Friday's Favorites-Buffet

Here's another new reoccuring category - Friday's Favorite Things. Anyone who knows me personally knows that I love my "things" passionately, obsessively, and compulsively!

When I left for college in June 1966, I only took what a young college person needs - very little other than what was needed to set up a dorm room. When my adoptive dad came up to see me that next May to tell me he was divorcing my step-mother, anything that was left at our house, all my youth and teenage memorabilia (including high school year books and a charm bracelet that covered almost every important event of my life) was gone. I went to the house to get my things, but my step-mother and her mother kept me from entering, and apparently either before or after that day threw everything away - because they were angry at my dad. (We won't go into the emotional impact of being blocked from going into my home, even if I did hate the woman.)

Hence my obsession with my things. I hoard them, display them, love them. Friday's Favorite Things will include things collected or given to me from that day on, as well as favorite photos, books, quotes, people, colors, etc.

Today's favorite thing is this beautiful buffet. When David and I were setting up a home together in 1973, we found this buffet at a salvation army type store. It was a shocking pink with gold antiquing that was popular at one time. We stripped it, stained it, and loved it. Who'd have thought that there was such a beautiful walnut underneath all that paint - look at the grain on the top drawer! And those legs!

From that day forward, this has been the center of our home. Anytime we move (and we've moved nine times since 1973), this is the absolute first thing I set up, and it has almost always, in the 36 years since, looked the way it does now. (Except with more clutter and things on it. And not quite so clean.)

The first thing to go on it are the photos of my favorite people, with a few favorite objects, some old books, and a favorite lamp (which was purchased from a neighbor in about 1986, and they'd had it since WWII).

I think that favorite things make a house a home, that they add texture to our lives and our psyche, and keep many of our memories alive. (Of course, the clutter control people will counter that with "just take a picture and toss the object".) (And yes, I realize that I've showed four shots of the same buffet...I just couldn't decide which to use, and I love the way the morning sun spotlights it in the first one.)

What is the first thing you put out when you move into a home (besides toilet paper and sheets), that thing that says now it's gone from a house to my home? Is it a family heirloom, or a gift, or something you purchased yourself?