Certain Provenance
Life is just so full of surprises. You never know when you'll come across a fresh surprise. And there you are, mouth agape, wondering at the unpredictability of happenstance. As when you confront an object that is intimately familiar to you. Echoing times past and personal effort. And although you thought highly of that object as a milestone, an accomplishment, a finished product of creativity, it wasn't a cherished object, and you were not loathe to let it go.
In the house we owned, previous to our current home, much attention was lavished by my husband on its inner appearance. He, an artisan at heart, with an advanced aesthetic all of his very own, transformed a mediocre interior into an expression of his own artistic talents. Although it's been almost twenty years since we lived in that house, its memory is still fresh enough to recall details.
We did, after all, spend almost twenty years inhabiting the house, raising our three children there, as a happy, comfortable and devoted family. Over time, the house we bought which had been pre-owned by another young family moving elsewhere, bore the signature of a house owned by an aesthetic adventurer, one for whom the pedestrian would never suffice.
In time, the basement of the house was finished, and our little family spent many hours there, in what we called our recreation room, a fairly large space equipped with a wood stove, and the only television set in the house. It was a place of leisure and comfort, with several walls at one end of its long depth lined with bookcases, full of reading material.
We've always been fond of wallpaper, and searched assiduously for wallpaper that expressed a certain sophisticated elan, although we made no claims ourselves to sophistication. Our bedroom was papered with large blush-pink chrysanthemums on a silver background, which always took me into the Orient.
Our older boy, so fond of medieval history had his bedroom wallpapered with a motif reminiscent of Greece, replete with sepia-toned noble statuary. His bedroom boasted a huge old pine armoire from Quebec, circa mid-19th Century. He had a passable telescope, large enough, with decent lenses.
Our daughter merited a more delicate atmosphere, and her choice was delicately floral. The emphasis of her interest at that time was sewing, and shelving was installed for all her fabrics and materials. Her bed was one her father had designed and made especially for her, a four-poster, when she had outgrown her infant bed, back when we lived in an earlier house.
Our younger boy loved nature and had a studious yet athletic bent, and his room was anchored with a desk his father designed and built, a hatchwork design of cubby holes above, the desk midway, and shelving alongside. He eschewed wallpaper. His collection of butterflies, carefully mounted and displayed, went into an antique pine bookcase with doors.
The front door of the house was constructed of West Coast pine, with a stained glass insert, of a historically-inspired, albeit notional coat of arms. It was solid and beautiful, one of the first stained glass efforts which we deemed highly successful. Between the small entry and the central hallway, a set of stained glass doors was installed, with clear glass background, festooned with a delicate tracery of flowering vines.
To separate the large living room from the smaller dining room, a set of four stained glass doors were designed and put together, with an outdoor, quasi forested motif, complete with small lake, swans and frogs, bulrushes. Fanciful in the extreme, it also boasted in its wide sweep, a hilly range in the background, and a lightly forested interior.
The original wrought iron stair rail was replaced with a turned-wood rail and spindles carefully turned downstairs in that portion of the basement beside my washer and dryer reserved for a small workshop. We invested a lot of love and living in that house. And then our children grew older, attended university, left home.
We also moved on. And surprise! when we dropped by our local Sally Ann thrift shop today, there among the superior items set aside for their silent auction were a number of stained glass door sets. So familiar looking. After all this time someone taking possession of our old house decided to de-install them and to gift them to a charitable institution.
In the house we owned, previous to our current home, much attention was lavished by my husband on its inner appearance. He, an artisan at heart, with an advanced aesthetic all of his very own, transformed a mediocre interior into an expression of his own artistic talents. Although it's been almost twenty years since we lived in that house, its memory is still fresh enough to recall details.
We did, after all, spend almost twenty years inhabiting the house, raising our three children there, as a happy, comfortable and devoted family. Over time, the house we bought which had been pre-owned by another young family moving elsewhere, bore the signature of a house owned by an aesthetic adventurer, one for whom the pedestrian would never suffice.
In time, the basement of the house was finished, and our little family spent many hours there, in what we called our recreation room, a fairly large space equipped with a wood stove, and the only television set in the house. It was a place of leisure and comfort, with several walls at one end of its long depth lined with bookcases, full of reading material.
We've always been fond of wallpaper, and searched assiduously for wallpaper that expressed a certain sophisticated elan, although we made no claims ourselves to sophistication. Our bedroom was papered with large blush-pink chrysanthemums on a silver background, which always took me into the Orient.
Our older boy, so fond of medieval history had his bedroom wallpapered with a motif reminiscent of Greece, replete with sepia-toned noble statuary. His bedroom boasted a huge old pine armoire from Quebec, circa mid-19th Century. He had a passable telescope, large enough, with decent lenses.
Our daughter merited a more delicate atmosphere, and her choice was delicately floral. The emphasis of her interest at that time was sewing, and shelving was installed for all her fabrics and materials. Her bed was one her father had designed and made especially for her, a four-poster, when she had outgrown her infant bed, back when we lived in an earlier house.
Our younger boy loved nature and had a studious yet athletic bent, and his room was anchored with a desk his father designed and built, a hatchwork design of cubby holes above, the desk midway, and shelving alongside. He eschewed wallpaper. His collection of butterflies, carefully mounted and displayed, went into an antique pine bookcase with doors.
The front door of the house was constructed of West Coast pine, with a stained glass insert, of a historically-inspired, albeit notional coat of arms. It was solid and beautiful, one of the first stained glass efforts which we deemed highly successful. Between the small entry and the central hallway, a set of stained glass doors was installed, with clear glass background, festooned with a delicate tracery of flowering vines.
To separate the large living room from the smaller dining room, a set of four stained glass doors were designed and put together, with an outdoor, quasi forested motif, complete with small lake, swans and frogs, bulrushes. Fanciful in the extreme, it also boasted in its wide sweep, a hilly range in the background, and a lightly forested interior.
The original wrought iron stair rail was replaced with a turned-wood rail and spindles carefully turned downstairs in that portion of the basement beside my washer and dryer reserved for a small workshop. We invested a lot of love and living in that house. And then our children grew older, attended university, left home.
We also moved on. And surprise! when we dropped by our local Sally Ann thrift shop today, there among the superior items set aside for their silent auction were a number of stained glass door sets. So familiar looking. After all this time someone taking possession of our old house decided to de-install them and to gift them to a charitable institution.
Labels: Family, Personally Dedicated
posted by Pieface @ 5:45 PM
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