Out with the old, and in with the old.

There are times when I feel like I am totally modern, totally contemporary and “with it”.  I may be kidding myself, but, I do try to keep up a bit, you know? I don’t want to be one of those ladies stuck in the late 90s, with my personal style or even the style in my home.  I don’t need to be trendy, but, I don’t mind a bit of “Oh, that’s a nice, on-trend choice” every once in a while.

Decorating the house as the interior part of the renovation comes to a close has been a real dilemma at times.  I’d like to have all new furnishings, but, that would be crazy.  I have good furnishings now.  I’d like to have all new plates and bowls and glasses.  But, what do I do with all these plates, bowls and glasses I have now?

Never was this more apparent than when I took down the plate rail and emptied the china cabinet before painting the foyer.  All the cut glass items that my mom and aunt and mother-in-law had lovingly passed on to me.  Some with great family history, some with a garage sale price tag still visible on the bottom as it was just something they saw and “picked up, thought you would like it”.  When I was much younger I was in to pitchers, and I have some great ones…but, I also have a few not so great, and some very user unfriendly creamers and sugars.  Really?

Trying to decide what to do with some of these items has been heart-wrenching and a great release, too.  I have a box of things already priced for an upcoming garage sale and a box of things that will go back in to a display of sorts and another box that will, well, go up in the attic I guess.

The china cabinet is gone now and the old, golden oak plate rail was laying in the middle of the floor.  We stood in the foyer and reminisced about picking up the plate rail, a gift from hubs to me on an early anniversary…before kids even.  It was a special order from an Amish cabinet maker and my first trip to Amish country, and it was cold and rainy.  When my husband was loading it into the car and told me to hang on to one end he successfully dropped it on my head.  It became an often referred to inside joke…about him trying to kill me to collect my insurance, of which I had none, and escape to an island or something.  He has accidentally hit me in my head many times over the years…with a ladder, or a limb, or a board.  I am often the only one around to help on a project and I’m so much shorter than he is, which I think he doesn’t consider, and ker-plunk, followed by “Oh, I’m sorry, honey”, leaving me to murmur “uh huh” for the hundredth time. 

So we stood there and looked at all the little, old-fashioned spindles, recently carried around and called “people” by our two-year-old granddaughter, and thought about our early days.  I said “What the heck. I know its old-fashioned, but I like that plate rail” and back up on the wall it went, me holding it, waiting for it, or the level, to fall on my head while husband screwed it back into place.  I have a new fridge, dishwasher and oven.  I have a fancy big screen TV and am “on trend” in the choice of my cool grey walls.  I can manage a bit of old-fashioned.