Dreamy Knotty Pine Estate Sale

I would say 99% of estate sale houses we go to are uninteresting. We may run into a fantastic vintage kitchen or an aqua and pink bathroom but rarely do they make me wish I earned 200K more so I could rationalize spending so much money on taxes, maintenance, utilities etc.

Walking up to the house, it was rather unassuming. The neighborhood is nice, in my opinion the nicest in Lincoln, (people who like new houses will beg to differ) full of pricey houses ranging from the 1920's to the 70's and the exterior on this one had a generic colonial revival vibe happening. Inside however, whoa! We walked in and true to its exterior it was a colonial revival with a wide foyer and fancy staircase with banister running up the side, a fancy archway led into the living room with dental work trim around the ceiling, small built in shelves and a fireplace. The kicker was all of this fancy woodwork and even the front door were knotty pine! Really? This 3,700+ sq ft house was not a cheapy when it was built WHY on earth did they use knotty pine for all of this fancy woodwork!? The rest of the house was hard wood - it was just the formal foyer, entry and living room. As I got to the kitchen I realized something was off. The cupboards had a 1920's vibe and then we spotted the bathrooms which were art deco with beautiful tiles and original fixtures. Hmm, this is strange as we assumed immediately with the knotty pine that this house was built 1950's and then we heard 1931. 1931!? Well, that explains the bathrooms and kitchen but the knotty pine? Did they rip out the original hard woods and replace it with pine!? the banister? the paneling around the fireplace? fancy archway into the living room? The front door? These seemed complicated and pointless to replace, especially since the knotty pine still was detailed with the same colonial features the rest of the house had so it wasn't like they were trying to modernize the place! It was finally bothering us soo much my mom had to ask some of the close to original family who were helping with the sale. The woodwork was original to 1931! They said it was the latest modern style and top of the line in 1931 and it was very expensive to have done at the time. They know of a few of the other big houses in the area also having it. Crazy! I have never seen ornate knotty pine woodwork.

They are putting the house up for sale soon so hopefully it will make it to the real estate listings and I can share the link. It is at times like this I wish I had a phone with a fancy camera! So now I am wondering if it was just one of the cool people in Lincoln who decided to start this trend and a few others copied so they could be just as cool or if it was actually a real trend which didn't catch on with the mainstream population until after the depression and war were over?

Whew, that was a long rant. Did I find any treasures here? Why of course! I got a stack of 1950's/60's decorating books and magazines which I may find time to look through someday!

I'm not a big George Briard fan - usually too much black and gold (i.e. the cocktail napkins) but the fantastic pink stand on the casserole caught my eye along with the pink lid (the photo doesn't do its pink-ness justice).  I also like the teal butterfly so I grabbed the matching dish and those napkins were only .50 for the set so I figured I better not leave those behind.

Conveniently this game came with 2 game boards because I wanted to hang the board in little one's room.

So now I can display one and we can still try our hand at selling tobacco for Virginia? Yeah...this would not be the topic of a child's game anymore. But look how happy the little man is about his tobacco.

and this guy I was debating about for so long she came down to $5. It's just so big I still don't know what to do with it! He is stamped Masketeers 1961 on the back. I believe the same company which does the trio of wood ducks. I think this is an eagle? with a scroll? They seemed to like their bi-centennial decor. In fact one room was red, white and blue with bright 1776 wallpaper. Again, I need one of those cameras I can inconspicuously take photos with!