I love getting out to rummage and estate sales with hopes of finding a vintage treasure or possibly something that needs a little help coming back to its old self.

My husband and I for years now have been focusing on finding and fixing antique typewriters. He repairs them to working order and I clean, photograph and field questions about these beauties.

SENSE OF HISTORY
Every item I post in the shop has some sort of history/story that Google shares with me. I am very interested in the point in time each piece was manufactured in and learning about its particular purpose.

THE HUNT
It is great fun to find something at an estate sale that appeals to me and really has a "wow factor."

I was at a sale a while back and decided to check out the garage. Looking around I spotted a dusty piece of white ceramic sitting on a shelf. The item had an old paint brush in it and dried paint that had dripped down the sides. On closer inspection, I discovered that this ceramic piece was ironstone — a pitcher with no chips! The owner of the house, I assume, had decided to clean a paint brush in it years ago and left it in the garage to soak and never returned.

I cleaned it up and it now resides in my personal ironstone collection. I think I paid a dollar for it at the time because it was such a mess.

All this ironstone pitcher needed was a little cleaning. It is beautiful and one of my favorite pieces because of they way it was found.