By Laura Donnellon    A few years ago for Christmas, my father gifted me a cookbook called Charleston Receipts, which is one of the more famous and historic cookbooks in the south. The book was first published in 1950 by the Junior League of Charleston and is now one of the Junior League’s oldest cookbooks that is still in print.    What […]

By Sandy Dale     Yes, I am boldly and courageously going to attack the subject of CHANGE. I, for one, am not one who likes change. I’ve always liked my life pretty much as it is…that is, until this last year. I’m not going to say anything about 2020. I am pretty sure it has all been said. I have […]

By Robert Reed    From lovely plates and delicate pitchers to decorative trinket boxes and figural animals, souvenir pottery was proudly displayed in American homes for decades.    Today many of the more interesting pieces, such as a plate honoring the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition or a ceramic dog labeled Wheatland, Wyo., are the subject of renewed interest among the current generation of collectors. […]

By Bobbie Sweeney    Chippendale furniture was named for a famous cabinetmaker in London. In 1754, Thomas Chippendale published a book with as many as 160 designs pictured in the book. Many craftsmen at that time used his patterns, but the furniture produced was all called Chippendale, or was said to be made in the Chippendale style.    Before this, Thomas Chippendale […]

By Robert Reed    Let this bed be hard, and rather Quilts than Feathers. Hard lodging strengthens the Parts, whereas being buried every night in Feathers melts and dissolves the Body.    -John Locke, ca. 1700.    Initially the wooden frame of the bed was far less important that the trappings of textiles that surrounded it. Most any reference to a bed centuries […]