I never set out to collect vintage glass bottles, it just kind of happened that way. When we bought our house back at the end of August in 2011, we inherited the best kind of friends; the people who formally owned our house. They have kids our age, and are the nicest, most wonderful kind of people, and as young parents with a brand new home in a strange new town, they took us under their wing. We have been able to consult with them on unfinished projects, they have gifted us with items and photos that previously belonged in our house, and even helped build our back fence a few summers ago.
Sometime during that first year, I got a phone call from D. He was wondering if I would be interested in a basket of old bottles. He went on to tell me about how most of them came from our house. How they had found them burried in the yard, or underneath the house in an old dirt crawl space (turned out to be the same one I insulated under previously). A long time ago, or so the story goes, our house was used as sort of an old fashioned .. well.. I don't know what you would call it. It was a place where people were brought to die. I think that part of our house's history is hysterical, because it was built as a mill owner's home. Right near where I live, there are several large houses very similar in design to my own, and the rich mill owners lived in them in the mill's heyday. I don't know how it went from one to the other, and would LOVE a historical run through of all the owners/uses of our house, but I haven't gotten around to researching it.
Anyhow, back to the bottles. I told D that I most certainly would love a basket of old bottles that were found in our house, because I have a soft spot for things that are historically tied to the house. One day I came home from somewhere, and there was a huge bushel basket of bottles on the porch. I never dreamed there would be so many. Some were not salvageable. They had hundred year old "sludge" that had encrusted in them so hard it wouldn't come out. Most of them however, I was able to wash up and save. The majority of the bottles can be seen above, and they live across a shelf on my porch. The ones in this photo, live on a shelf in my downstairs bathroom.
These ink bottles used to live on the porch. Last summer I took them off the porch, and put them on the top of the bottom window section of the dining room window that looks out to the porch. I put a single flower bloom in each bottle, and loved the look of it. When the blooms died, the bottles lived in the dining room window, but I didn't really enjoy them there because I didn't see them often. As I was working on my craft room back in the fall, I thought.. hey, those are ink bottles. I do pen and ink, why not move them in here? Now they live on the top of the bottom window part in my craft room. I see them often, and the sun shines on this part of the house more, and sparkles off the glass. I love them here much better.
These bottles were living on the porch as well, up until about a week or two ago. I switched out some of my decor for a more summery feel, and I moved these onto the side table in the dining room. They are part of a bigger display that I will share later on. These bottles have a more "sea glass" kind of feel to them. I think it's the color, and the soft, worn look of the glass. As I have been collecting sea glass since I was a teen, they appeal to me on a deeper level. Mostly though, I just think they look really cool. The bottle that is holding the flowers isn't part of the collection. That's an olive oil bottle that I saved to use as a vase. I'm not a fan of fat, squatty flower vases. The next thing I want to acquire... is old milk bottles. That's a post for another day.
linking to: Saturday Night Special
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