Pieces of My Life

Granted, there are three in my immediate household now, not just the one free-wheeling single girl whose Corolla was heavily laden with bedding, clothes and shoes (a lot of shoes). And everybody knows we all naturally accumulate more things over time.

But our moving load would have been a lot lighter if I hadn't insisted on taking parts of past homes with me. And not just pieces of homes where I had lived, but of homes where my grandparents and great-grandparents had lived as well.

When we left our beloved little English Tutor-style cottage, I took along a door, which had once led to the home's attic and was being used as a workbench top when we first moved in. Splattered with paint and bearing a hole from the doorknob, the little heart-of-pine door is as heavy as a rock, and in my eyes has always held promise. I saw the beauty of the wood and fantasized it becoming a coffeetable, a desktop-something beautiful and eclectic. It's buried in the garage now.

Another relic from homes past is the fireplace mantle and surround I asked my Dad to pry from the living room wall of the home he grew up in before it was torn down. Primitive and made of oak, it was crafted by my great-grandfather, a logger, blacksmith and bootlegger. He used steam to soften the wood enough to curve the oak pieces that hold the mantle into place. I've envisioned it as a faux fireplace and even as a headboard for our bed. Covered in cheap lead-based paint, it, too, sits leaning up against the garage wall.

And then there's the furniture. In use, I have my great-grandmother's dresser, trunk and iron bed dating back to before she married 100 years ago. There is a 1930s cedar-chest that belonged to a grandmother I never knew and a couple of sewing chests purloined from homes in Pennsylvania where my other paternal grandmother lived. Heck, I've even got bedside tables and a chest of drawers left over from my husband's previous marriage. Though the cheap things appear to be turning to sawdust and staining the carpet, I've yet to oust them.

In a society where people change out sofas every five years, I sewed new covers for the cushions on the 13-year-old couch where I've spent many hours, day and night, cuddling my daughter first through colic and now first-grade angst.

Maybe it's because there is so much change in our lives today-houses, jobs, décor trends-that I find comfort in these unchanging pieces of not only my past, but those who came before me. Maybe there's some sort of soothing spirit exuded by objects that have been touched and used by so many.

In any case, my collection is set to grow again. My mom replaced the wrought-iron columns on the home I grew up in and she's saving them for me. I'm thinking trellis.

Teresa Burney is a contributing editor of Orlando Homebuyer and associate editor of Big Builder magazines.