About a year ago, my mom and I were talking about telephone tables (she'd read the blog and knew I really really really wanted one, but a genuine antique). She has one in her house in Ohio that I like a lot; it's the perfect foyer piece, great as a conversation-starter. I believe that one is my grandmother's.
It turns out, she had another one in the basement that she'd planned on restoring someday and displaying in the house somewhere; it wasn't in the best shape, she said, but it was her grandmother's -- my great-grandmother's. She passed away about 10 years ago and left my mom a telephone table that my mom loved as a child. I, of course, was all giddy, thinking I'd get to inherit the piece someday.
I got home the other day to find a ginormous box outside the house. What the ...
Knowing it was my Christmas present but a) too curious to wait and b) figuring such a large box couldn't just sit in the house anywhere, I opened it.
I opened it to find a newly restored antique telephone table, from my mom.
After about half an hour of carefully cutting away the bubble wrap and shipping "stuff," I sat in the middle of my kitchen floor with tears in my eyes, looking at the most gorgeous piece of furniture I'd ever seen.
Rich whistled. "Damn, she did good," he said.
Maybe it's not beautiful to everyone, but my mom knew that Rich likes dark wood, so she had it restored in a dark stain. To match the house, she had it reupholstered in a neutral color that picks up the yellow of the walls. And it's a genuine antique, a family heirloom.
Until I finish the basement and can move the litter boxes out of the upstairs alcove and down two flights, the table is on the porch, where it really does belong but I don't want to put it there until we finish the porch and replace the windows. It'll be the welcoming centerpiece of our home someday, hopefully soon.
Thanks, Mom.
This is awesome, Brooke! My family has a similar fondness for these pieces, except we've always called them "gossip benches"! I just inherited my mother's, which she'd bought from an antique shop and refinished herself. It currently serves as a diving platform onto our sofa.
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