Ever wonder what it is like to drive by a secret hidden driveway that most likely winds up a hill into a forest of wooded area filled with trees so far back from the street that you cannot even see a house or two there?
Yep, have lived here most of my 40 something years give ortake a few years and not once did i ever know what was at the top of that windy hill driveway.
Til this past week when i saw the pretty bright neon green estate sale sign. the windy road had a curb luckily for the sense of false security most likely, to keep me from worrying too much about going off the narrow drive right straight down a deep wooded ravine filled with greenery...the road was wide enough for two vehicles. but still it was a narrow space.
at the top of the hill, there was a man directing cars to park for the sale. i saw a huge green yard separate from any house with several cars filling the large space. quite aways past that was what appeared to be an enormous house, yet i could only see the top of it due to yet more trees, hills and forest. IT was the ppast carriage house for the property. The man said another person lived there separately from the estate sale. which was off to the left, just around a short curve in the driveway was a 4 story mansion surrounded by many trees and a small yard and path surrounding the massive home. er mansion in my opinion.
inside the place was filled with antique everything. in every single room. on every single floor except the fourth floor lookout tower area which was blocked off from the attic. no one was allowed past the yellow caution tape and there were items placed for sale on each step within reach of curious shoppers who love estate sales, or like me, were just curious to tour a massive hidden home and finally see what was hidden beyond the drive up that windy road.
The house was comfortable as if it had been there a hundred years and everyone felt at home when they walked in the door.
hundreds upon hundreds of antique and vintage books in every room practically, old trunks and if you know me and my love for chairs, well i could hardly contain myself from not emptying my bank account to load my suv with lots of random wood vintage and antique chairs at less than 20 dollars each. some were 10 some were even 5 each.
I did contain myself much as i loved the character of each and every single chair there and wanted to bring every one of them home to freshen them up. dust and old paint are not becoming of any chair that is left abandoned along with the scary creepy 3 foot doll missing its hands which i also brought home.
You see, my love for books is almost equal to or surpasses my love of chairs and even greater if they are antique books. so i did what any reasonable person with a passion for antique books would do in my case. i suprised myself in leaving all but the two chairs i picked to bring home, and instead went back four days in a row to load boxes of antique books in boxes to bring home. and not just boxes but if you know me....haha, you would also know i even stopped myself from filling the suv with vintage suitcases and old trunks. sadly i would have taken them all if that was possible. in my case, it was not due to budget constraints, which yes, means i was pretty broke at the time. but not too broke to at least get a couple vintage suitcases which i was happy with and filled with books, for the simple reasoning that one could not carry all those books without a carrying case for them. especially when there werent a lot of boxes around the place.
so yes, here i am at almost midnight on a saturday night searching ebay, amazon and google as well as wikipedia for book titles from the late 1800s and early 1900s...that is about as old as the books get. would be great to find some older but for now this is the most i have found that were somewhat affordable in a long time.
Even went as far as stretching my vocabulary a little since some books are in different languages. I have no clue even how to google translate some of them but am trying!
and you are darn right if you wondered if i would list really super outrageously high prices for each one on ebay. who knows, maybe i have that one rare book. if not, the listings will expire and i will at least be able to get back out of the books what i paid for them if they dont sell there.
A friend was out of town this week luckily since just last week on a thrifting trip she found several old books and some twine that were very affordable. i had to fill her in on the fact that her plan to tie them together with a pretty little piece of twine after chalkpainting them for staging purposes for her painted furniture would be a bad idea if one of her books turned out to be a first edition. i will never know as she didnt say a word in reply to my warning. felt it was best to try and save the books and a friend if she had a book worth selling rather than painting. all books in my opinion older than 1960 are worth saving really. but who am i to say...
so exciting! i love researching old books and treasure hunting. this is one of the best things i have done in a long time. treasure hunting from the couch to see what i dragged home makes it pretty easy really. will let you know if i find anything good!
i did start making a list and do have a few photos and links to ebay as well for a few listings. there is a tab to a separate page here just for the books.! be sure to check it out often and see if there isnt something new you will learn about the history of old books in my newly acquired library.
it just doesnt seem right that i love the books enough to bring them home, to my home, which does not have a library....when the four story mansion had a library and all the books were already tucked neatly away on their shelves...it would have made much more sense to simply move into the mansion and let the books stay in their rightful spots...right? too bad i couldnt just afford that half million dollar mansion! now i have boxes filled with books that do not have their own spots yet. they will. soon. i hope. maybe i can find a few of them new homes. do you have a library for them?
