This summer, I had the opportunity, to visit the house my nana and grandpa lived in, and where my mom and an Aunt and Uncle spent the first years of their lives.
It was a beautiful visit, and incredible to see my family's origins up close like that. Which brings me to what I really wanted to share with you today. This is one of the chests they used to ship their belongings to Canada. A couple years ago I rescued it out of the back of my nana's garage only for it to sit on my own until last summer. It was in pretty bad disrepair, and so my dad and I replaced some of the brass on the bottom, and then I re-fabric-ed the inside. It's an amazing cedar chest and I use it to store my extra linnens, as well as my stash of halloween costumes.
Isn't it beautiful....along with some chocolate roses (a gift from the boy a while back, after tasting one and almost dying, we both decided they'd be better kept in their wrappers). You can see the original painted on shipping information.
The redone interior, loved this fabric with velveteen spots! There's nothing better than pulling a blanket out of a cedar chest and the way it smells.
Close up of the original hardware... the trim is all the original brass... the end caps and locks however were something else...something rusty, the came off, got a sandblasting, and brass sprayed to match.
Like anything good from the old country, the whole chest is made from recycled materials... the cedar boards looked to have come from fruit pallets.. and all the tin sides has like can labels/ads on it, you can see some peeking through the green paint.
Anyways, this is one of my few, and most cherish family heirloom type things, and was totally worth while lugging across the country to have with me here in Calgary.
Do you have any amazing things passed down in your families?
This is beautiful post! Our family has passed down many things, but my favorite of all is just the memories. I wish I had pics of all like you do. Happy SITSAH Saturday!
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