Glass knobs & vintage trunks

When we bought an old house we decided that we needed some old stuff. We are very much in favor of mixing our modern things with older and vintage things. I totally believe in honoring the 1918 house with keeping the original charm.

Speaking of charm. How do you feel about glass doorknobs? I love them. Correction. I am obsessed with them. Our house has them throughout the main floor, but when you get upstairs (which was added on), the glass knobs are noticeably absent.

Since I am very impatiently waiting to move into the new house, I thought I would fill my time with hunting down 5 sets of the most perfect glass doorknobs. And while I am at it, I thought "Hey, you know what else I love? Steamer trunks as coffee tables!" Thanks to my friend Sara for that inspiration! Luckily for me the glass knob and steamer trunks for a coffee table obsession sounded pretty great to my better half as well and he OK'ed a full on antique shopping spree. Well, maybe not a spree, but at least a shopping day.

So, after some serious online antique research I planned a route and estimated prices so I know how much to haggle down to. Luckily for me my best friend Bunnie has bank/school holidays off just like me, so we caffeinated up and headed to Seattle's finest Antique liquidators, malls, importers and shops.

With 2 sets of eyes on a mission we sifted through floors and floors of antiques. My gosh that is a lot of old wood furniture. Oh and the smell. It just smells old inside of these places. Once we got past all that we found this beauty:




The blue-green color is fabulous and I love that the leather handles are in tact. I can already see this living in our family room as our coffee table. We can put our feet up on it and not have to worry about scratching it or ruining it in any way, it's already scuffed and worn, which is totally part of its charm. I knew this guy was a definite contender and then we opened him up and found this amazing surprise:


Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you, that is paisley fabric!! I mean come on, that is too adorable! We decided that we could keep lots of blankets and other things in this trunk, plus it has the tray on top to keep smaller items (not sure what those items are yet).

I didn't pull the trigger on the trunk yet because I need Chris to give the final stamp of approval. We both have to approve things before we buy them, so we may bring this guy home next weekend if he loves it as much as I do. Before we left the store, I got the sales clerk to knock $59 off the sticker price. I didn't even have to haggle, so I am thinking I may be able to get a better deal if I can get Chris to play good cop-bad cop with me this weekend.

When we left the trunk behind, I was feeling a little sad that I didn't purchase anything. If you are a shopper you know the feeling I'm talking about. Anyway, although we kept looking for trunks, we couldn't find another one that was as nice or as perfect as the other one, so our search turned to the glass knobs. Who knew that these vintage knobs were so hard to find?? I found out that Anthropologie has them for sale, which would make the hunt a lot easier, but that takes all the fun out of it! I wanted to find real vintage knobs, and I knew that we would find them if we looked hard enough.

As we got hungry and tired, we stumbled upon a box full of glass knobs!! We dug through and matched up 2 sets and ended up with these beauties:


Whats better? I got them for $25 a pair, which is $13 cheaper than Anthropologie, so I feel like I got a bargain. These guys really perked up my shopping mood. I still need 3 more sets, but now I know they are out there and I can find them. This will be one of my first DIY projects when we move in. I am pretty sure I can swap out door knobs in an afternoon. I can hardly wait for the before and after pics!