Hurrying Through Antique Stores

Yeah I know. I thought the same thing!

So we've been trying to find an antique-looking cabinet to go above the new toilet in our newly renovated bathroom, but we've had one helluva time finding the right thing.

So we went to Snohomish, the "antique capital of the Pacific Northwest." We didn't get there until about 3:00 this afternoon and the town shuts down at precisely 5:00 on Saturdays, so we unfortunately had to hurry through the antiques shops.

Now that's just wrong!

The sensory experience of wandering through antique stores is intense. It didn't used to be, because there was no familiarity to what I saw and smelled and felt. But it's different now because as I wandered (OK, zipped... unfortunately) around many a corner, I was greeted by vague, but distinct smells that teased my senses, urging an unknown nudging to emerge from the depths of my childhood memories. Occasionally I'd see an item that was completely familiar, and instead of nudging an unknown memory, it crystallized one. I saw my mother's sewing chest that had two hinged panels that opened on opposite sides. I saw the football-shaped copper-colored scalloped Jello mold and the heavy metal meat grinder that Mom used to crank onto the metal kitchen table. I looked for Mom's Kathe Krusse doll that now sits on my dresser and for the wooden German egg cup characters with different colored knit caps that I remember so well and wish Mom had saved. But I didn't see them. Tom saw his mother's "Desert Rose" dinner dishes and his silver rocket piggy bank.

But we didn't find the perfect bathroom cabinet.

Do you see anything you recognize from your own childhood?

After the antique stores closed at the stroke of 5:00, we drove around the charming town and snapped photos of the Victorian style, beautifully restored homes considering the what-ifs of moving the 15 miles (but worlds away) to Snohomish. Could we buy an old Victorian home and fix it up? No, we decided -- we've spent so much time and energy (and money) fixing up our own mundane 1977 less-than-perfect split-level home home over the years and it's finally feeling like ours (though this pig's ear never a purse will make!), we could never start all over again!

Next time we buy a home, if we ever do, we're looking for "move-in condition!"