A is for Antiques

Hello, and welcome to my blog. *waves*

I most often talk my own writing and editing in my blog posts, but for the A-Z Blogging Challenge this year my main theme revolves around things I loved or noticed about the United Kingdom while we were lucky enough to live there.  As a side-note, all pictures in this blog series were taken by me, and if they weren't, then I've back-linked to their original source.

Anyway, A is for Antiques!

I love some good utilitarian furniture, and I'm not necessarily one for frills, but craftsmanship and durability always catch my eye.  When we first moved to the UK and someone suggested "going antiquing", I had to bite my lip to keep from giggling.  That was something rich middle-aged housewives did, right?  Spending the day purchasing overpriced furniture, then lunching and getting Botox?

How wrong I was.

8-day mantel clock with barley twist accents.
Mid-late 1800s.

Let me back up a little bit to give you some context.  While over there, I learned that it was mostly Americans who wanted the older pieces.   To my surprise, the lovely folks in the UK often (but not always) look on Grandma's furniture as cumbersome and something they'd rather sell and get some money for than have to deal with or want in their own homes when she passes away.  Most of the homes we looked at when we were going to rent, including homes our friends had, were often outfitted with modern fixtures (think IKEA) and it was the homes of the elderly who had what we considered antiques.

Well, I went shopping with some friends and was hooked.  I'd never seen so many gorgeous pieces, and it was thrilling to see so many affordable bookcases, tables, etc that were solid wood and very unlike the particle board Target furniture we were eager to replace.

Oh man. I'd never thought I'd be in love with furniture.

In our stay, we collected quite a few pieces--bookcases, cabinets, and a fabulous desk that I sadly don't have pictures of at the moment to share with you.  One of my favorite finds was the mantel clock pictured above.  We were debating getting a full-sized grandfather clock, but this was more portable and I fell in love with it the moment I heard it chime.  It has a full, ringing sound that appears to be from a far bigger piece, and can be heard throughout the house.

It's not as hard as you'd think to make the older pieces fit in with more modern ones, either, so if you find a piece you can't live without, it's better to get it and figure it out later.  We learned that quickly.

One thing I regret (but only a little) being unable to find was a large, solid dining table for a formal dining room.  We just didn't care for most of the ones we found, but we did run across a giant one we would never have been able to fit in a house...I think it sat something like 20 people!  So unless we were going to buy a manor house sometime in the future, it was best we left that one behind.

How about you? Have you been antiquing? Have some lovely pieces passed down through the generations?

See you tomorrow for B! Here's a hint...Sherlock, anyone?

xoxo Sarah