antiquing . . . or not

We found ourselves with nothing scheduled Thursday, so we decided to head to nearby Round Top for a bit of antiquing. It’s become kind of a tradition when we are buying a new home.

On my birthday in 1983, we moved into “the parsonage” where we mostly raised our four kids, a 1913 Craftsman Tudor Revival bungalow. It had been our church’s parsonage before we bought it. After a busy day of toting boxes and furniture, we took a break and went to a local estate auction. There, we bought a beautiful set of 5 nesting bowls made of depression glass for our new home.

So we headed for Round Top where we have often found treasures. Once Bill found matching railroad lamps with their colored filters intact that he used for porch lights on his woodshop (and yes, we are taking them with us!). But this time, every single antique shop was closed — even those that said they were open! Perhaps the dealers make so much money during the 2 yearly antique sales events that they no longer need to open on a daily business? Or maybe they open only weekends now — we don’t like to battle the crowds for weekend shopping.

Anyway, the only shop open was the Junk Gypsies — and they are just silly frou-frou and not antiques at all. But their building was fun to sketch, especially the old cistern with a quote from J. R. R. Tolkien painted on its side: “Not All Who Wander Are Lost”.

We left Round Top and drove on to Giddings, where we had fun at an expanding antique shop. Bill bought an old milk can with tight-fitting lid to set outside our barndaminium. It will hold birdseed to refill bird feeders. I was looking for one of those old kitchen stools with fold-out steps for our new kitchen, but instead I chose a vintage enameled kitchen cart on wheels. Haven’t sketched either, as we left them in the back of the car ready to take to the new place in a few days.