A piece of furniture that you still have

[YadaYadaYada]

Recently saw an article on FB and in it it mentioned keeping a piece of furniture from your first apartment. Most people move a good number of times I think before settling down but is it possible to keep just one piece of furniture all that time?

This is mine, this table which I bought at some little handmade shop, has been with me for almost 20 years. Solid pine, it was made by the store owner's son and at the time I probably paid $100 for it. Turned out to be the perfect spot for keys and a purse, so that has been its path in life and it now sits comfortably behind my front door.

Do you still have something from your first apartment? Even if it isn't furniture, just some special object you acquired and hung onto all this time.

 

[PierreBear]

Gosh... I think some art work that really isn't anything special and was just purchased from Ikea. It still works with the current decor of our home so I think it's here to stay for awhile! Love your little table that you kept around!

 

[elizabethess]

I was given a little plaque from a friend's mom as a housewarming gift when I rented my very first apartment, it says "May you find peace, love and laughter here." I've kept it hung everywhere I've moved for the past 22 years

 

[dk168]

When I installed a new kitchen in my bachelor flat, I kept the piece of granite cut out from the work top for the hob and used it the top of a coffee table.

It is kind of bitter sweet as I had to sell the flat and relocate elsewhere shortly after the new kitchen was installed, after having the flat for 17 years.

DK

 

[monarch64]

That's an adorable table! Is that a Boyd's bear? My SIL collected those for years and I had some too at one point.

I've hung onto a rocking chair and a chest that went with my first bedroom suite (as a child) all this time, through many moves. My mother rocked me in the chair and I rocked my daughter in it. I hope someday if she has children she can rock them in it. The chest was once known as a "hope chest" but now it's been painted and resides in my daughter's room as a toy box.

 

[telephone89]

I don't think I have a single thing from my first place still with me. The last thing I could think of was a bar/mini fridge, but I actually got rid of that last year!

most of the stuff in my first place either a) wasn't mine, or b) was total crap LOL.

I do have a few collectibles that I move from place to place though. I've been in my house for almost 3 years and still haven't set them out. Maybe a project for this summer.

 

[Alybetter]

I think about this often. I have nothing left from my life before about 1999. Not even photos. But I've made a point to hang on to one of two items from around 2004. I'll keep them forever

 

[YadaYadaYada]

PierreBear, IKEA is awesome! The fact that you still have the artwork means you must really enjoy it and there's nothing better than being surrounded by things you really like.

Elizabethess, how nice that she gave you something so thoughtful AND that you have hung onto it all 22 years! I mean let's face it, it's so easy to purge when moving.

DK, that is a bummer about the flat but you still have the coffee table right? I love when someone can take something from a project and make another little something from it.

Monarch, It is a Boyd's, good eye! I had hundreds of mohair ones which I sold on EBay years ago. This guy is named Liberty so I like to pull him out for patriotic holidays, he has a comfy spot now though. So cool that you hung onto the rocking chair and chest and that you get to pass them down and even better that the chest is repurposed as you go along.

 

[distracts]

Well I'm only 30 so my first apartment wasn't that long ago. But going back even further, I have a red chair and ottoman that I got for my birthday when I was 14 that I still have. And when my grandparents moved into the old folks' home, I inherited their dining table (super solid knockoff Saarinen custom made for them in the 70s to match their color scheme), several chairs, several Italian inlaid wood music box tables, and several really nice and big china flower pots and stands, and they all have been with me ever since. In terms of nonfurniture objects... I keep so much stuff. I'm not even going to list it. I have no idea how anyone can not have stuff from their entire life just floating around them because I always do.

 

[YadaYadaYada]

telephone, setting out those special collectibles you have sounds like a fun end to some Spring cleaning perhaps?

Alybetter, this many not be much comfort but the things you acquired in 2004 will be twenty years old in just seven years. Twenty years holding on to something is nothing to sneeze at. I have hardly anything from my childhood and especially the photo albums I left behind that the step-monster now has really bother me but I try not to dwell on that, can't change the past and I find I precise those few things I do have even more.

Distracts, those music box tables sound really cool, I can imagine your place could tell a lot of cool stories. Also it is wonderful that you inherited furniture that you can maybe pass along someday and continue the tradition, the old stuff is made so much better than anything made today anyways.

 

[VRBeauty]

I love your little table, Stephanielynn! How nice that you still have it to remind you of that transition!

My first apartment was "furnished" (using the term very loosely here!) and the "furniture" I brought to supplement what was there is long gone by now. But my mother gave me a box of kitchen essentials to help me get started, some of which I still have and use these 40 or so years later. There was an assortment of pots and pans and prep knives that were no longer needed in her kitchen, and I'm sure there was a nice collection of the wooden spoons that were essential to her cooking. Some of those are no longer with me, others are now just part of the kitchen collection. These three items, however, make me think of my Mom whenever I use them: an aluminum citrus reamer, a bright red Hammerplast plastic colander (still useable even though its handle to was lost to a gas burner long ago) and a manual swing-a-way can opener with avocado green handles.

BTW the other thing I still have from that apartment is a set of Oneida "Morning Star" silverplate flatware. I bought it at a consignment shop near where I worked, wooden box and all. It was probably my first real "on my own now" purchase. It was "vintage" when I bought it, and it's even more so now! That is still my everyday flatware today. That set eventually led me to the dark web of ebay sales, and I've picked up several other sets of vintage silverplate since then.

 

[YadaYadaYada]

VR, I love the color of that colander, makes a mundane task a little more interesting. Coincidentally your can opener would have matched the appliances in my house growing up

 

[monarch64]

VR that flatware is gorgeous! You reminded me that I've actually had the same Oneida flatware pattern since college/my first apartment! I think it's called Flight. Nothing fancy but this set has fed a lot of people over the past couple decades.