Heirlooms & Stories
The objects we keep often tell the stories we don’t want to forget. Explore family heirlooms, antiques, keepsakes, family history, and the meaningful pieces that connect us to the people and places that came before us.
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Currier & Ives, My Grandma, and Me: How a blue-and-white plate became a doorway back to Pigeon Creek
One of the most meaningful things in my home isn’t valuable, rare, or particularly impressive. It’s a Currier & Ives plate hanging on my wall. Ironically, it isn’t even my grandmother’s plate. I don’t know what happened to her dishes—the… Continue reading
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How to Create a Plate Wall That Feels Collected, Not Cluttered
“The story doesn’t have to exist before the collection begins. Sometimes the collection becomes the story.” Every family seems to have a cabinet of family treasures. Maybe it’s a china cabinet in the dining room that hasn’t been opened in… Continue reading
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Why Fried Green Tomatoes Still Feels Like Home
I first watched Fried Green Tomatoes back when renting a movie meant climbing into my little black Ford Probe (complete with pop-up headlights) and driving to the local video store. Except we didn’t have a Blockbuster on Pigeon Creek in Mingo… Continue reading
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Small Details That Make My House Feel Like Home
I remember a corner shelf in my grandmother’s living room filled with glass birds of various colors. Some were clear with delicate swirls of blue suspended inside the glass, while others were solid cobalt blue or deep ruby red. As… Continue reading
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The Things We Keep
There’s something about certain objects that makes you stop for a moment. Not because they’re valuable in the usual sense, but because they’ve been part of someone’s life for a long time before they became part of yours. A photograph… Continue reading
Stories of Home | Char Beyond the Bell 