All my life, I have been drawn to yesterday, to the past, to the nostalgia of times gone by.  Perhaps this is because I grew up with older parents and an elderly grandmother, all of whom filled my young imagination with stories from "the old days" and who taught me the ways of yesterday and the beauty of things from eras gone by.   I grew up in the 70's ...however, through my parents and grandmother, I fell in love with a much older era.

 As an impressionable little girl, I sat beside my beautiful mother at her vanity dresser with the waterfall wood pattern, and watched her unpin her very long dark hair and let it fall past her waist.  I saw her take her silver plated, soft bristled brush and comb and gently smooth and shine her beautiful tresses.  To me, she looked like a princess.   Then, when she had finished with her own hair, she would turn her attention to my own very long, dark strands that were usually snarled from running all day like a wild child through our Appalachian home site, dusty roads and hills filled with crab grass and burrs.   Sometimes it took a while for my hair to get as smooth as hers, but Mommy was patient.  And as she worked on my hair with that beautiful comb, and smoothed and detangled my hair, I felt like the princess that she looked like.   It was a special time between mother and daughter.  A small memory that I have tucked away inside my heart now that she's been gone some seven years.

It was these times and these things that people now would call "vintage" that shaped my preferences and loves now.  I realize now that my parents, themselves, were "vintage" and that was okay.  My Daddy was over 40 when I was born, the third of four children, and the first daughter.  My mother was 36 when she had me.   They were Appalachian people from the mountains that bordered Kentucky and Virginia.  Our people had been in this region since before America was America.  No Ellis Island for my ancestors.  They were already here before that even became a port of entry.

To understand my parents, and therefore me, and my tastes and how they were shaped, you would have to understand a bit about Appalachia.  You see, this was a place removed from the rest of the world to great degree.  We were always very aware of what was going on in the world and we had our opinions of course, but other than when the world came calling on us, we pretty much kept to our own.   Because of this, our ways were slower to change.  And when I say slower, I mean that it was almost like living in the previous century.   This wasn't altogether a bad thing.  In some ways, it was better.  It meant that we held on to the simplicity of life much longer than did our flat land counterparts.  It also, of course, meant that our life was very difficult in some ways much longer than our city cousins.

Things that others took for granted in my century, such as running water and indoor plumbing-- these were not found in my home until I was in middle school in the 1970s.   But beautiful furniture from bygone eras were in our home, along with silver plated hair brush and comb sets, and antique perfume bottles that sat on vanities made a hundred years ago.  Mommy's simple pearl necklace, tucked away in her satin jewelry pouch, alongside the "ear bobs" Daddy had bought her when he had went away to work in North Carolina, when the  mines had temporarily closed down.

These are what peppered my world and influenced my early ideas of what is beautiful.  And these are still with me today.   And the fingerprints of this nostalgic world I grew up in are still on my heart and influences the pieces I'm drawn to and the look I have created for our home here in the beautiful bluegrass area of Central Kentucky.

After my husband retired as a medical professional, and at our kids' behest, we moved from the mountains of Eastern Kentucky to an Apartment in the beautiful bluegrass area of Lexington, Kentucky.  We have taken to city life, and seeing our kids and grandkids more, like ducks to water.

When we moved, I was tasked with the question of how to bring some of us to apartment living.  How to decorate a small space with the nostalgic pieces and look that I love - without busting a budget to do it.

So this is partly what this blog is about.  Our move to the city; Our home; Our life at this time and place and all things that go with it.  As you can suspect, it's an eclectic blog -- filled with decorating but much more -- including our two rescue felines and an entire host of other interesting and very mundane happenings in the lives of two very ordinary people who have chosen to make their lives extraordinary by appreciating each and every day.

So, if you've a mind to, sit back and enjoy this hodge-podge blog of all old that are new again (including the two of us)… as through this blog, you get to know me -- Mr.  Coleman's Wife.

Blessings to you.