From the papers hidden behind our old kitchen cabinets to the vintage user’s manual for our dryer, we still get a thrill when we uncover traces of a home’s past. Here’s a little gem we literally dug up in the front yard a few weekends ago while planting some bushes:
It’s an old milk bottle cap from the era when milk bottles were delivered to your doorstep. It conjures a quaint, small-town scene and makes our neighborhood feel like Pleasantville for a moment. We love that it even has “Monday” printed on the bottom to indicate the delivery day (or perhaps the day the milk should be consumed by). While trying to date the cap, a little online sleuthing led to an amusing branch of its family tree: the Richmond Dairy building.
It turns out our milk cap likely originated from that dairy. Sherry and I had driven past the Richmond Dairy building in the Jackson Ward neighborhood before, but we didn’t immediately connect it to our backyard find until we did a bit of digging online. Today the building is the Richmond Dairy Apartments, and it even features four 16-foot milk bottle structures on its corners. We’d love to see the inside of one of those large decorative bottles sometime — what a conversation piece.
For now, we’re deciding what to do with our tiny relic. One idea is to display it in a small shadow box in the kitchen, perhaps mounted on textured linen to emphasize a shabby, well-loved look. It seems like a simple way to honor a small piece of local history and bring a story into the heart of the home.
Have you ever found something surprising while working around your house or yard? We’d love to hear your “ancient treasure” stories and ideas for displaying small discoveries like this. Tell us what you did with your finds or how you’d display a milk cap if you had one.
Image courtesy of rvaphotodude’s Flickr stream.