Extreme MSE

Gers

My DM is decluttering (with some healthy encouragement) one of her cupboards which is stuffed with paperwork - all neatly saved in named box files.

I want to share two receipts.



This one is from 1959 and the chair with stool is still in use in DM's home.




This one is from 1968 and, again, is still in daily use in DM's house.

Does anyone else have such 'old age and in good use' items?

VfM4meplse

Those invoices look pristine! DM has my full respect :beer:

Much of my stuff is in very good order, but then it is only 20 years old so I have a way to go....

coffeehound

Your DM is clearly an exceptionally well organised person and proper OS royalty! I remember Minty furniture on the Oxford ringroad in the 1970s - are they still going?

C_J

Yes, Minty is still going. They're off the Botley Road now, near the Seacourt "cathedral". Every time I see the company name it makes me smile - it makes me think their furniture tastes like toothpaste

PollyWollyDoodle

Most of my furniture is secondhand from family.

I have a chest of drawers and dressing table in my bedroom which were a present to my mother on her 21st birthday. That would’ve been in 1937! The matching wardrobe is long gone, and I don’t use the mirror which would sit on top of the chest, I have a long-term project to rub these down and re-varnish them, bit they don’t look bad for 80+ years!

luxor4t

I have my grandfather's desk, which he bought second hand in the 1930s (family legend says from the Cardiff docks' offices).

Gers

C_J wrote: »

Yes, Minty is still going. They're off the Botley Road now, near the Seacourt "cathedral". Every time I see the company name it makes me smile - it makes me think their furniture tastes like toothpaste

Seems to be a 'different' company which bought it out after Minty went into receivership.

I've also found out that the Bristol range was something to do with a WW1 Spitfire!

Katiehound

I've got some 'Linden' whitewood pieces still going very strong! which were purchased in the 60s.
Well, some were purchased by my mother in the 60s and several pieces I bought second hand or jumble sales maybe 30 years ago. The cheapest were a pair of bedside cabinets for £1 maybe each, or both? which I repainted.

I also have 4 chests made of conti board which just needed varnishing. 2 of those are certainly 60s and of solid wood, later ones have flimsy drawer bases.
Can't complain at any of them ';though. Don't have the bill of sale........

Prinzessilein

Excellent record keeping by your DM Gers!

I have assorted 'heirlooms'...books, jewellery and photos that date back to the 1800s in some cases, but they are stored away carefully....

I have a few items of carved furniture...a 'sewing' desk, a coffee table, a magazine rack and a needlework chest...designed by my mother and made by craftsmen in Singapore...they date from the early/mid '60s....they are in daily use and are just beautiful!

I have some Pyrex kitchenware...oven-to-table..I got a cup, saucer, two plates and a bowl when I went to Uni...this would've been in the early '80s...they are still used daily and the soft pink floral design is as clear as on day 1!

thriftwizard

I have various bits of furniture made by my maternal great-grandfather or bought as antiques by my paternal grandmother. My mother has, and is still using, the dining chairs given to her grandparents as a wedding present, which were antique back then. As her mother was born in 1900, and they're not heavy, turned-wood Victorian pieces but quite plain and delicate, they're probably early 19th century, or so we were told when they were last re-upholstered by a very upmarket company, as a favour.

I also picked up at the recycling centre a large & very grubby, rectangular "plant-pot", which turned out not to be. It's actually an early ironstone footbath from the Angel Hotel in Oxford, which closed its doors for the last time in 1866. Now I've cleaned it up, I'm too terrified to put a plant in it! But it's a lovely thing, and I do sometimes wonder whose illustrious feet might have rested in it; the Angel regularly hosted royalty, nobility and theatricals back in the day!

So our much-loved & frequently-used Le Creuset cookware, much of it given to us as wedding presents back in 1984, (but the rest from car boot sales & the local tip) is positively junior by comparison!

But my everyday straight-stitch sewing machine is definitely a contender; it's a Jones Medium treadle from 1909, which still stitches as well as the day it was made. It's black, festooned with gold & red, and although the table-top is showing its age & gradually disintegrating, the machine itself runs smoothly and, given the correct needles & thread, will stitch through almost anything without skipping a beat.

-taff

I have a gas New World cooker from the 1970s still in use and working in the house I'm currently staying in....