My first collection was comprised of antique (and just-plain old) books. It all began when I was 24 and got engaged. My co-worker, Tom, gave me an engagement present--a bride-to-be manual from the 1950s, and it was a real side-splitter. Lots of fun advice, like always be nicely dressed and have dinner ready when your "man" gets home from work. (I'm still working on that one--I've been trying for 17 years. But not really.)

Shortly thereafter, my husband and I began decorating our first home. I'd grown up surrounded by antiques, and my father had begun taking me to flea markets and thrift stores when I was just a tot. My parents also gave us a few antique pieces, and we decided we wanted to add to the collection. So my new dh and I started hitting some places looking for antiques we could actually afford, and we found that we couldn't afford much. But I discovered in those years (the late 80s) that I could afford to collect something: old books. So I went right for the Shakespeare, and I built up quite a nice little collection over the years. I would drive out into the country on the weekends and hit small antique stores off the beaten path, and sometimes, in a heap of dusty books, I'd find beautiful, leather-bound Shakespeare volumes just waiting for me. And often, they cost just a few bucks a piece. I placed them all on a living room bookshelf, and they became part of my overall decorating scheme.

Then one day many years later, I visited a rare book store in a mall. I wasn't a flat-broke newlywed anymore, but I didn't want to spend hundreds on books either. But there was one I simply couldn't let go of, and it wasn't Shakespeare. The book was "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote. It looked like any other 1960's book to the rest of the world, but not to me. Because it was this book, and Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" , that changed my life when I was in college, and made me fall in love with journalism and creative non-fiction. After teetering for two years between majoring in engineering or journalism, a beloved professor (later, my mentor) introduced me to this book and I made up my mind. I wanted to create something as beautiful and powerful as Capote had, or die trying. To me, "In Cold Blood" was priceless. But I still couldn't afford it, so I put it down and walked away, remembering how it felt to be 19 and truly in love with words for the first time.

A few months later, my husband gave me a copy of "In Cold Blood" for Christmas. It wasn't the exact book I'd found in the rare book store, but it was beautiful and slip-jacketed and in pristine condition. I placed it prominently on my bookshelf, and a year later, I snatched up an old copy of "The Right Stuff" to place next to it. Sometimes I still pass that shelf and get that funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. Kind of like falling in love, but it's really about very strong, emotional memories from one of the most important times in my life.

So what does all this have to do with decorating, you might ask? Well to some people, all of this might have nothing to do with decorating. But displaying collections has always been part of my home decor. There's something very personal, and emotional, about amassing a collection--no matter the size--of things that mean something to you, and putting them on display in your space. Not only can they beautify your space, they share something about you with everyone who visits. And that, as Martha would say, is a very good thing.

Watch for part 2 of this story, where I share ideas on how to display collections in different ways in your space.