Love is Restoring Something Preloved

I'm a sentimental old bean, I admit it. But maybe love isn’t all about roses, expensive dinners or even having another human in your life. Maybe it’s about laughter, the memories around you, or restoring the faith in something else once loved too. And how better than to really show how much you love something, or someone, than to spruce up your loved item and give it a functional use once again.

Restoring Something Loved

Take for example that precious old object your mum used to use, look at or wear. Or perhaps that special something you bought second hand that had a long and tough life before you came along and swept the dust off it in the second hand shop… an object that would simply pass someone else by but had you captivated enough to keep it for yourself. That bargain find isn’t just an heirloom, an ordinary vintage suitcase, or camera you have no clue how to use. It’s more than that!

Take a vintage spoon for example. It's a spoon with a hundred stories. Perhaps it fed you in kitchens that changed with the decades? That spoon has a dent in it and you know why. It’s been somewhere and you know its background. It’s been part of your life.

The items your grandparents kept safely stashed away their whole life had significant meaning to them, and perhaps represented an important time or held sentimental value. If it was once treasured by someone, surely we have a duty to treasure it too?

Well that’s just what I did this week, with a bar of wood. Ok, I haven't lost my mind completely, as it’s not just any bar of wood - it’s a piece of mahogany. To be exact, it’s a wooden clothes rail that my stepdad, who was a carpenter by trade, made himself by routing all the edges. Many years ago he had once screwed hooks onto it and my mother had painted it a thousand times. For some reason it stayed with them as their houses transformed and they moved on.

After my stepfather passed away the clothes hook made its way to me. I'm not quite sure how I became as captivated with it as I have but that is the mystery of some objects. I filled the holes he originally gorged out, sanded it back and repainted it in "Soldier Red". I added my stepfather's polished-up Art-Nuevo brass coat hooks and voilà! A clothes rail for our bedroom. What a perfect place to use it and admire it every day.

So love isn't about the new things, it’s about restoring the faith in something Preloved that can be loved again today.

Which mahogany Preloved treasures can you find?