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Join host Kate LB as she uncovers the extraordinary stories hidden within ordinary objects. From inherited family treasures to forgotten vintage finds, each episode explores how the things we keep, collect, and cherish connect us to the past and shape our future.
Through personal reflections, family histories, and the tales behind vintage discoveries, Dust & Devotion reveals the emotional power of tangible objects and the memories they hold. Whether it's a dusty antique from an estate sale or a beloved heirloom passed down through generations, every item has a story to tell—and Kate is here to help you listen.
Perfect for vintage enthusiasts, history lovers, and anyone who believes that our belongings are more than just stuff—they're the storytellers of our lives.
New episodes explore different objects, different stories, and the timeless connections that bind us to the things we treasure.
Kate LB: I'm moving.
Ugh.
It sounds so weird when I say it out loud.
Even though I've practiced this thing a
thousand times in my head, I'm moving?
No, that was not right.
I'm moving.
I am packing up a house that is full
of memories and I'm leaving behind
the very walls that held them.
It's so much harder to say out
loud, and it seems to come out sort
of like I'm asking a question no
matter how hard I try to change it.
My husband and I have talked
for years about a someday move.
But it was really just a
distant dream for my family.
Kind of like the way you talk about
maybe living abroad in some exotic
locale or building that aspirational
tree house with a mini split.
Well, as the universe so
often reminds us its plans are
usually far better than our own.
But here's the catch, this time the
universe's plans were clear on the other
side of the country for us, and that
meant that someday had officially arrived.
And as we pack up our lives, I
am forced to confront a question
I never truly considered.
What's the difference between a house and
a home, and what happens when you take one
with you and you leave the other behind?
Welcome back to Dust & Devotion, a podcast
about stuff, but not just any stuff.
It's about the kind of stuff that has
a story to tell, the kind of things
that hold history in their dust motes,
and devotion in their very fibers.
I'm your host, Kate L-B, and in this
episode we'll explore the physical
and emotional aspects of moving, the
challenges of letting go, and the deep,
often surprising, meaning we attach to
the places we live and the things we keep.
Join me as I try to figure out what
happens when you leave your home
behind, but you take your heart and
your favorite swung vase with you.
If we really distill it down, today, we're
talking about the power of four walls.
But not just any four walls.
These are the four walls that
have held my family for the
past seven and a half years.
The ones that have heard all of
our laughter, all of our arguments,
and all of our late night whispers.
These are the walls of my house.
The house where my husband and I
tucked in our toddler twin girls.
It's the home where our sassy,
dentally challenged, black cat
decided he was our third child, and
it's the only home our neurotic, but
lovable rescue pup has ever known.
This house has not only been the
keeper of the people and pets that
I love so much, it has been the
keeper of so many of our treasures.
Each one is infused
with this vivid memory.
The vintage finds that we've
hunted down and lovingly restored
and an abundance of art glass.
And so, here we are.
We are picking up our entire life.
Husband, daughters, feline
dictator, neurotic canine, and
of course, so much art glass.
We're driving across the country to a town
that we've never been to and to a house
that we have only ever seen in pictures.
It's crazy.
It's a leap of faith to say the least.
And as we pack up our boxes and we
say goodbye to all of our friends
and all of our family, this same
question keeps echoing in my mind.
What makes a house a home?
Is it the address on the mailbox,
the color of the front door,
the number of bedrooms, or is
it something far less tangible?
Is it something that you carry with you?
I have to say, this journey
has forced me to look at our
stuff in an entirely new light.
And this constant nagging question,
what do we truly need to bring with us?
I am faced with the impossible task of
deciding which beloved vintage finds
get to make the cross country trek only
to potentially shatter on the journey.
While on the surface this might
all seem so superficial, the
struggle of it all was real.
So I sat for what was probably an
obnoxiously long time trying to figure
out what memories, tied to certain
objects, would ultimately make the cut
and which ones we can leave behind.
And finally, what does it
mean to create a new home?
To pour in your heart and soul and
to fill it with new, old things
in a place you've never met?
All of these questions about what to
bring and what to let go of can make
a person feel a little bit crazy,
and I was feeling pretty crazy.
Luckily though, I was not
alone in my moving madness.
My aunt, a woman who has spent a lifetime
curating her own world of treasured
possessions, is also packing up her house.
