Vintage in Vermont, part 2

Thought I'd share a few more pics of some cool old stuff in Vermont.  That's one purpose of this blog, right?  Here we go:

Here is The Inn at Weatherfield.

As soon as I saw the photo, I knew this was the place to stay.

It was on twenty acres, had beautiful outdoor areas, and all the early historical charm you could ask for!

Side view of the inn, built in 1792.

The innkeepers are Bulgarian, and have only been running the property for six months.

They were amazing!  

The restaurant in the inn was fantastic. 

The old posts and beams, and multiple fireplaces were enchanting.

Must be so cozy in fall and winter.

A couple of the covered bridges we saw.

This is the longest covered bridge in Vermont.

The sign on the front of this one says, "Walk your horses or pay $2 fine."

And here's one last interesting discovery (to me at least) from the Vermont Antique Mall.  But first, here is a pic of a container I bought a couple of years ago at a thrift store.  I keep it in my blue and white room and use it as a plant pot.

I love this little carved out 3D scene.  This container had no cover, and it was by itself, so I didn't know if it was just a single container or part of a canister set.

It was the perfect size for a plant.

It was just a couple of dollars, and I thought it was a lot more interesting than the typical plant pot.

So I was really surprised to see this little set (with lids!) at the store.

These were black and white instead of blue.

Each one has a different Currier and Ives-type scene.

There is no maker mark anywhere on them, so I don't know who made them or when.

I just loved them though!

Well, now I'm not just wondering about what happened to the lid of mine, but where his two friends went?  Did they all break?  I do wonder sometimes about the back story of things you see in thrift stores, like, how does one single china cup end up on a shelf?  Or 3 salad plates and nothing else.  There must have been more, right?  

Pretty sure no one else ever wonders about these things.

Someone's got to do it, I guess.

Vintage in Vermont

I am in New York for the summer once again, in the town where I grew up.  I've been trying to take advantage of my location; I didn't realize until I was an adult how so many great destinations are so near to where I am.  I've always loved New England: the architecture, the weather, the coast, the history.  I've been trying to visit somewhere new each time I'm here, so last weekend we drove to Vermont.

The Vermont border is only a few hours from where we are; I never knew that growing up.  I remember visiting Vermont once as a child.  So I chose an inn (built in 1792!) for this trip and we took the backroads.  What a beautiful drive!

I had no idea really what was in Vermont (besides skiing - but this is summer); after googling a bit, I chose the destination of the village of Woodstock.  We did a lot in four days: we visited the Calvin Coolidge homestead complex in Plymouth Notch (a fascinating afternoon), spent a day at the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller mansion and state park (both touring and hiking), visited three covered bridges, saw some amazing gardens (I learned a lot of new plants!) and ate some really great food.

It was such a beautiful, mountainous state - my new goal is to return both in fall and winter.

On our last day, my patient husband took me to a garden center and a great antique mall.  It's always fun to see what the antique scene in other states is!  I spent thirty minutes at a huge antique store at the end of one day, it was very high-end and had lovely things; it was fun to look at but almost like walking through a museum - not the kind of antique store where I could buy anything.  But as expected, in a very old state, there were lots of old and very historic items, plus lots of Early American furniture, paintings and folk art, etc.

The second antique store was more my speed.  (Read: affordable.  More vintage than antique.)

The Vermont Antique Mall came with some unexpected bonuses:

It was a huge complex with great food places, a Vermont artisan shop, and even a little Alpaca petting zoo!

It was also right next to a massive gorge - which is apparently one of the main attractions in the state (we didn't even know it was there) - so got to see that too.

So what was interesting in vintage Vermont?

For whatever reason, there seemed to be a lot of cow creamers.

Must have been big at some point.

Fun fact we learned: apparently Vermont is a big cheese-making state, and has a cheese trail.

At the Calvin Coolidge homestead - which was a farm back in the day - there was a shop selling cheddar made with the original recipe of Calvin Coolidge's father.

We bought all kinds of cheese there - it was delicious!

This picture caught my attention because the tag says, "$22.  Scene from Bible."

I kept trying to figure out what biblical scene this would be...and is it actually a biblical scene at all?

Any guesses?  I gave up.

I LOVED this old blue glass cough drop jar.

It was pretty big.

I've seen this once or twice before. I was so tempted to buy it, because I have a blue glass collection in my lake room, and this little box is so charming.

But I actually have nowhere to put it...and it was $45 - worth it, but I usually only buy stuff if I think its undervalued.  (That's part of the fun.)

I thought this 50's-era vase was fantastic!

I'm so drawn to mid-century style; I love the illustration style and I'm not sure why poodles were so popular then, but this random poodle on the vase just makes it.

But I have no reason to buy a planter for a new baby.

It's in great condition!

So, when I arrived at the store, I was hoping to find something small that could be my Vermont souvenir.  But I didn't want to buy something just to buy something.

I had almost been through the whole place when I finally saw it, on the bottom shelf in the corner of a booth.  But here it is::

So, of course I forgot to take a photo of the complete set before it was wrapped (and I wasn't going to ask the shop lady to unwrap it) - but there were ten of these small, amber apple bowls, as well as one large salad bowl (also in the shape of an apple).

I LOVE vintage stuff like this, and I was sure it would cost more than what I would pay.

So I was shocked to see the tag said $15. $15!!

These are thick glass and good size bowls, unlike some of the vintage stuff you find that's really only able to hold small portions.

I think a serving set like this would be from the 1970's. (?)

