My Cedar Chest

When I was growing up, I used to look at the pictures of cedar chests in the Lane advertisements. I remember for awhile, they used to have an ad that must have shown 12 or more styles. I would mentally decorate my room around each different chest. After that, I would rank them in order of which I would select as my first choice. Then Lane came out with the enticement of a matching mini chest to go with the full-sized one. It was just about the right size to go on a dresser. Oh, how I wanted THAT!

My great-aunt had a chest at the foot of her bed. She kept linens that were hand-made, and photo albums where the pages were black, the writing was white, and the photos were put in with little corner pockets. I don't remember what else she kept in her chest. My grandmother (her sister) had one, too. I think she painted hers yellow and had a forest green cushion on it. Inside were all kinds of outdoor summer toys like badminton rackets and birdies.

Here is a picture of my cedar chest. My father made if for my mother and they gave it to me last summer. It is under the bedroom window in this picture but we moved to to be on the wall opposite the bed. It is lovely, isn't it? It has a lot of hand-dyed and hand-spun yarn in it that it held while it was in my mother's studio.