While my journey involves a cross country
caravan of chaos with kids and pets, hers
is a more deliberate transition into a new
phase of life, a curated space for herself
and my grandmother in a 55 plus community.
Despite the differences in
our circumstances, we found
ourselves facing the exact same
existential packing problems.
How do we reconcile the lives we've
lived with, the lives we're about
to live, and what becomes of all
the stuff that bridges the two?
But, this isn't our first rodeo
when it comes to the Great Purge.
Over the past two years, my aunt
and I have been on a very different
kind of journey together, sorting,
researching, and consolidating my
grandmother's massive toy collection
after she moved in with my aunt.
We'd spend hours on FaceTime,
pouring over dusty boxes, searching
for that supremely rare doll that
was sure to be the real jackpot.
But, what we learned was that the
things we thought would be valuable,
the prized items my grandmother
had saved, were often not.
Instead, the most valuable
things turned out to be the most
surprising, the forgotten odds
and ends at the bottom of a box.
This whole exercise unexpectedly
introduced me to a whole new world
of collecting one entirely different
from my familiar realm of glassware.
Forget delicate etchings and rare colors.
This was about action figures from the
1980s, and the thrill was in finding them
preserved in their factory sealed state.
We unearthed a marvelous cache
featuring Indiana Jones, GI Joe, and
even some good old Dukes of hazard.
The key to their value wasn't
beauty or craftsmanship, but
condition and original packaging.
I bet you're wondering
what our ultimate find was.
It was a GI Joe Scarlett action figure.
This process was an entire
education for me on vintage toys
and what makes them truly valuable.
For action figures, I learned the
pristine state of the card and the
plastic capsule around it is paramount.
This Scarlett figure was a
collector's dream because the hang
hole on the card had never been
punched out, and the cardboard tag
was perfectly intact and crisp.
It was essentially straight from the
toy store itself, but frozen in time.
So what kind of return did we
see on this find you might ask?
Well, I'll tell you.
Coupled with the action figure
scarcity and the level of perfection,
what collectors I learned called
Mint On Card (MOC), we saw a truly
stunning sale price of over $800
for just this one action figure.
This experience with my grandmother's
collection was a masterclass in
the unexpected nature of value,
and it's a lesson that is now a
constant presence as my aunt and I
faced our own mountains of stuff.
Learning that an untouched piece of
plastic and cardboard could fetch such a
remarkable sum shows me that passion and
preservation can create value, whether the
collectible is vintage glass or classic
eighties action figures or something else.
And it did also make this whole decision
process around what to keep a little bit
more nuanced and a lot more complicated.
In the following clip, we sat
down to grapple with the emotional
physics of moving and the
surprising weight of our things.
What was the hardest part of
this whole process for you?
Barbara: Well, the memories.
The good memories.
The bad memories.
The kids growing up.
Then you have to leave that all
behind, and start a new chapter.
Kate LB: Was the stuff a
good thing or a bad thing?
Like all of the stuff.
Barbara: A lot of unnecessary stuff.
For some reason I don't understand
how we keep all that stuff.
Kate LB: Of all the things that
we went through, did you end
up keeping particular things?
Barbara: I kept a lot of things.
A lot of stuff, but we
also did get rid of a lot.
But some things I just couldn't part with.
Kate LB: I found that there was, so
much , just papers, papers and plastic.
Oh, I felt like I was drowning.
Barbara: I know the papers.
Oh my.
Why do we keep all those papers?
Kate LB: I have no idea.
I was going through the girls
school things and sure we have some
great pieces of art, but why will
they care about this 10 question
multiplication quiz, but I kept it.
Barbara: Same with me.
Yeah.
I still had little book he made me, or
some things, and I couldn't help it.
I had to get rid of it.
Kate LB: So you wanna hear my number
one thing that was the most insane,
ridiculous thing that I've had
for like, uh, probably 35 years?
Barbara: Yes.
Kate LB: So, in first grade there
was this boy, and I really liked him.
You know, as much as you can
when you're what, five, six?
Barbara: Right.
Kate LB: And he made me a valentine
out of like a paper doily.
And he glued a little plastic, felt
bear on it, and signed his name and,
Barbara: Aw.
Kate LB: I kept it all these years.
