Favorite Spaces in Our Home..

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I recently did a post on cleaning out and making our extra bedroom usable for guests, sewing, drawing, painting, writing and reading. I really didn't go into accessorizing this room, mostly because it had so much in it.

My Husband has an office and the whole 2 story garage as his favorite spaces. Me, I claimed this little bedroom. For years I have been sewing on the kitchen table, as well as doing my art projects there because of the light.

I really needed a workspace for the blogs, sewing and artwork. I have books used for research and writing, and tons of clippings from magazines which are now sorted, family photos---an entire closet full which we intend to thin out and pass out to other family members this winter.

But, I love this space, so here goes a share of more than you probably wanted to know.

My office/guest room is filled with family and personal memorabilia.  The little planter was a gift and holds a candle. She his OOAK clay and fired. The photographs are my Hubby and I for our engagement photos, circa 1967.

Behind "Us" is a very tiny gauge cross stitch of Denmark from probably the 30-40's done by a Great-great-Aunt. 

The little handthrown lamp is one of mine from the 80-90's. I made hundreds of lamps that I sold wholesale and retail during the 80's. I did the Chicago Gift show with 5 lamps and 10 other items. After the first day of the 5 day show, I was puking in the bathroom with $10,000 worth of orders. Be careful of what you wish for. I did the retail show for three years and nearly wore my hands and back out filling orders, beside local art/craft shows and 4 locations I supplied. I was a maniac potter.

I've always collected cottage photos and artwork for years.

The yellow and red cottage above is one of 4 buildings on my Grandmother H's family conclave in Frederickshavn, Denmark. Three buildings were for families, two families to a building.  There was a little courtyard in the middle. The building along the seaside was for animals and fishing boats and supplies. My Great-great Uncle Helmer cleaned fresh eels in the porch area---he was surprised when I just stuck my hand in the water to give him one. (I had already been working in my family's Fresh Fish Market in the USA for two years at this point.) I'll never forget his deep hearty laugh...with the long skinny clay pipe sticking out of his mouth. Laughter is the same in any language!

This was a gift from a friend who passed this last year. We were school chums and I miss him terribly. We reconnected after 38 years and it was instantly like 1966 and homeroom all over again. 

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This is a new find in the family stashes, it was buried in a box, my Great Grandfather in Lithuania...he was a manager of a farm, this has to be from the late 1800's. 

I'm surprised at how much he looks like my Grandfather.

My love of literature came from early reading of Hans Christian Andersen, where all his tales were so vivid, imaginative and alive. This is carved and skillfully stained to appear as an inlay. It is a family piece that landed with me.

My mom had this little treasure. It is pressed out brass and has years of polish imbedded in the letters. 

On the cottage wall are so many bits of needle work, prints, drawings, and photos of cottages. I have a pair of these that turned up in a thrift store for so little. How can people give handmade pieces up...I don't understand giving away when love is in every stitch.

This is very old---the veneer is disappearing here and there...it is in the original frame. I think it is a chalk or possibly a gouache (opaque watercolor) painting. It is under glass, so it could be either.

 

Here is the detail...really lovely work, whatever it is. I've had it for years, it was a trade at my shop in the antique mall...dealers/friends do that!

Scattered here and there our family photos--this is Hubby and me, maybe 15 years ago at the Botanic Gardens here in Chicagoland.

Having three desk areas is WONDERFUL. The vinyl on the table tops is perfect when I'm doing something messy, it just wipes up. This crazy lamp---I replaced the first one. The height is great because it floods half the room with light, perfect for working in art. It took me forever to thrift a lampshade that was perfect. The windows face north, and right now we are finishing up

 winterizing the yard.

That huge pile of leaves was raked by our Grand girl yesterday, they are all just from this little corner of the yard. Hubby will grind them up for the compost pile. 

She decided at 12 now, she would pass on jumping in the leaves since she had clean hair...LOL. They grow tooooo fast!

I picked up this cute purse as this lady is a dead ringer for my Gram's style and they could be sisters. I think it was a Marshall Field's promo-piece and really a collectors item.

This third desk/table to the right is a holding spot right now.

And here not all of the memories  are Old...this is a collection of critters our Grandgirl was given over the years...I can't part with them now, maybe later, the program behind is from a 1939 city rivalry football game of my hometown. My dad was a major player and Captain of the team. It is signed by so many people, many of the names are recognizable, because I went to school with their kids! 

I said this table is a dumping ground, here is a super Barbie mug a gift, and thrift buy Barbie shoes in my size...for $15.00...score!

Above here I have a few family things. One of my favorites is this, 

a photo of my Mom and Aunt in probably 1926-7... it's just precious and is an old spinning easel frame. The soap box is enamel tin...and from our family cottage.

The right artwork wall above the sofa/bed...all these have family meaning for me.

This is a Danish oil painting of a family members farm which I actually visited the next generation-it was a pig/mink farm and you could eat off the floors of the modernized barn. The painting is probably from the 30's, when they got electricity, as I have seen another without the power poles of the same location. The purple is a type of Heather...so gorgeous in real life.

 Another family member became a professional painter and his sea oils are gorgeous. I met him briefly in the 60's..gruff, pipe smoking raggedy clothing a 20th century Van Gogh type character...he was carrying an easel and was probably hurrying to catch the light in the family's North Sea town of Lokken. I don't know if he did this one, the signature is illegible.

Below is 

I found this print in an antique store. The colors are still very bright for a print from the early 20th century. I know it is a Dutch scene, but the feeling is the same as as my other cottages. This is under glass and hard to photo without interference from somewhere.

The round plate my mother made in ceramics class in the 70's. Ironically it portrays entering the Erie Canal at Troy New York (scene is taken from an old print)--the print on the right is a canal boat scene on the Erie canal. These are meaningful as I am still working on a three book trilogy that begins in the Erie Canal. Like much of mid-America, Chicago would have 'never been' if it weren't for the Erie Canal which opened up the Great Lakes and the MidWest.

 

To the right is another print, an etching entitled 'Skippergade' which is the home street of my grandmother H. I stayed in the little house at the end of the road on the right for 3 months with my cousin and grandmother. Nothing is better than living with family in a foreign country and every day of the colors and the people are etched in my mind. 

Sadly this street no longer exists---and is now a six-lane highway. But the city managed to keep most of the 'fishing Village' or 'Fiskergade' intact. As many of those homes were originally built in the 1600's though rebuilt in the 1800's. The streets are narrow and cobbled, the houses have quaint fences, with flowers or window boxes teeming with flowers.

Added to this room is one of my favorite things...this cart which can (when it is loaded properly) hold all my art supplies for my classes. It's makes life very easy to clean up, or quickly do a project when the urge hits me! I hope to be sharing more artwork from my Happy Favorite Space in our home.

Sometime I will share my bookcases. Yes, I do read, but mostly non-fiction or really good historical fiction. Honestly the first thing I do is look to see if the book is accurate with an appendix. Pretty much why my books are stalled in the last stages...clarifying research.

Where is your 

favorite Personal Space?

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All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own, unless otherwise designated. I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown or anywhere I shop.

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 Sandi Magle

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