I saved for my Lane Hope Chest with my babysitting money and bought it when I was a young teenager. My only daughter, 21, while she doesn't want mine, wants an updated version to store her "treasures" in for "one day" when she gets married. When she was a teen and up, each Christmas I would get her something for her hope chest (which as a plastic tote). Things like bakeware, glass ware-things that don't break down with age. For our sons, we would buy basic tools. When they moved out-they had a complete toolbox filled! To me, a "hope chest" is just that, the special place where we tuck the treasures of our heart away - for the future - and from the past. I offered my girl my chest and I could have it refinished and her response was "but where will you put all your treasures?" Good question-so---we are on the look out for her special treasure chest!

I still have my Lane cedar hope chest, but now it's filled with memories and treasures from my children's younger years. I also have collected some memorable newspapers and magazines. Reminds me to go through it and see what's in there.

This is a fun topic! My "hope chest" was the trunk that my great-grandmother brought to the U.S. in 1905. I had all kinds of projects that I made for 4-H and a bunch of cutesy salt and peppers in it. My sister now has the trunk (I think), and I have no idea how or when I dispersed the contents. Who cares? The fun part of it was putting things into the hope chest and dreaming about the future. All of this was before women's lib, and I wasn't married until I was 28, so I imagine I just used most of the stuff, except the salt and peppers, which probably went into a garage sale.

i had a friend who referred to her hope chest as the "despair barrel". we were on the end of the generation that got cedar/hope chests. i love my mom's, from back in the 40s--but it's out in a shed, in storage. i'd like it at the foot of the bed, but hubby does too much damage with his walker. there are still things in there that mom had when she was a girl, and quilts that my grandmothers made. need to get them out before the cedar wreaks havoc on them!

I was looking thru an antique store/consignment shop here in town yesterday with my daughter. We saw a couple cedar(hope) chests there. I was thinking they were a thing of the past. It's nice to see some are still interested in them.
Rodney

I have had hope chests made for my grandaughters...Quilts for my grandsons.

I bought a chest recently a modern one I was going to store my bedspreads ect in but it has a weird smell to it so it just sits in my livingroom as decoration. I finally came up with an idea that will save my bay window a lot of space. I'm going to store all of my youngest son's Motocross trophies in it with bubble wrap. So it will now be a storage/decoration in livingroom. Someday I will have a good antique Hope Chest to fill for one of my grand daughters.

My Lane hope chest is SO heavy. It had a tapestry fabric top the kind you can sit on. But over the years I had to recover the top fabric. Mine still smells like Cedar. You are not suppose to put metal, or paper in them only fabric. At least that's what I was told when I got mine about 40 yrs. ago. During my senior year in high school the furniture store that sold them gave out small all wooden "hope chest" to any girl that went into the store to look at them. I kept mine for years then gave it to one of my daughters.

When I was a teenager we couldn't afford a hope chest so I just had a sturdy cardboard box! Plus my father
would keep referring to it as my "hopeless chest"........all my friends were getting married around 18 or 19 and
I didn't get married till I was 25. But I remember how much fun it was to collect things for my "hopeless chest"

When I was a young teenager, I just loved the idea of having a hope chest. We didn't have any money and certainly not for this. Fast forward 40 years later, my dh and I was at a flea market/antique show and seen a hope chest that was beautiful. We bought it, it blended so well with our oak sleigh bed. So I finally have my hope chest and I keep extra pillows in it! Silly me.