And then today I went into this black
trunk where I keep all of the genealogical
papers for the family and special things,
and, it was in there but it was crumbling.
It was disintegrating, and I had a moment
and I had kept it for so many years and I
had a moment and I just went: "I'm done.
I'm done."
Barbara: Yeah.
Kate LB: And I
Barbara: You were ready.
Kate LB: And I was ready, but it took
that long to be able to part with it.
I totally get it.
I know you were going through it on that
end and I was going through it here and
I was like, oh my, this is terrible.
Barbara: Yeah.
And it really was.
Why do we do that?
Kate LB: It's weird.
Barbara: Save everything.
Yes.
It really is.
Kate LB: In some ways , you
think you might need it.
In other ways you think, oh, my
kids might need it or want it.
And then in other ways, I'll tell
you, there was a death pile in my
office that I had just, there were so
many school papers coming home I was
just putting them in a pile and then
the pile was like eight inches tall.
I can't even believe that we have this.
And it just because life got in the
way, I just put it in the corner.
Barbara: Yes.
So you got rid of it all.
Kate LB: I did.
I was really proud of myself.
Barbara: Oh, that's very good.
But I did, I kept a lot of letters.
Love letters from boyfriends
when I was like 15.
And I finally got rid of it too.
Kate LB: Yeah?
You did?
Barbara: So,
Kate LB: It's hard and it's
like an emotional process.
I feel like that takes years
of having to like reconcile
being ready to part with things.
Barbara: It was definitely
a, uh, an awakening,
Kate LB: But, I think you're
gonna be really happy there
and you're gonna love it.
Barbara: I do too.
It's a good atmosphere and I hope
you love it, and I'm sure you will.
So I'm getting very excited.
Kate LB: I think a commiseration
buddy was just what I needed, and it
offers a perfect look at what this
whole moving process is really about.
It's not just about boxes and bubble wrap.
We are all facing the same
questions about our stuff just
at different stages of life.
Listening back to that, I'm struck by how
a life's worth of things gets distilled
down to just a few boxes of essentials.
Whether you're moving with a
young family in tow or moving
on to a new chapter of your own.
When I look at my aunt's journey,
it's an important reminder that
this isn't a one time thing.
It's a process we repeat again and
again throughout our lives as we add to
our collections, and then, inevitably,
let go of them in one way or another.
The only difference is the scale.
I've helped my clients with
the same thing countless times.
It does hit differently, though,
when it's your decisions, your stuff.
Maybe you're moving to a retirement
community or another state, or maybe
you are just decluttering a closet.
The questions are still the same.
What do you need to take with you?
What do you need to leave behind?
And what does it mean to create a
new home, a new life, a new you with
the things that you decide to keep.
I've been thinking about this a lot
lately, that there's a universal moment
of pause that really inexplicably happens
whether you are packing up your own life
or helping someone else with theirs.
It's this almost palpable feeling.
You look at the mass of your
possessions lying in front of you.
Maybe you're marveling at the sheer
volume of accumulation, and then.
All of a sudden these intense emotions,
they begin to bubble up to the surface.
Maybe you break out in a cold sweat.
I know.
I did.
, And then there's joy, anxiety,
excitement, sadness, overwhelm, and
maybe even some fear around what's next.
And it can.
Absolutely paralyzing, but I'll tell
you this, it can also be quite freeing
because this rigorous editing process
that goes into a move is very much
a conscious decision to curate your
own future by discarding your past.
But sometimes that control does vanish,
and it's the most emotionally charged
inventory we will ever face because it
is the one left behind by a loved one.
The simple act of sorting
becomes almost sacred.
It's a difficult ritual and
it's an act of remembrance.
And through this act, we shift
from dealing with our own future
to honoring someone else's past.
Because this isn't just about
the physical stuff, it's about
conducting a final survey of a life.
Every item, however humble they may
be, they carry the ghost of a decision,
an action, and even an existence.
I recently encountered this when
my closest friend and her cousin
sat down with me to share some
captivating family stories following
the passing of their grandmother.
Peggy lived to be a remarkable 100 years
old, and she inhabited the same home for
decades, and in doing so, she turned the
four walls, not just into a place where
people live, but into a stable, enduring
container of memory spanning generations,
states, styles, and history itself.
A time capsule.
