European Country Antiques

Let's take a tour of European Country Antiques in the Huron Village

area on Cambridge's west side.

The store is at 146 Huron Avenue near the corner of Concord Avenue.

Huron Village is primarily a residential area but within a few blocks of this

intersection are some of Cambridge's finest independently owned shops.

But once you step through the door, you're in a different place and time...

a place that embraces you with its warm honey-toned woods, beautiful

painted antiques just waiting to tell you their personal stories.

The shop's website says the shop captures the authenticity of

true European countryside shops, the ones stacked to the limit with

furniture, where every time you move one piece you discover another.

Many of the antiques are in their original form.  Oh, how I wish I

had a place for this large cabinet!

Other pieces, such as this kitchen island, have been built from

reclaimed antique furniture pieces into modern forms.  There is storage

on one side, room to tuck a few bar stools on the other, all capped

off with a butcher block top with tons of patina.

There a lots of great lamps, these made from old balusters...

...urns and other architectural fragments...

...lots of great vintage and antique accessories...

...wonderful rustic tables....

...and unique case pieces to display your finest wares...

...all with incredible details.

This is another favorite piece.

A great Scottish chest of drawers.

And a nice selection of mirrors.

This trestle table is from one  of the store's custom lines.

Their tables come in two different woods, three different leg styles

and in a variety of finishes.

If you've been searching for that one special piece to finish of a room and you

don't find it here, talk to store manager Angela, or owner Ed Stuart, about the

possibility of making a custom piece designed just for you.

European Country Antiques is about a mile from Harvard Square.  On a nice day,

I would walk down Brattle Street to see all the old mansions, particularly the Longfellow

House where George Washington lived for a short time during the Revolutionary war.

Take a right on Sparks Street and walk to the end which is Huron Avenue.  ECA is on the

right just past Concord Avenue.

But I would drive so you can visit all the great shops along Huron Avenue.  There were

several that were now to me so I can't wait to get over there and explore again.

Be sure to tell them I sent you!

European Country Antiques

146 Huron Avenue

Cambridge, MA  02138

www.ecountryantiques.com

If This House Could Talk

 

Cambridgeport History Day was this past weekend and part of that event is a week long walking tour called "If This House Could Talk."  The event encourages residents to research the history of their homes and write a sign sharing something about their house for others to read.  This is a fun way to get everyone involved and raise awareness of the rich history of our neighborhood.

 

In the past, I've focused my signs around how and where I got information that helped me restore the exterior of my house to its original condition.  This year, I decided to write about one the house's longest residents Jennie T. Ray.

 

For those of you that have been around from the beginning of my blog, I wrote a post on how I used old maps and Ancestry.com to learn about the people that lived in my house before me.  You can find that post here.  And since the 1940 census was recently released, there's a lot of new information available.

 

 

I do have an update to that story though.  In my old post, I wasn't sure if Jennie's daughter Frances survived.  In the 1880 census, Jennie had one daughter Frances and in the next census, Jennie indicated that she had had two children but one had died. 

 

When I searched for Jennie recently on Ancestry.com, I found her attached to someone's family tree.  I contacted that person and found Jennie's great great great granddaughter Sheena.  Frances married, had eight children of her own, and lived just a few blocks away.

 

Despite Jennie's many hardships, it was some nice closure.

Wisteria Walk

I saw my neighbor's wisteria in bloom earlier this week which was my signal to get back over to Harvard so I could check out that huge wisteria I showed you a few weeks ago.

It was well worth the trip.  Enjoy.

Click to enlarge.

I wish I could offer scratch and sniff.

The scent filled the damp morning air.

This was the shot I took about three weeks ago for the New England Home blog post.

This is the same shot this morning.

Someone tipped me off that there was another great one around the corner so I thought I'd wander these new-to-me streets to look for it.

I found another Greek Revival I didn't know about.

This one looks like a developer got their hands on it at some point.

Look what's happened.

It looks like a few condos have been added.  The underground parking is nice detail, right?

I think this must be the place but it's not yet in full bloom.  This has a Western exposure so it might be a little behind the others that have a Southern exposure.  

How pretty is this Colonial Revival?  The white tulips are perfect.  And as they fade away, a row of hydrangea must fill in a meet the boxwood hedge.  I'd love to come back and see this in the summer.  I've wanted to add a low hedge like this along the front of my house to people from letting their dogs pee on my hydrangea.

A beautiful Eastern Redbud just coming into bloom.  

The birthplace of poet e.e. cummings.

I wouldn't have known that but the Historical Commission places

these signs on notable properties around the city.

And directly across the street...

  

...is the former home of a famous Cambridge resident.

I'm sure you know her if not love her.

It's the one and only...

Julia Child in her Cambridge kitchen.  Photo by Arnold Newman.

Julia Child.

I'm glad you asked me to come back.  I really enjoyed my walk this morning and I got to visit several new streets I didn't know before.

I'm Getting There

The backplates on my bathroom door weren't as exciting as the knobs.  Even though they're not fancy and they're a little corroded, I kind of like their distressed look.  I still haven't been able to take the door outside to strip it but that should happen within the next few weeks.

I have at least one coat of paint on every surface of the bedroom.  The dark taupe wall just wasn't working for me.  It just sucked the life out of the room.

So that wall is now a mid-value gray called Herbal Escape.  It's one of those complex colors that looks a little different at different times of the day.  The floor is a darker slightly browner gray.  I just need to get a second coat on everything and clean up my edges.  Getting sharp edges in an old house is such a pain.  Can I get a witness?

And here's a sneak peak of a piece of artwork I just had framed to go above the bed.  I might lose a  bunch of people with this one but I love it.  I think it'll go above the headboard.

Hopefully by next weekend I can start putting everything back together.

I'm also working on a guest post for another blog -- more details on that soon -- and I need a few photos so why don't you tag along on a walk over to Harvard Square with me.  

This Greek Revival adjacent to Harvard University was new to me.  An enormous wisteria lines the entablature of the porch.  I'll have to come back in a few weeks to see this in its full glory.  The gothic doors on this double house are quite unusual.

I always love to poke around old New England cemeteries.  You never know what famous person you'll run in to.  This cemetery dating back to 1635 is right in Harvard Square.

Memento Mori = Remember your mortality.

The detailed carvings are always amazing...

Here lyes ye body of Dorothy Burre, wife to Samuel Burre, aged 30 years,

died ye 20 of February 1702.

Again Memento Mori and Fugit Hora meaning "the hour flies."

Comparing this headstone to the previous one makes me wonder if the image at the top of two carved columns flanking the stone...

...is a likeness of the deceased.  This was a two-year-old child.

On the corner of the cemetery is a 1734 mile marker stating Boston is 8 miles away.  At the time, the trip to Boston would take the better part of a day by horse.  A bridge built from East Cambridge to Boston in 1793 reduced the trip to just over 3 miles, or just four subway stops from Harvard Square.

The ceiling of the portico of Memorial Church at Harvard.

Detail of ceiling.

The Holden Chapel at Harvard, built 1744, has the most amazing carving on the pediment.

Massachusetts Hall on the right is the oldest existing building

at Harvard having been built in 1720.

I think I have all the photos I need but can't wait to get back and see these wisteria.