My Vintage Nancys

When I was 9 I was sick for a month and my mother's rule was that if you were too sick to go to school, you were too sick to watch tv. So each day my grandmother bought me a new Nancy Drew book. By the time I was better, I had read every Nancy Drew book written up to that time. I have no idea what happened to those books - they were probably passed on to my sister and then given away.

A few years ago, I was in a used bookstore and saw an old Nancy Drew. When I saw that old blue tweed cover, I had to have it! It was very interesting....when the books were originally written, the authors had no idea of the staying power of Nancy so they describe life as it was in 1930's America (in Nancy's Mysterious Letter there's an interesting passage, for example, that explains how air mail went to England - it involved the train, Newark Municipal Airport, and an airplane launched from a ship at sea!). One by one, I collected all 36 "original text" books - all the books were rewritten eventually to remove any references that would date them.

Part of that collection is in the picture above. The most valuable is a first edition of The Secret of the Wooden Lady also known as a "Smoking Ned" because Nancy's boyfriend has a cigarette in his hand in the frontispiece. There was such outrage that it was removed from subsequent editions.

Stuff in the Den

For years I didn't know what to do with this awkward corner in the den - it's not that deep so finding a piece of furniture that would work there was difficult. Then Storehouse Furniture (how I miss that store!) started selling these black iron shelves in different sizes and one fit in this corner perfectly.

At the top are two photographs - one of men fishing along the Matanzas River and another taken by a friend of my nephew's on a school trip to Africa. The burl bowl was purchased at a League of New Hampshire Craftsmen shop.

This shelf has an old ironstone platter, an antique wooden sewing box, and a vintage trophy filled with corks from wine bottles - memories of good times! The Brownie Starflash camera I found on eBay - it's exactly like my first camera except that mine was red. The mini huraches are a souvenir of Cuba given to me by a friend who knows of my fascination with pre-Castro Cuba. Another friend gave me the red and blue pins that were worn to show support for teams in a 1950s Cuban baseball league - I decided they'd make perfect shoe buckles for the huraches.

The "Southernmost Point in the US" miniature was given to me by my niece and nephew to remember a family vacation to the Florida Keys. The rowing picture was taken of my nephew's boat the day they won at the Stotesbury Cup - a first for his school. And there's a photograph of Stiltsville just because I like the idea of Stiltsville!

The three baby cups are mine, my father's, and my sister's - my mother never mentioned having one. The model of the French chair is one bought by my mother at a flea market in Normandy back in the 70s.

Before it was illegal to harvest cypress knees, they were made into lamps and sold to tourists as souvenirs of Florida. I have a thing for them and bought this on eBay for $12. I had it rewired and replaced the original shade (a horrible basket-like thing that makes them more valuable to collectors). The little Greek statue was a present from my grandparents after a trip to Greece in the 60s.

Bookcases

I've had built-in bookcases in two places that I've lived and had to leave them behind when I left. So when I moved to Florida 19 years ago, I decided to buy free-standing bookcases. At the time there was a store here called Naked Furniture - you selected unfinished furniture which they would finish and add moulding. I wanted pine but the saleslady convinced me to buy oak instead.

At some point, I painted the room white and decided the bookcase would look better if the back was white too. Since I didn't want the mess of paint in my den, I wallpapered the back.

When the den was painted brown, the oak just looked terrible and there was no getting around the fact that the bookcases had to be painted. I'd rather lick a snake that go through that again - remove and store 48 linear feet of books, the tv, dvd player, and wiring. Since I was going from oak to white, it required two coats of primer and one of paint. And I decided to do this in Florida in July using my porch as a workshop so I was sweaty and covered in paint for two weeks! I don't think the color is a perfect white but it's close enough - I'll never go through that again!

Pinboard

I love vintage WPA postcards of National Parks - some I've picked up on my travels and some have been sent to me by my niece who loves them too - and I wanted a way to display them. Pottery Barn had a wonderful linen covered pinboard but it couldn't be that hard to make....so, I bought a 3M foam board and covered it in white linen.

New Den Pillows

For a change, I decided to add a little color to the den so I made these pillows with some fabric from Calico Corners. This was my first time trying envelope-style pillows and I could not believe how easy it was! There's an added benefit because it makes it very easy to switch covers if I get tired of them. And I know that within six months, I'll find these garish...my name should be Monochrome Mary.