When her family began the hard work of
clearing the space, they weren't just
packing boxes, they were acknowledging the
full material record of Peggy's century.
As you can imagine, a century of life
leaves behind a ton of stories, a lot
of keepsakes, and yep, a lot of things.
Speaking with her family about how
they navigated that process, the
sheer volume of items, the emotional
weight of every single object.
Well, it gave me an
entirely new perspective.
Because in going through this
process, of course, the family secured
the expected: pieces of jewelry,
heirloom artwork, all of those items
with recognized monetary value.
These are the precious objects.
They carry the weight of provenance.
It's the ones that we know naturally,
instinctively must be saved.
But what really resonated with me and
what speaks volumes about the depth of
this legacy was this fierce attachment
to the unassuming artifacts, the things
that when Peggy was alive, they were just
things we talk so much about the value
of an object, what it's worth on paper.
But, when you're sorting through
the belongings of a loved one,
you quickly realize that there
are two separate kinds of value.
The stuff that's actually worth money, and
then there's the currency of the heart.
The most specific, sometimes even
unusual things, and those are the
ones that carry the most weight.
And that's what I'm
going to dive into next.
Take a listen to this moment as my
best friend and her cousin recount
family treasures and the indelible
meaning of one very unique keepsake.
Vanessa: Growing up, everything
was done in Grandma's kitchen.
She taught her children how to
bake at that yellow countertop, and
all around it was this light blue
wallpaper with all these different
pitchers and sugar containers and
teapots and it was just really nice.
And it's just something that when
you think of grandma, you think of
grandma in the kitchen because food
was such a big part of our family.
We have such big memories of
grandma and this kitchen and
this wallpaper is so iconic.
Before we sell the place, if
they're gonna tear it down, let's
take some of the wallpaper off.
Marielle: That was 100% me.
I asked you to take the wallpaper.
Vanessa: It wasn't just you though,
I'm pretty sure and so it was you,
it was all of us talking about taking
a piece of grandma's wallpaper.
But then, when the house sold, they
told us, we couldn't take the wallpaper.
But I had been over the years, taking
different pictures with different phones
to get a good picture of the wallpaper.
So what I did, I took one of
the pictures, I fiddled with it.
And I just, I touched it up.
I fixed some of the areas.
So when I got it put on a canvas,
you had the texture of the wallpaper,
'cause it was that heavy vellum of
the good wallpaper and, that's why
the wallpaper also lasted so long.
They got that wallpaper
sometime in the seventies.
Marielle: My mom, when she was
a teenager, so late sixties
is when that paper went in.
I remember growing up thinking
like, this wallpaper is so ugly.
Grandma, grandma, you gotta change it.
It's so ugly.
Now obviously I love it.
It's an iconic image.
It makes me think of her.
Even just thinking of one of those
little drawn sugar containers or
teapots makes me think of her.
When my daughter was born, every time
we went to visit, I made sure to get
a picture of her with the wallpaper,
which I know sounds silly, but it's an
ingrained memory of grandma because she
did spend so much time in the kitchen.
She loved that wallpaper.
To this day, I don't understand
why, I still think the
wallpaper is a little bit ugly.
Vanessa: What!
Marielle: It's true.
It's so ugly.
I love it.
And I actually, when you gave it to me,
I didn't realize it was a picture that
you had printed and had put on Canvas.
I thought it was a piece of the wallpaper.
Vanessa: I wanted to keep that
feeling of, this is a part of grandma,
this is a part of her wallpaper.
Marielle: This is a piece of her kitchen.
Vanessa: Where she made
all these different things
and taught us how to bake.
To this day, I still like to joke
about how, as grandma said, my
taste buds have not yet matured.
That was her saying when I was like,
Ugh, this doesn't taste good, or, I
don't like this, and she would look
at me and she would be like, " your
taste buds just haven't matured yet".
Kate LB: And you even found another way
to immortalize this wallpaper, right?
Vanessa: This was that first
major death that really affected
me and it was really tough.
And after a while I was like, grandma's
wallpaper is such an iconic thing.
And I had always been thinking
about getting a tattoo and so I
was like, I will get a tattoo of
a part of grandma's wallpaper.
Just figuring out where to put it was
the next thing because I wanted it to be
somewhere that I could look at it often.
