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Your bottom drawer

(21 Posts)
Lillie Wed 07-Apr-21 16:41:50

In the days where many didn't live together before marriage, we had a bottom drawer. Mine started with the traditionsl bed linen, mainly pink!
Later the bottom of the wardrobe was stuffed with saucepans, and a Denby coffee pot.
Was there anything interesting in yours?

kittylester Wed 07-Apr-21 16:47:59

I didn't have one - didn't really have time to amass one.

Redhead56 Wed 07-Apr-21 16:50:35

A seven piece pyrex set which I thought was amazing. A set of dinner plates dessert bowls etc that were matching. A fantastic Breville sandwich toaster that cut the bread as it toasted the original. Nothing in my parents house matched so all these goodies were greatly admired.

Kalu Wed 07-Apr-21 16:54:16

We lived together before marriage so just bought what was needed beforehand.

AGAA4 Wed 07-Apr-21 16:55:23

I had a dinner service and cut glass serving bowl in mine.

Callistemon Wed 07-Apr-21 16:55:36

I was advised that every girl had to have a bottom drawer so I started dutifully collecting cutlery.
I amassed about 3 soup spoons, 3 dessert spoons and three forks, three knives. Then the romance came to an end and so did my collecting. sad

I still use the spoons most days. Don't know what happened to the knives and forks.

tanith Wed 07-Apr-21 16:55:58

No bottom drawer for me, we bought what we didn’t have after the wedding presents were unwrapped.

Pantglas2 Wed 07-Apr-21 17:24:31

I didn’t start one but my grandfather made me a rolling pin (still in use) an apple corer, egg cup and spoon, bread board for various birthdays as a child.

I, of course, was never grateful for them, wanting dolls etc but now I’m glad to have them as a sign of his love.

JaneJudge Wed 07-Apr-21 17:27:46

We had collected some things as my Mum tended to put things she no longer needed aside for me as she was desperate to get rid of me I imagine grin but I also bought a quite expensive Polish enamel wares range which is just decorative really, which I still have!

NfkDumpling Wed 07-Apr-21 17:34:14

A Colourcast cast iron frying pan and milk pan set. Cost what was a lot to me then. I kept them under the bed in my bed sit for two years and when I got married and triumphantly pulled the boxes out - the milk pan had got rust in it!

M0nica Wed 07-Apr-21 18:12:16

Never even thought of having one. I associated bottom drawers with girls brought up in homes where marriage was seen as being the biggest achievement of a woman life and I so did not grow up in a home like that.

kircubbin2000 Wed 07-Apr-21 18:17:22

I loved my Pyrex bowl set and only gave it away when I moved here. I was given carving sets and linen table cloths and silver coffee spoons. All still unused.I remember being a bit miffed when my mother added more expensive bits after I had saved to buy some things.

Ellianne Wed 07-Apr-21 18:25:19

Oh my goodness. I had a trousseau in France in the real sense of the word. I lived in a convent and the nosey nuns kept wanting to see what I was acquiring along the way! grin
Loads of sheets, tablecloths etc.

Franbern Wed 07-Apr-21 18:39:26

Had a big engagement party, so the pressies from that constituted my bottom drawer (actually stacked all around my parents flat.
Every day, my way to work I used to pass a hardwear store which had these lovely brightly colour, unusual shaped egg cups in the window Eventually I went and bought them - half a dozen . In the matter of the early sixties, all different colours and in plastic.
These are still in use and have been the only egg cups I have ever had.

Grandma70s Wed 07-Apr-21 18:49:52

M0nica

Never even thought of having one. I associated bottom drawers with girls brought up in homes where marriage was seen as being the biggest achievement of a woman life and I so did not grow up in a home like that.

The same. I never thought it applied to me. My husband and I chose things together, as we needed them. We had both lived independently, so had a lot already. If there had been a ‘bottom drawer’, it would have been just as likely to be his.

sodapop Wed 07-Apr-21 19:14:17

A layette smile

Callistemon Wed 07-Apr-21 19:22:01

M0nica

Never even thought of having one. I associated bottom drawers with girls brought up in homes where marriage was seen as being the biggest achievement of a woman life and I so did not grow up in a home like that.

It was my then fiancee's mother who suggested it, not mine.

FlexibleFriend Wed 07-Apr-21 20:10:57

We lived together for eight years before getting married by which time we'd bought our second house and had a five year old child. I've never been conventional.

NotAGran55 Wed 07-Apr-21 21:19:20

I lived on my own from the age of twenty , five years before I married and had everything I needed of my own.

M0nica Thu 08-Apr-21 12:48:44

NotAGran55 Yes, I had gone off to university at 18, returned home for a year after graduating and then lived in a shared flat and then on my own for three further years, so like you I had all the basics.

We had a small quiet wedding so not much in the way of wedding presents, we didn't even have a wedding list. So what we had acquired for ourselves, was what we had.

Ellianne, if the sheets you had were anything like the ones DD and I snap up at Depots de Ventes, then they are beautiful and out last those that possessed them.

threexnanny Thu 08-Apr-21 12:59:02

While I was growing up I was periodically given tray cloths and a table cloth to embroider which I think was meant to be for my bottom drawer.