Junquing in My Personal Mecca!

What a wonderful day!! My sister Joyce and I celebrated her birthday by junquing ...  So this is the story of our day, and how we ended up where we began many years ago, at this charming mid 1800's house.

Back to now, we met in the greater Salt Lake City area and hit a few estate sales and an antique store ... then decided to head up to a tiny town in the mountains east of SLC called Hoytsville. When we were growing up we had friends whose grandmother lived in a historic House there.  This house was a fairy land for little girls.  Its was not only full of period furniture and details, but had rooms full of antique dolls, doll houses and miniature rooms with the most amazing tiny details.

 This is the sweet Victorian cottage that housed the estate sale we had come to attend.  It was stuffed with amazing goodies, and for the moment we quenched our thirst for antiques.  It is also where we ran into our old neighbors, who now live in Hoytsville full time.

This is my friend Debbie and her mom Martha Ann.  Debbie's Mom is probably the most amazing homemaker I have ever known.  When I was a child, she was famous for her red velvet cake, gladiolas,  fluffy white bread, as well as her sewing and decorating skills.  When Martha Stewart later became the guru of all things 'home', her name made her a natural, as far as I was concerned.  After Joyce and I were done visiting and shopping and loading up my van with vintage and antique goodness, we drove a block away to the house that started it all. 

This is the entrance to the magical house that helped me move from the world of the mid century modern rambler in which I was raised to find my inner Victorian ...

It had been years since we had seen the house, and it is every bit as charming as it was 40+ years ago when we first fell under its magical spell.

And then, if that was not enough, Nate of Bearcat Estate Sales had directed us to an occasional sale called the Vintage Market "Just up the hill, right at the fork ...", where I found that one owner was a sister-in-law to Debbie's younger sister, AND the other owner was my husband's second cousin!!

So here I am with the long lost cousin Kathy in front of the Vintage Market ... a charming store, and worth looking up, if you find yourselves in the mountains east of Salt Lake some day, I don't think you will regret it. Be sure to call first, because as I said, it is an occasional store.