And then I just thought back to all my
memories of Grandma and I have this really
bad habit of just like swinging my feet
and kicking my feet, and so I always
kicked Grandma's white pants by accident.
And she would always be like,
"these are my white pants!
They're so nice and clean!",
So I was always accidentally
kicking her on the ankle,
accidentally stepping on her feet.
So, I got the tattoo on my ankle.
And if I'm ever having a bad
day, I can look at that tattoo.
It just brings me back to
those memories of Grandma.
Kate LB: Well friends, as the final
box is taped shut and the cross country
voyage looms the question we posed at
the start: "what makes a house a home?",
seems to have transcended
and far surpassed simple
travel and packing logistics.
And what I'm finding is that this whole
experience is so much more rich and
complex than I ever could have imagined.
This entire exercise has truly become
an inquiry into the architecture of
memory humanity, and possessions.
Ultimately, when we make a place our home,
the stuff that goes there and how we grow
there as people, isn't solely reliant
on a specific latitude and longitude.
We heard from my aunt who is
facing not just a downsize, but
a total redesign of her future,
choosing freedom over accumulation.
And we also witnessed through my
best friend and her cousin, the
profound stillness and clarity
that follows a life well lived.
A life marked, not by purchases alone,
but by the quiet endurance of a few
unique cherished artifacts that survived
a century and shaped an entire family.
As I was wrestling with packing and
downsizing and the general stress of the
whole situation, I reached out to family
as I often do, and I traded complaints
with whomever picked up the phone and
even had a modicum of time to talk.
This time, my cousin drew the short
straw and he happened to pick up.
Though, as fate would have it, I think he
was just the person I needed to talk to.
Let's take a listen.
Tell me how does a house become a home?
Alex: By filling it with
memories that will last forever.
When you walk through the door, whether
it's a million dollar home or a $20,000
home, you wanna feel safe and happy,
filling it with people and pictures and
animals that you love every single day.
Kate LB: So it's not the four walls?
Alex: No, 'cause every
house has four walls.
It's what you do within those
four walls that make you happy and
feel safe with the ones you love.
Kate LB: And what about the
other stuff that's inside of it?
Alex: Stuff can always be
replaced, but it's about filling
it, making memories in a home.
That's what makes it a home.
Kate LB: What I love about this is that
he states so simply that the emotional
weight of a place, the very essence
of home, is a human construct, a kind
of social gravity that we create.
Our things are merely vessels.
And in a moment, my entire thought
process around this move was reframed.
That swung vase from my collection
that sat on the fireplace.
Isn't inherently valuable.
Sure, prices, they fluctuate and
with demand, what's worth something
today is worthless tomorrow.
What this vase really is, is the
tangible receipt for seven and a half
years of cozy fires and family movies.
Secure moments with
the people that I love.
It is a material anchor
for an immaterial memory.
And just like that, I had the ultimate
key to downsizing my vintage collection.
My struggle wasn't about the
physical weight of the glass,
but the perceived weight of
responsibility to preserve the past.
But I've learned that the past
is not stored in a closet.
It's woven into the self.
The act of downsizing then becomes an
act of intense sentimental curation.
I am choosing to carry forward
only the objects that function as
the clearest, most potent mnemonic
devices, the ones that with the
single glance conjure the sound of
laughter or the feeling of safety.
The rest, those beautiful
pieces that are merely art.
They deserve to be released.
They're now free to embark on a new
journey to begin collecting new memories
and creating a new home for someone else.
The house I leave behind is just
a wooden frame with four walls.
The home I carry forward,
however, is built of an infinitely
more durable material, the
enduring memory of connection.
A special thank you to my Aunt Barbara,
to Marielle, Vanessa and Alex for
helping all of us understand this
profound principle that home is not
a location, it's an orientation.
It is the comfort, the
safety, and the love that we
project onto a physical space.
And so as the sun sets on this
chapter and rises on the next.
I want to leave you with this
final thought provoking image.
Look around your own space.
Every object is a silent
testament to a moment.
Which of your belongings are
merely filling space and which
are truly functioning as a
foundation for your next home?
I truly hope you found a little
magic in exploring the stories
that tie us to our belongings.
Join me next time from a new home.
As we continue to uncover the hidden
histories and timeless tales held within
the things we can't truly take with us.
Until then, keep collecting
those moments and remember,
build your homes deliberately.