Anyway, it just reminded me of fall (I make a lot of apple recipes in autumn, also the amber color reminds me of leaves).  I love to have people for dinner and have special dishes for the seasons.  This set was in perfect condition; all the apple stems were perfectly intact.

This will be fun to use!

I might follow this up with one more Vermont post tomorrow...I'm realizing there was a lot of cool stuff to share.  More to come!

Mysterious, morbid and...magical!

The other day I took a walk through one of my very favorite places in the world to walk.  It's an old, old cemetery, and it's truly stunningly beautiful.

My husband's father used to run it, so I was often there when I was younger, but like a lot of really amazing things, I took it for granted because I was young.  I always thought it was beautiful.  But it wasn't till I moved away, to another state - and came home again, that I realized how special of a place it is.  Like much about my historic hometown, it took leaving and returning to truly appreciate it.

There are several cemeteries in town that consist of flat or hilly acres in the shape of a square; they are treeless and full of headstones.  But this one is different.  This one has gently rolling hills with meandering paths, shade trees everywhere, a creek, a pond with a bench overlooking and some of the most beautiful and interesting statues and monuments you could find.  It's a historic cemetery in a small city that used to be quite prosperous, and full of well-to-do people who invested in their afterlives like small-town pharaohs.

Did I mention the stone chapel with the Tiffany windows?  Or the old hydrangea trees and lilacs that burst into bloom in the spring and fall?

Beautiful.  Tranquil.  Slightly creepy.  Silent.

I love wandering through these old crumbling monuments with only the sounds of birds and the insects in the air.  There wasn't a person in sight up on this hill.

Who was she, and how did this statue appear as a real woman?

Someday I'll just be a name on a stone too...

I wonder how the family who built this tomb made their fortune?

The dappled sunlight falling on the hillside gives such a romantic feeling to this place.

Jesus with open arms.

I love this one.

I spent a happy hour-and-a-half just wandering around, and only made my way through a fourth of the cemetery.  The newer section has no trees; I assume it makes for easier mowing and upkeep, and, understandably, no one seems interested anymore in investing many thousands of dollars on fancy burial mausoleums.

The old part of the cemetery has the same appeal to me that old houses have: detail and architecture that just can't be found in anything new.  Likewise, new gravestones remind me a lot of new buildings - a bunch of gray squares that each look like all of the others.

Once this statue was a living woman.  I imagine she walked through this cemetery just as I do.

It wasn't just the sunlit paths or the beautiful monuments.  While it was fun reading the old poetry and inscriptions on the stones, I also walked the perimeter, enjoying all the wildflowers.  I used my phone app to identify a lot of interesting plants; there were so many!

The swamp milkweed was blooming all around the pond.

It may be invasive, but it's still lovely to look at!

Cemeteries always fill me with a sense of peace.  They seem like a gentle reminder to me that life is short, and instead of causing sadness it almost makes me feel a sense of relief.  Relief that whispers that all those things I think are so important/distressing right now...all those little kingdoms we get caught up in building....in the end, none of them matter.  Not at all.  Dust to dust.

In the end, all that matters is having peace with God.

And in the meantime, I'm grateful to have such a historic, peaceful place to roam around.  A place to feel the presence of God.

Recreating a vintage planter

A couple of weeks ago, a friend helped me rebuild some broken down planters.  When my husband and I bought our lake cottage twelve years ago, it came with a homemade planter that I loved.  The original planter had been built by the former owner in the 1990's.  

I've been using it every year, and it was beginning to slowly break down.  This spring, I noticed it was leaning to the side.  When I tried to righten it, the wood on the base gave up completely, and crumbled into pieces. I set the planter back down; it was about 6" shorter.

Here's how it looked:

Here's my shrunken, 30-year-old planter

I loved the style of it, it reminds me of the planters I'd see outside of farmhouses when driving through the country as a kid.  (Remember the little wooden wishing wells with flowers inside?  I love those too!)  I wanted to rebuild it exactly as it was, so I asked a friend if he would let me help him make a new one so I could see how.

The planter was made out of cut up timbers.

It really was as easy as he said it was, and I got to learn how to use a chop saw.

The saw part was easy; the only part that was a bit difficult was holding pieces tightly together while screwing them together at the same time - especially because they weren't all exactly even or straight.

They definitely required some manhandling.

Here's the old planter and the new one being built.  

We measured it to make an exact copy.

We discovered the old one was built around a small tree stump that was holding it in place.

Here it is finished!

All I have left to do is varnish it.

It looks so much better now.

While we were at it, we replaced a few other worn out wooden yard pieces at the same time.  There was a small garden box made with the same timbers.  They were crumbling too.  We enlarged the box a little and replaced all the timbers.

Here's the new garden box, same style as before.  

But now I can fit two rows of plants!

There was a really cool wooden bench with iron legs that came with the cottage as well.  After decades outside, it's wood was destroyed too.  I was driving down the road last summer when I saw a sign that said "free wood."  Someone with some nice wood that was already planed had stacks of boards by the side of the road for anyone to take.  So I took a couple that I thought might work well to cut down to make a new seat for the bench.

Here's how it looked put back together:

I've definitely scored my share of cool stuff for free from the side of the road in my life.

But this nice, already-planed wood was a huge win.

I love the bark still on the sides.

My buddy James was a childhood friend of my husband's.

You know someone is a real friend when he is willing to teach you something he could do in one-third of the time it takes him to teach.

But then, he did have the pleasure of my company...

Seriously, I have learned so many useful skills from him over the years.

Five hours.  Three projects complete. ✔

The hard part is done, now the fun part - what am I going to fill the planters with?