Sal's Snippets: Scenes from a sideboard!

The history of the sideboard

It is said that sideboards first appeared in around the 1770s and they were popularised by the Scottish architect and furniture designer, Robert Adam. Sideboards had a purpose and that was to house items such as glasses, cutlery, decanters and the like. And as well as this, if your sideboard was of a certain height then food could be served from the surface. Of course, the sideboard was also useful for items such as candles and candlesticks.

There are many pieces of information re sideboards to be found online, for example here

When I was a little girl, I was fascinated by our old.wooden sideboard. It was a fabulous piece of furniture because the middle section had a revolving glass unit, with mirrors and a light, where one or two cocktail glasses were kept…I do recall Babycham glasses and some Britvic glasses with fruits on them. We were not a rich family and my parents rarely drank alcohol so there was little else in the ‘drinks section!’

Either side of the middle section were cupboards where my mum kept her ‘best china ‘. This was in the late 1950s/ early 1960s and I vaguely remember there being some of the ‘Colclough Fragrance’ design. As the years went by, I realised that my mum was quite a china lover and she collected the ‘Spode Clover’, some of which I still have, as well as her later obsession with Susie Cooper designs! Naturally, I haven’t inherited her obsession with china! 😂 🤣😂 I digress!

So… enter our new, modern sideboard…

When we moved here, only three months ago, having filled two skips and been confident that we’d had a good enough clear out, it was quite obvious that I hadn’t been ruthless enough! I still had boxes of china that needed to have a home!

‘ Maybe you should buy a sideboard,’ said he!

I set to, looking for the appropriate piece of furniture and I finally settled on a solid oak, painted grey piece, ideal for the space that we had in the hallway:

It’s a far cry from the old 1950s sideboard that I once knew but it is similar in that serves a purpose and is just what was needed. It accommodates my china, perfectly!

As you can see, I have a bit of an Oak/ Acorn theme going on…this being that we now live in a road called The Oaks. I came across this old classroom poster, recently and found an oak frame for it:

After that, everything oak/ acorn themed seemed to jump before my eyes!

The oak platter is a new Emma Bridgewater design.. well, it had to be done, didn’t it? The new Yankee candle is ‘ Amber and Acorn’ scent. The napkins are from the V&A collection. The acorn/oak brooch was a gift from a pupil, six years ago.