Knobby memories..

Just scored a set of antique crystal knobs on ebay. I'm convinced these are exactly what was on my antique washstand when my parents bought it for $5 in 1956 from the next door neighbors in Cedar Rapids. Crystal knobs were, of course, passé in the 50s, so Mother took them off and replaced them with wooden knobs. She painted the stand yellow and the knobs dark green.

When I was expecting my daughter in 1971, I painted the washstand white and the knobs different primary colors.

I When I started restoring the piece in 1976, I couldn't find crystal knobs to save myself, so I got white porcelain ones from Gold Circle in Cleveland. But my dad died in December of that year, so I lost interest in it. I lugged that thing--door off, one drawer stripped and stained, and one drawer and the door mostly stripped--from Cleveland back to New Orleans, in storage, to Austin, and now within the last few years, I finally got it stripped the rest of the way  and went ahead and put the porcelain knobs on so I could use it. (Can we say depression?)

I'm working on another piece and was looking at crystal knobs for it (even though it's older and had metal pulls) when I found this set gleaned from an estate sale. Because of the age and the fact that one is slightly larger, meaning it was  most likely on the door, I'm convinced, as I said, that these are identical to the ones that came off the stand in the first place. These oak washstands (which originally would have had a towel rack and/or mirror-this one is very similar to mine, except the lyre is long since gone) were fairly ubiquitous in latter Victorian times. the house we were living in was a huge Victorian mansion (it's still there, but the top part of the house is gone now--damn, I wish I had pics of that place as I knew it!) at 17th and D in NE Cedar Rapids. It had been split into three large apartments and we had the "front" of the house with the grand staircase, magnificent built-in bookcases and stained glass windows. I'm betting that washstand was in the house when the Aitens (sp?) moved in the back apartment.

So now I think I will put a distressed white chalk finish on the washstand, restore the knobs and put the little casters I have for it on. There are, in fact double holes for the drawers which were patched over, so I'm thinking the crystal knobs were not original, either, since the mint ones I've found on the web all have brass pulls.  Distressing to think the ones in really good condition are also going for $500-600 on ebay and other sites. Whoa.