Do you have a storage box/place for items that you truly value? Or love? Or both?
Everyone is always told that you should keep your valuables (papers, deeds, birth certificates) somewhere if you should have an emergency and have to exit your house quickly. That’s always discussed…but what about other items that aren’t “necessities” for the world, but necessities for the heart? What about another box for things that are just beautiful or special? (Not counting photos.)
Do you have a box/case/trunk where you store items of sentimental value? In my mom’s day, a girl received a Lane cedar chest or a trunk to begin to save her items for her “trousseau”. This usually was a gift on graduation from high school. I still remember “Seventeen” magazine advertising their Lane chests even when I was in school (though I didn’t know of anyone who got one…they were not in vogue anymore.)
I was looking around my house and thinking that there were special books, small momentoes, embroideries, gifts from special friends and just bits of this and that that were beautiful and I would want to keep…even if everything else had to go. Basically, I would want a container (of some sort) that would hold these items. I have moved a lot in my life ( though not recently) and I just feel like sometimes I have regretted having a history that is in storage across the world.
Do you have a container for your special items (perhaps to pass on to your children)? What is it? How did you choose it? What did you put in it?
(I am looking for ideas…I couldn’t imagine hauling a huge chest unless there is one on wheels! But a small container wouldn’t work either. I also wanted to just discuss the subject in general as it seems that the “trunk in the attic” has gone the way of the dinosaur.)
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
23 Answers
I keep some documents and all my and my daughter’s really valuable jewelry in a safety deposit box. Today copies of documents (house deed and title, divorce papers from the Dominican Republic I laugh over, with its gold seals) are all on file at lawyers, court houses and in the ether. The jewelry is not replaceable, but by keeping them at the bank, it means we never wear them.
All the sentimental stuff I have in about a dozen large plastic bins I bought at a Big Box Store. They have drawers that pull open for easier access than a wooden hope chest, which I also own (and use to store woolen clothes during the warm months).
Yes, I have a fireproof safe in my home.
I have a lockable box with stuff like passport and other important documents, but I don’t really have anything of sentimental value. And I’ve no children to pass them on to if I did.
I have a little “box of memories,” I call it. It holds things like the very first love letter my wife wrote me, every one of the little childishly scrawled notes from my children and grandchildren, all of the cards and small gifts they sent me, all of my medals from Vietnam, and a great profusion of other stuff that I treasure because someone I care about sent them to me, including the last letter my father ever wrote to me.
No, not really. I should. We have moved so often that a lot of stuff is packed away. I am surprised anew when I see certain things.
The things I cherish (memories) I keep in my mind and heart. It’s rare that an item has value to me, and those are all gone.
I am married to my soulmate and we met online while he was deployed to Iraq. He was an avid letter writer and i keep all of his letters in a special box along with little things I pick up when we go to bed and breakfasts all over. I have to say that i loved going out to the mailbox and seeing a packet of letters waiting for me..(they came in bunches not one at a time) I refer to it as my letter box and treasure it. reading a handwritten letter is much different than reading an email. When I had days where I was really missing him I could open my box and read the letters.
I have one of those pink on pink Victoria’s Secret bags that holds a ton of greeting cards, and a large shoebox that’s already full of cards. I save our birthday cards, anniversary cards, Christmas cards, etc… I also have quite a few letters that my husband and I have written to each other.
The only “trinkets” that I really keep belong to my daughters, and I keep those in special “baby boxes”, along with their baby blanket, special onesies, pregnancy tests, umbilical cords, first curls, baby teeth, and their baby shower announcements.
In this thing.
I also have a little box that I keep precious letters in.
As I’ve gotten older, the memories stirred by this “box of memories” are more likely to make me cry, so I don’t often dig through it. The last time I took it out, I was reading some of the childishly scrawled notes ( “I luv you daddy!” “Great big hugs and kissies!” ). But just knowing that it’s there is somehow very comforting to an old man. : )
I have a closet that has exterior grade deadbolts in the door. Inside there is a vault I built where I keep potentially dangerous items that also has double deadbolts. My wife’s jewelry ,G n A, important papers etc.
I saw a show on History Channel, I think it was, that was about spies and spy stuff and what got my head grinding was all the clever secret hiding places, removable panels built into a room that secret agents had for microfiche and weapons and whatever, so I made a few of them in different parts of the house. I think it would take someone quite some time to discover them if a search was on. Your run of the mill crackhead rummaging through our house for valuables would never find them but I’m not sure how a crack team of CIA types trained to uncover these would do. Probably would eventually get to them as I’m sure they already know everything I have discovered by now.
If we ever move away I plan on not disclosing these compartments just to blow people’s minds when , or if they stumble upon them later. Maybe leave notes in them sort of like a message in a bottle deal.
I didn’t get a big Lane Cedar chest, but I did get one of their small jewelry box chest as a gift from the local furniture store that sold Lane chests. All girls that graduated from high school got them in my day. My mom got one too. I still use this small box for treasures and I also have my grandmothers cedar chest for irreplaceable and fragile fabric items.
I have a few other stashes of mementos and old letters.
I have a fireproof safe for documents and papers.
Thank you so much for sharing your storage container…ideas, memories. I really appreciated the time you took to answering this question.
As an aside, I never had to worry as a child that anyone would break into the house and steal anything. I lived in a small town. It seems that no one anywhere is immune anymore to burglaries. Sad.
Thank you again….lurve coming!
@DarlingRhadamanthus
I’m immune. I have a little sign outside that says, “Forget the dog! Beware of owner!” : D
Thanks for that @CaptainHarley…..just saw this response today! Lurve back at you!
Sadly no, I don’t think that he is.
What? What happened to @CaptainHarley ?? Did something happen to him? :(
Ask the mods. They got an earful of me over it. awkward
^^Change one word and it’s fine…“They got an earful from me over it.”.
somehow I knew you’d be coming by.
Answer this question 
Composing members:
0
