Treasuring Your Family Treasures

We recently had a client come into Benson’s who had inherited a cottage originally belonging to her grandparents that she is updating now that it belongs to her. It is very imperative for her to preserve the original charm of the house and to also display her grandmother’s heirlooms amongst any new décor to keep her grandmother’s spirit alive in the house. After consulting one another on the project, my mom and I began discussing the everyday items that become family heirlooms and the way we can preserve them in the home no matter their age. It also got me thinking about my own grandparents.


My grandparents lived in Indiana and my sister and I would fly out there every summer and spend weeks at a time with them. If you know anything about the Midwest, you know that most of the homes embody their own individual charm amongst the tree-lined streets. At least that’s what I remember as a child. My grandparents lived in a very traditional home, covered in yellow siding and brick with a porch spanning the front of the house. My grandmother always kept freshly planted red geraniums in pots on the pedestals leading up the steps to the front door. And of course, they had the necessary red front door. Built in the early 1900’s, the house had the characteristic creaky staircase and eerie basement, but in my memories it was nothing short of magical.

Under the stairs, there was a closet where my sister and I would keep a lot of the toys we played with in the family room, and in that closet, my grandmother had started tracking our height on the molding around the door jamb. She would mark our age next to the line designating our height and every year we would get to see how much taller we had grown since the summer before. Over the years, more grandchildren we born and their heights were added to the piece of wood.

My grandpa retired in his early 60’s and my grandparents decided to sell the house in which they had raised all of their children, and downsize to something more feasible for an active retired couple. They moved into a retirement community and the old house went up for sale and sold rather quickly. Before the sale had finalized, my grandma sent my uncle over to the house to remove the molding from inside the closet door. He kept the molding completely intact when removing it and replaced it with a new piece. My grandfather has since passed, but my grandmother still has that door jamb molding in the less scary basement of her new home in case I ever want to see how tall I was at the age of 6. That piece of wood is still as important to me as it ever was and still is to my grandmother.

It’s simple things like a that that carry the most weight when considering family treasures. It doesn’t matter what they are just so long as they embody a strong family significance. I started looking for other families' stories and found so many different ideas for displaying family treasures in your modern home.

Recipes:

Nothing will ever compare to Grandma's cooking, so when recipes are handed down, you can creatively display them and keep the same meals on your own kitchen table (even though we all know it'll never be as good as when Grandma made it).

Turn Grandma's handwritten recipes into kitchen wall art.

Framed handwritten recipes

Smallhomedesign on etsy.com turns your grandmother's handwritten recipes in tea towels.

Tea towels screenprinted with handwritten recipe

Or have that handwritten recipes carved into a useful cuttingboard.

damianswoodworks on Artfire.com

Doilies:

Doilies tend to find themselves a place in every family. My great-grandmother and great-aunt have passed many of their handmade doilies down to my mom and even though they don't seem to have a place in our modern world, they are still beautiful pieces of art that can and should be displayed.

Apartment Therapy showcased this amazing shadowbox collection of vintage doilies.

Collection of antique doilies

Check out this simple DIY on how to make a starched doily basket from Country Living Magazine.

Hand stitch or machine stitch doilies together to make a one-of-a-kind table runner.

You can also use a lot of the same doily techniques for crochet pot holders. They make beautiful wall art.

Arrange vintage potholders in a visually stimulating way

Handwritten Items:

The eloquence and intimacy of handwritten letters has been lost to us in this digital age, but if you are lucky enough to have inherited handwritten letters or postcards from a family member, you can appreciate the beauty of penmanship, the time spent putting thoughts down on paper and the affinity of correspondence through the mail. It is a shame that the coming generations will never know such experiences.

Enlarging and framing a handwritten envelope with the handwritten name of a family member can make for a striking piece of art.

Potsandpins.com

Framing letters in their entirety can create a visually stunning display. This can also be done with postcards.

I have schoolwork of my grandfather's, some of his earliest writings, as my grandmother would say. And I cannot wait to frame and display them as I struggle to still be the aspiring writer that I am in my dreams. To see the practice penmanship of my grandfather as a child is, for me, beyond meaningful. Such joyful things should have a place in the home. Once they're framed and hung, I will share more photos.

My grandmother mailed these to me

Check Out:

Design Sponge has a great article on ways to incorporate family heirloom objects and furniture into your living space. You can seamlessly create your own new space using very old family treasures and in turn can keep family spirit and warmth alive in your home. Plus, all of these displays create great conversation with your most loved guests.

Thanks for stopping by. Now go create.

-Lindsay