Everything in our house has a story to tell. I believe a house feels more like a home when its full of stories. Interior designer Diana Mathews
Upon one of her first visits to our home here at the coast, a neighbor declared, “I haven’t seen so much antique furniture in one place outside an antique store.”
Her coastal vacation home is furnished with the latest trends. Over time, her furniture will gather stories of their own.
But most every piece of furniture in our home we inherited from Bob’s parents or mine or we purchased it as newlyweds over a half century ago. And every piece has its own story. If you want to take the time, I’m happy to tell you about any one of them.
For example, the twin beds in the loft were the beds that my husband and his brother slept in when they were growing up in Brunswick. The family moved these wooden Jenny Lind spool beds to Texas and then back to Georgia. The brothers can tell tales about what they talked about before they fell asleep each night.
And my grandmother’s rocker, well over a century old, remains my favorite place to sit. My husband has refinished it to its natural wood color and we have had it reupholstered.
Grandmother not only rocked her four babies in this chair, but she also rocked me in it. She gave it to me with the birth of our first child and I rocked three children and seven grandchildren in it. And when I sit in it, the memories of each of those babies come flooding back.
Not only does the furniture in our home have stories, but also, the house has its own story. My husband, the engineer, designed the entire house, starting with steel piers buried in deep concrete footings. And he did much of the carpentry and trim work, himself.
He’s always said, “If my dad can do it, why can’t I? He had plenty of opportunities to watch his father, a master carpenter, at work, especially when he built our two houses in Jesup. And what my husband didn’t learn from watching his dad, he studied construction manuals. Probably experience, both old and new, taught him the most.
As he looks around these days, he wonders how he was able to do so much of the work, like install the ceiling for our wrap around porch and three-foot eaves, alone without any help. Also, there are four corner columns and four columns on each side of the house - 20 in all. And each of the structural columns are encased in 20 pieces of wood, each measured, sawn and nailed. An intricate handrail connects all of the columns, again, each piece, measured, sawn and nailed.
Yes, everything, if we look close enough, has its own story, especially the people who live within the dwelling’s walls. They can tell stories about events which shaped them. I grew up in a family of grocers who were also story tellers. My dad and his four brothers could keep us all entertained with the events that occurred in each store. When I look back, all of them chose to tell only the funny stories.
And family stories can teach us many lessons. Researchers tell us that children who struggle with learning are far more resilient and capable of learning new strategies if they are familiar with their own family heritage stories. If those stories tell about falling down but getting up; making mistakes but working to correct them; surviving the ups and downs of living, the young listeners know they can try and try and eventually succeed, too.
Viola Shipman, in The Heirloom Garden, writes, “America today tends to have a collective memory that spans only a few minutes. We’re always looking ahead. But how can we become who we’re supposed to be if we don’t know from where we come.”
When older generations share and younger ones listen, family stories can be part of anyone’s heritage. And the story behind a single piece of furniture may be a good place to start.
2023
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