Our Home is a Junkyard

Moving into our very own pre-fab, low-cost home ages ago, I had lofty dreams and lowly cash.

I wanted our living room to be restful after a long, hard day’s work in the office. But my trips to home décor stores proved to be frustrating. There was not an item—not even a small planter—that the string budget of a new homemaker could afford.

I wanted green accents to the pristine white walls. Plants would have been great but they needed caring and I had two small children who needed it more. While unpacking all our paltry earthly belongings, I found several empty bottles—most of them green. I brushed them clean and put them on the shelf and on my piano. They looked good, I thought. When the sun or overhead lights hit them, they had a refreshing glow.

Soon I would be asking friends if they had any empty green bottle in their trash cans which they might want to donate to me. An avalanche ensued!

Like my husband’s Elvis collection, my green bottles had become . . . “Oh, you collect green!”

In over 20 years, I now have a motley collection of green glass in all shapes, sizes, and shades. In recent years, glass trophies and plaques have become a vogue and so, those that we receive in green glass have joined the collection!

Among the unusual ones are a bottle shaped like a nude lady and a stretched seven-up bottle. One is a 200-year-old antique liquor bottle and the biggest bottle of them all—called damajuana—used to be a vinegar container when commercial processing was just an idea.

Some double up as candle holders, flower vases, paper weights, fruit trays, lamps, coasters, door chimes, pitchers, etc. Now I hardly have a space to place new arrivals!

I am not complaining, I am bragging. Because here, in the living room of our very first and only owned home, these hundreds of green glass gewgaws (except for a few exceptions—well-chosen and well-priced gifts from friends and family on my birthday), once junkyard bound, have a place all their own. Within white walls, they and my family share a history.

After 20 years of back-breaking, brain-draining, energy-sapping stint in the workplace, I am often asked by friends who have moved from our neighborhood to newer villages, “Aren’t you moving to a new home?”

My answer has always been, “Ours is irreplaceable.”

In the same manner, I can now reward myself with shopping in those pricey home décor stores. But should I?

If my green glass junks could talk, they’d reply, “We’re irreplaceable.”