If These Walls Could Talk...

How often have you heard this expression or something like it. If this table could talk, if this (your item here) could talk the stories it could tell! I think we all want to some how touch the history of these objects and experience a connection to them.

Well at my house the walls (or rather the windows) have spoken and told what seems to be a family story.

Last year I bought my first house. In keeping with my love of vintage items I bought an old house. Over the summer while I was unemployed, I took the time to go the local library where the towns old records are kept. I wanted to find out how old the house really is.

The original transfer of the land from the crown to the first owner occurred in 1831.  In 1861 the land I live on was broken up. A Mr. Kerr (common name around here) bought an acre, and broke it into lots. He paid 90 pound for the acre and sold my lot (a quarter acre) for $500.00. Although there is no mention of the house in the records the librarian told me that based on the price, the house was most likely on the land at the time. So the house is approximately 151 years old at this writing.

The family that bought it was the Wright family. The man of the house was a carpenter and joiner, and he lived here til he died in 1898. His widow continued to live here till 1926, when she passed away. The house was sold at auction in 1927. I have not yet gotten to records beyond 1927.

But, here is where it gets really interesting. This summer we had a garage sale, and my wife brought up a couple of old stained glass windows from the basement to clean up for the sale. 

While she was cleaning them she noticed a scratch on one pane and examined it more closely. Wow!! One or more of the Wright's had scratched their name in the glass, with the date 1891!!!  There are two names at least, written to make a permanent record of their lives - being here in this house! 

Now they have reached across time to my wife and I and touched us! 

The walls can talk! 

Needless to say, these particular windows did not go in the sale, and we are now in the process of deciding which of our house's windows we  will mount them in. And now I will definitely be back at the library, to see what else I can find out about the family and the house. Who knows what else these walls have to tell us.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation or Ain't it Amazing How Much Stuff We Have!!!

Life Is what happens when you're busy making other plans - John Lennon

I had the summer planned out. I was going to take every Monday off to have two days off with my wife, who works Saturdays, and we were going to attend auctions. I would do the Saturday auctions, and she and I would do the Sunday auctions with Monday to rest, recover and review our finds. Then I would photograph them and put them up on the Granny Wicker's site.

The first day I planned off was July 3rd, - a Tuesday, because the Monday was the Holiday for Canada Day which actually fell on the Sunday this year. A four day weekend with my wife!!! 
Auctions - travel - fun! What could be better.

Reel back to Friday July 29th, 5:00 pm. All day members of the staff have been called into the bosses office one by one, over the afternoon, and then they have left the building for "an extended long weekend". I am somewhat jealous. Are they getting plum assignments while I work away at the same old same old? Mark -obliviously working- continues working. At 5:00 after a full day and looking forward to the weekend I too get called into the office. My plum assignment? 
Laid off.  Life had just happened.

So instead of leisurely attending auctions as a buyer, I was transformed into a resume machine looking under every rock for a possible job. 

And I was extremely lucky. I started my new job August first. 

But now, I have spent all of my auction money, my emergency money, and my penny jar money just trying to make it one more day, or until I start a new job.

So no auctions, no new stuff for the store. My very patient wife suggests that I look around the house to see what I might have that I can put up on the site. I reply that there is nothing. I have it all up there on the site.

Well I did look around. Surprising what you can find when you are looking. 

An Oak machinists case, three dovetail wooden boxes from a hardware store, a Satsuma camel tea pot, a crystal lamp, salt and pepper shakers in milk glass and depression glass, 3 copper and brass fire extinguishers, linens and clothes, a bit of this, and one of those, and on and on.
So it is probably good that I did not buy more. It will give me a chance to process everything I do have but have not had time to look at. 

Should be a good fall at Grannys!!

Why I love vintage - it's in the bone

For some of us I truly think that vintage is in the bone.  Two stories to illustrate.


When I was a boy, my Dad would take me to work with him on Saturdays. He worked for a construction company, and many Saturdays were spent at the "shop", the offices, repair shops, and storage area for the construction company. 


The storage yard was filled with old trucks of every description, as well as old transport trailers, an old city bus, sheds and shacks holding everything from broken hand shovels to the carpenters shop. This was my Saturday playground.

The old trucks were my favourite. I spent many an hour "driving" pick-up trucks from the 1940's and 50's (no tires or rims) just a steering wheel, gear shift and a seat. What more did I need? Even better were the retired dump trucks. Just climb in and the world was waiting out your window. I carried an important load of dirt, and let no one stand in my way! I did not like or want to play in the new trucks. They held no interest for me. They had no character. (Of course if I had one now...)


The sheds and shacks held many neat items, and searching them was a great way to spend a rainy afternoon. Often I would run to get my Dad to show him my latest find. He would always patiently tell me what it was, how it was used, and that no I could not take it home with me.

At home, my two favourite days (other than Christmas and my Birthday) were the spring and fall "special" garbage days. On these days households were allowed to throw out anything. Normal garbage days were reserved for things like table scraps and tin cans. (This was long before the days of recycling!)  On the special garbage days, everything could be thrown out and was. I became the great treasure hunter looking that mythic X that marked the treasure. Radios were a favourite, as were books, record players, furniture and bits of this and that. Anything really, that would fit in my wagon ended up coming home with me. It was junk, but it was interesting junk. It might be fixable. It might work.

Most often these things ended up at the end of our driveway that same day, or in the fall. 

But I believe that the longing was awakened in those days. And the passion. The desire to hold and admire old things, to be a part of their story and to pass them on so that their story could go on. 

How lucky I am now nearly fifty years later to be able to recognize that this is what I should be doing - buying and selling old and vintage things. 

It took a long way around to get here. It's not a living yet.  

But it will be, it will be, because the passion is in the bone.