Loving What You Have: Inherited Furniture {31 Days: Day 18}

After showing you my "loving what you have" home tour last week, I thought about putting together a source list of items in our home since that seems the norm once you put a home tour out there. Turns out, I can't provide much useful information since many of our household items and furniture were either gifts, thrifted, or inherited...so any source list I'd give you would be painfully short and kinda pointless. I can't even tell you what the paint color is on the walls since we rent our apartment and that soft brown-gray is the color that came with the place. (Side note: I actually love the paint color, and have even asked my landlady about it, but she doesn't remember what it is!). 

BUT, coming to that realization that I wouldn't really be able to provide a source list also made me realize that I kinda love that about our home. It's an eclectic mix of traditional, vintage, modern and antique pieces that work together pretty cohesively (in my humble opinion!) to make our home uniquely ours. So while I can't give you a source list, I can tell you some of the stories behind these pieces. I'd love tell you the history and some memories I have about the history of a couple of the inherited pieces that have taken up residence in our tiny apartment. I love family pieces, y'all.

First up, I want to show you the jelly cupboard:

This might be my favorite piece of furniture in our whole apartment. It's huge, has tons of storage and is just plain pretty. I keep serving pieces, pitchers, our liquor and various other decor odds and ends in here.

This is an antique piece that I inherited from my mom's parents, who I loved and dearly miss. I spent a lot of time at their house as a kid...most of it was spent running around with my cousins and hanging out with family. This jelly cupboard lived in the formal living room, which was the first room you saw when you walked in the door. We always spent Christmas morning in that living room with our whole extended family - aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents - gathered around on couches and on the floor since the tree and the presents were there. That jelly cupboard sat right along the wall next to the Christmas tree, and I remember it as the piece of furniture that housed some of the Christmas decorations along with some other odds and ends, and there were always playing cards in the top drawer. You never knew quite what you'd find in there, and, being a curious kid, I had a habit of snooping around in that drawer and others all over the house. Call me nosy, but I found candy and other treasures hidden in drawers often enough that it was totally worth a peek. :)

That piece of furniture reminds me of so many memories, and I'm glad it lives with us now. I'm hoping it'll be something I hold onto and pass down to my kids someday as well!

Another favorite are the end tables on either side of the sofa:

{This was the best photo I had of the end tables - it's pre-gallery wall!}

These are beautiful antique drop leaf end tables that belonged to my dad's parents. Sadly, my grandfather passed away before I was born (I so wish I had known "Grandpa Tom"!), so I mostly remember them in my grandmother's apartment, and then in her assisted living facility as she got older and needed more care. I'm so glad she held onto them (well, I suppose I'm glad my parents decided to move them with her :)), even when she lived in the nursing care wing and had a very small shared room. They were a sweet reminder of home, and it made the somewhat hospital-like environment a little more lived-in and familiar. When we would visit, I was always glad to see them there. When she passed away, at the ripe old age of 93 I might add, my parents took these end tables to their home, and I subsequently snagged them for our first apartment in Richmond.

I love having these pieces of furniture from both my mom and my dad's families. It's such a gift to have inherited them, and a cool reminder of memories I have from so many years growing up with them around. It's also a reminder of how much I was loved by those grandparents. They really set an amazing example for me and I hope that one day I'll have a chance to love my grandkids just as well as they did me. Lots of things to be thankful for today!


Read the series from the beginning...