Filling a house with finds

We totally scored on Day 4. You might see this as a pile of junk, but I see it as miniature stories filling my baby brain with tales of little lives running around in our tiny house before us.

The treats found under our floorboards

When Todd and Gio removed the flooring yesterday, this is what they found:

1 x glass marble in green
1 x glass inkwell
1 x broken patterned tile
1 x handmade leather shoe (pretty deteriorated)
1 x record featuring Branko Milenkovic and his Yugoslavian band
1 x penny from 1950
1 x wooden pram wheel
Plus the bed heads shown yesterday.

Our title says our house was built in 1916. This little discovery has made me want to find out who owned the little shoe, perhaps a little girl who was pushed around in the pram at one stage? Or a really small woman with one real leg and a wooden peg with a wheel on the bottom who was really poor and only had one penny which she lost when she slipped on ink spilt from the inkwell while listening to Branko Milenkovic. Then she lost her marble.

Lucky for me I work at the Victorian Archives, so I may have to get cracking on some research. Watch this space!

Speaking of finds, I went to the Victorian town of Maldon with my pal Ollie who also has an obsession with old, secondhand crap. Every year Maldon holds a town-wide garage sale and last year there were over 50 houses selling everything from 1960s pot-plant stands, to carnival glass, through to theatre lights and horse buggies.

What made this garage sale super cool was that when you rocked up to the town at dawn's crack, you were handed a special (treasure) map for a gold coin donation.

A MAP!

The map showed all the house locations with tiny tick boxes next to each joint so you could cross off as you went. With squeals of delight Ollie and I sat down in the Maldon bakery and smashed a vanilla slice and Nippy's flavoured milk prima while working out the best route to take.

One of the best things we saw (and I wish I had bought, but Reggie would have shrieked when seeing me carry it into our house) was a brass and copper Jules Verne-like diving bell. Some dude was selling it for $150 because his wife kept hitting her knee on it in the hallway. For him it was a choice between his beloved diving bell and his wife. He really didn't want to part with the bell. I don't blame him. It was extraordinary.

I will always think of the diving bell as the one that got away.

I purchased some sweet treats last year, such as this lead light window for $10 which is going to be the feature window in our kitchen, and a mirror from a former church yard keepers house which is going to go in Cobb's room. Ollie scored a 1940s hair salon hair heater thing which he turned into a light. He's one clever cat and he totally knows it.

Leadlight - it needs restoration

I'm super pumped, because the mega garage sale will be held again this year on the 16th and 17th February. It will coincide with the Maldon Antiques and Collectables Fair. I will barely be able to sleep the night before. Ollie has put the date in his Dinky Diary and has promised me he won't be as hungover as last year when he polished off seven refreshments during the drive out there.

So if you're looking for something to do in February or love looking through other people's shit and offering a gold coin donation for something that you have no idea what you can do with, then I highly recommend this garage sale.

And if you do get to Maldon, seriously try out the bakery. The pasties are non-vegetarian (I don't judge), but excellent.  The vanilla slice is heavenly - I think they used Sao's for the base, and the pie is worth getting all over your chin and on your shirt. Do it and wear it with pride.

With love,
Ali

Cheef looking into our floorless house