Many of my Sunday afternoons are spent casually wandering through junk and antique shops around Houston looking for special pieces for our home.  Recently, I stumbled upon a pretty mirror and want to share my find with you!

 

 

In the Houston Heights (or The Heights), there is an unassuming corner diner called Yale Street Grille & Gifts.  It’s made up of part casual diner with dated pleather booths and linoleum floors, and part junk/antique store.  It’s fabulous!

 

 

I did a little further research and discovered that it’s actually one of Houston’s oldest remaining diners.  It used to be a pharmacy and still serves up the same type of malts, shakes, and sodas just as it used to in 1923 when it originally opened.  The old pharmacy portion of the store now houses the junk/antiques store.

 

The antique store keepers are a super friendly couple who appear to be in their 80s.  They buy whole estate sales and resale items at their shop.  I was there recently nosing through knickknacks, and at the back of a stack of paintings I found a beautiful large gilded mirror.  Its frame is made of a plaster-covered-wood which was then shaped into a faux bois pattern with leaves and flowers scattered about too.

 

 

It was fairly large, at roughly 3.5ft tall and 2.5ft wide, and in the back of my mind I was thinking the scale would probably fit the living room mantle perfectly.  We negotiated a cash deal and I lugged the heavy mirror out to the truck, just before a heavy downpour started.  🙂

 

Grandma had a large mirror placed above the fireplace around the same time when faux wood paneling was in style.  I think this one will be a nice replacement.

 

 

The old man at the shop told me he knew the house that the mirror came out of – it was from a the home of one of this childhood friends.  He recalls that his friend’s mom had it hanging above the mantle of their early 1900s Heights home until she took it down during a remodel in the 1960s. He thinks she would have bought it in the 1920s, when they first moved into house.  Since the 60s remodel, the mirror had been hanging in their garage.

 

The shop keeper purchased it at the family estate sale a little while ago.  As I was checking out, he rattled off the address of the home it came from. I went driving around (in the pouring rain) looking for the house, but it wasn’t as he described.

 

He said it was a large two-story house, but the address took me to a cute little single story instead (below).

 

 

 

By the way, speaking of large two-story homes in The Heights, here are a few more historic beauties located there (taken on clearer day):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s such a pretty neighborhood.

 

Once I got the mirror home, I flipped it over and saw a tiny label for Pittsburgh Plate Glass.

 

 

PPG was founded in 1883 as the first successful thick flat glass manufacturer in the United States.  They’ve since expanded their line of products, and today I’m more familiar to seeing their name on various paint stores scattered throughout the city.

 

 

 

So the mirror probably dates anywhere from the mid 1880s to 1920s.  Pretty neat!  I’m happy to hang it in our Illinois home soon.

 

 

 

Now I better get back to handing out candy to Trick or Treaters… 🙂  Until next time!