If you have been following this series of articles, I hope you’ve enjoyed our previous stories: Part 1: The Collector, Part 2: The Dead-End Road, Part 3: The Collapsing Barn, Part 4: The Cat Lady House, and Part 5: The Garage Sale. These stories are all about the shopping adventures that my family and I have had while out sourcing vintage treasures for our shop.
Join us on yet another vintage treasure hunting adventure in Part 6 of this series of articles…
The Root Cellar
Estate sales out in the country are always an exciting adventure (well, except in the case of the Cat Lady House in Part 4 of this series). It seems we have a new experience at each country estate sale we go to, like the one where we discovered the root cellar.
This particular estate sale was held on an old homestead. It included the house and one of the outbuildings. The house was built in the late 1800s and you could tell that it had been taken care of over all these years.
The first thing we noticed when we walked into the house were it’s creaky old wood floors. I love those kinds of floors! Maybe because they bring back memories of my Grandparents house and their creaky floors, or maybe because I appreciate all the years of foot traffic these old floors have had. It was a charming house. In the dining / living room area there were four large China hutches, each filled with plates, tea cups and saucers, bowls of every kind, and lots and lots of glassware. It looked like several generations of dishes were stored in these hutches. Just off the living area was, at one time, a bedroom. But most recently, it was a showcase of collectibles. There were tall bookcases lined up against each of the walls, and each bookcase was filled with collectibles of all kinds. Porcelain figurines, glass figurines, banks, souvenir plates, and so much more. The bedrooms had piles and piles of vintage linens and the closets were filled with vintage clothing and shoes.
The people that were attending this sale at the same time we were there, spent most of their time looking through the China hutches, the bookcases, and the bedrooms. My boys and I were there looking for items that were more unique and unusual, so we decided to leave the house and head outside to the pole building. On our way through the kitchen (which was filled with pots and pans and dishes), I saw a door that was slightly open. I asked the people running the estate sale if the room was part of the sale. They told me it was the cellar, and that we were welcome to go down there if we wanted to, but to be careful on the steps and to watch our heads. Of course we just had to go down there!
Once at the bottom cellar door, we discovered that the ceiling was only about 5-feet high! My young teenage boys and I are taller than 5-feet, so we had to bend over slightly to make our way through the cellar. The cellar looked like no one had been down there in many, many years. At the far side of the cellar, we discovered an entire wall of old wood shelves that were completely filled with the highly popular blue Ball jars! With lids! And stored in old wood fruit crates! A triple bonus! I was absolutely thrilled to have discovered all these jars and the wood crates – I made an offer to buy them all. Well, all except for the jars that still had “food” inside of them – and there were plenty of those as well, each one covered in a very thick layer of dust – making it very difficult to determine was was inside the jars. We assumed it was food, but who knows…?
Of the empty jars, each fruit crate held a dozen Ball jars and the crates were fairly heavy. My three boys and I had to make multiple trips in and out of that low-ceiling cellar to bring the jars out to my truck, but it was SO worth it! After stacking all the crates of jars into the back of my truck, we discovered that we had over 400 jars! What a fun score that was! To this day, I still wonder what became of the remaining jars full of (very) old canned goods. Who knows, if the old homestead is still standing, those jars may be down in that low-ceiling, dimly lit cellar right now – waiting for some unsuspecting soul to make the mistake of opening a dusty Ball jar lid. Can you say “Zombie Apocalypse”?
The Lesson? Boldly go where no one else wants to go, because you never know what you’ll find in those spaces!
There you have it! Another shopping adventure with my family. Check back for more stories in this series of articles!
Do you have a favorite vintage shopping adventure story? We’d love to hear it! Share the details in a comment below.
Such a great find! Love the blue of these old jars! What adventures you’ve had! Thank you for sharing them with us!
I love those blue jars, too. I should have saved a few for me! Thanks for your note, Pam – I appreciate it!