is bizarre…  The man has fallen from his horse into a ditch as the woman gallops away ….
Some 1940’s postcards and pamphlets also stashed in a fireplace shelf….

I could get lost

..in an antique shop for hours. I ‘m not talking about the kind you find in the wealthier sections of New England where “that bench over there is from the Ming Dynasty so don’t let your kid sit on it, M’am, or it’s yours for $25,000.”     I’m talking the mom and pop shops,  the guy who loves old stuff and just keeps collecting, the garage full of family hand-me-downs, or that funky red house with the white trim down the road owned by the woman who’s fifty-seven but trying to look twenty-seven and I’ll be damned if she isn’t actually pulling it off sort of!   Well, her sign read “Open” the other day and so I wandered in.  Oh, what treasures to behold!  And alot of crap too.    I found a few pieces for this old house.
 The plates will hang over the sink on a part of the wall that looks too plain and NEEDS something…  It needs a chicken or two also… but I haven’t figured that out yet.
I actually walked away from this silver huricane lamp the first time I visited the little red house. But I kept thinking about it, and you know how that goes…    so I’m going to have the wiring gutted because it’s a very old piece and I don’t trust that the wires won’t burn the house down when I plug it in.

I love the little details in this lamp…
 THIS little conglomerate of junk  stuff… is my next project for the kitchen… a chalkboard in an old frame with a sawed-in-half teacup glued to the board to hold chalk.  The old frame has just the right distressed vintage look. Anyone have a tile saw I could borrow? 
  I’ll let you know how it turns out.