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Furniture For Life???

“Furniture for Life??”

I don’t know about you but I have had furniture in our home from the beginning of my marriage. Without getting way too personal, that was a very long time ago. I was a child! It’s not that I ever had terrible taste, but I went through a little bit of a Victorian period, and living in an 18th century house didn’t help matters. Antique is antique, right? 18th century? 19th century? Architecture? What’s the difference?

Thank goodness for design school. It was very educational. I also grew up.

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Not that mixing up periods isn’t allowed. Mixing things up can make interiors more interesting. But what I started to notice was that my taste was changing, and I had all this furniture that appealed to me or was passed on to me at a very different time of my life. Sofas, tables, beds, chairs, carpets, lamps! Apparently, I had done such a great job picking it out in my 20’s that it was holding up just fine. (That’s what my husband thought.) I was longing for my dogs to chew it up! Or maybe even a burst pipe – or a small fire…

My reaction was getting pretty intense every time I walked through my kitchen or looked at my bed. I love history but really??? I didn’t sign up for furniture-for-life.  Even my dogs were too bored with it to bother chewing it up.

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So I was surprised by my feelings for the old furniture when I finally started to replace it. Now granted, the pieces that I was getting rid of were some key ones, like our bed, kitchen table and chairs, a full length dressing mirror. (There is a point where you don’t want to see the whole picture every morning when you wake up; it can be startling!)

Yes, I wanted the old furniture gone. But it became important to me that it go to someone I knew personally and who would love it as much as I had for all these years. We did try Craig’s List for a while but ended up giving it to two young couples that we knew well – and who we knew would take care of the pieces and enjoy them as we had.

And I get to visit my old furniture….when I’m invited!

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