Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Treasures from Bubbie's Basement - Part 1


After 35 years, my grandmother (we call her Bubbie), is moving to a new apartment complex. This decision was made after her husband, my Zaydie, passed away a couple years back. Her current apartment is just more space than she needs right now on her own.

She found herself a retirement community nearby, got on the list, and waited. Finally, earlier this year, her time arrived! Three decades after moving into her current home, she had a brand new apartment!

So the clean out began!

In those 30+ years, a lot of stuff accumulated. As it does. But perhaps a bit more than most (there was always an abundance of newspapers, plastic shopping bags, and empty ice cream containers at Bubbie's house - I don't even know why!). We knew that there'd be a day that we'd all have to pitch in to help clean that place out!

After Zaydie passed a couple years ago, we cleaned out quite a bit (he hoarded books and comic books) but now we had to accelerate the process. We also began claiming items we wanted - Bubbie wanted to get rid of old stuff and just start new in her new place. So she began offering up furniture and the like.

Way before this clean out began, though, I already had my name on a few things. One of the things I knew I had to have was her old dining room set from the 70s. It had been put in the basement when I was a pre-teen but I can remember sitting on the orange vinyl seats as a little kid at many Passover Seders, hoping that one day I would be able to have the set in my own house.


How I knew I'd be a vintage lover at such a young age, I'll never know, but alas, the day has come to bring the awesomely retro set home! I've been so excited as we've emptied more and more stuff out of her basement to reveal my dining room set.



It was really mine! It was all still in tact! It was...very filthy.



Grime aside, I am so happy to have it home with me. Cody was not so excited when we discussed it and even more skeptical when he saw it in the basement in all its dusty glory but when he realized how much the set meant to be (it being my grandparents' and all), he gave in and agreed to having it at our house.



It will remain in our sun room for awhile for its deep cleaning and scrubbing but I promised Cody I would do it all myself as a Spring project. So keep an eye out for part 2 of this post soon! I can't wait to get each piece cleaned so I can put it all together again and have it in my dining room!