Where Bloggers Live: Favorite Furniture
Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes? Every month a group of six bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, and more!
Before we start, let me just welcome Sally to our group. Sally has a fun fashion blog – Within a World of My Own – with bunnies and scarves and some very clever writing – you’ll want to take a look! Starting this month she’ll be part of our Where Bloggers Live group, so WELCOME, SALLY !
This month we’re sharing our favorite pieces of furniture.
I wish I had pictures of all my favorite furniture items over the years, but…
When my parents and sister moved back to the US after living in Japan for two years (my father was stationed in Yokohama), my mother brought back a LOT of furniture from there. It’s fun looking at pictures from the 50s when they were living there and recognizing tables, chairs, drapes, pottery, sofas, etc, that I grew up with here in the states. I’m always astounded that the Navy paid to ship all that stuff from there to here. That must have cost a fortune!!!
Anyway, there was a pair of these mid-century rattan chairs in the (finished) basement, and they’re what I sat in to eat dinner most nights. Alone in front of the tv. While my parents ate upstairs in bed in their bedroom, watching the news. This always seemed normal to me til I got a little older and went to friends houses for dinner and they all sat together at the table. And talked to one another.
You can see a little of one in this picture of me and my mother.
In my last apartment I thought about buying a pair of them. I’d found some relatively inexpensive ones on ebay, but…I managed to restrain myself. Which was good cuz now…Everything Must Go.
Anyway, they were so comfy and casual. I really enjoyed them.
In the early 70s when we were firmly ensconced on Long Island, my father built this…THING…for the kitchen. It was part high-top table seating, with storage below, and shelving up top. It was quite ingenious…and pretty unattractive, ha ha. If I remember correctly it was just like stained and polyurethaned plywood. Since no one knew exactly WHAT to call it, it was dubbed The Thing. “Put it on The Thing.” “We’ll sit at The Thing.”
It even had a sign that sat on one of the upper shelves:
The Thing is long gone…but I still have the sign. And it makes me think of the big hulking piece of furniture my father built that took up like a third of the kitchen. And I like remembering.
Rain was my father. His name was Charles but I don’t think I ever heard ANYONE call him that. I think my mother called him Rain from when they first met. Short for Rainwater. So it’s what she introduced him as to her family…so all my cousins called him Uncle Rain.
My mother was a hoarder collector. She “collected” things from the curb where people had left them. She also went to garage sales and stuff, but a LOT of things were lugged home by ME, at her direction. “When Hill Street Blues is over, drive around to Overlea North…I saw a dresser/chair/table/tea cart in the trash. Go get it.” OH did I hate that! But…eventually, much of my own home was furnished with those things! For all her trash picking, she really had a very good eye for things.
Let me introduce you to The King & Queen chairs. Over the top, googah, gaudy, French Provincial ESQUE (aka fake) with super stylish red velvet cushions. Oh did I love those chairs. I thought they were SO fabulous. And PERFECT for birthday parties and bridal showers and all things where you wanted to seat a Guest of Honor embarrassingly front and center.
There were two of them…sadly I can’t recall a picture of the two of them. Somewhere along the way, they were released into the wild to live with someone else cuz I just didn’t have room for them after leaving the big house (Victorian, not prison).
And something a little simpler…I know I’ve shared this here before several times…but it’s a simple bookcase my father built for my sister in the 50s…and it’s been in every house I’ve ever lived in. It’s nothing fancy. Just a box, really. But, like The Thing…I like knowing he made it…and it’s been very useful for me as it’s sort of like The Black Dress…Invisible. It just does its job of holding things and you barely notice it.
Only when I look at in pictures do I notice it could use a fresh coat of paint. Oh well. Too late now.
There were a couple other favorites…but I have no pictures, so that’s not fun.
Make sure to check out my friends blogs today, too:
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own
Sally in St Paul
My goodness, you had an actual THRONE! Wow, that is fun.
Lisa Elliott
I love those rattan chairs – how retro and how fun! I have to ask – do you know why you ate in one place and your parents ate in bed? I was just curious.
bettyewp
Yeah, who knows, haha. I mean we HAD a kitchen table and a dining room table. But unless we had company, we never sat together at a table to eat, we just went our separate ways. Even putting a tv in the kitchen would have been a more normal option, but…who knows. They’d watch the news 6-7:30pm and I’d watch like Petticoat Junction, Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, etc. At 7:30 my father and I would switch. He’d come down to sit in his chair (NOT rattan), read, smoke his pipe and watch baseball or whatever. I’d go upstairs to my fathers side of the bed and watch Wheel of Fortune with my mother, then the sitcom/drama du jour. the only tvs we’re in the basement and my parents bedroom. He’d come up at 11 and I’d go upstairs to bed. It was a pretty form routine til I was 15-16 and started having boyfriends and would be out in the evening.
Jodie Filogomo
The thing? LOL. I basically use that kind of terminology even now when things have a better name.
Those rattan chairs don’t look comfy, but it goes to show how looks can be deceiving, huh?
My husband could never understand picking up furniture on the side of the road, until we retired. Now I am proud to say that he is the one that found one of the pieces in our office. It’s the best kind of recycling,
XOXO
Jodie
http://www.jtouchofstyle.com
bettyewp
Yeah, I feel I have a very different “chair/sofa” comfort level than many people. VERY few things are comfortable to me. But these had a good (very little) angle to the bank, and you were sort of “enveloped” in them…like they had sides vs arms…I could pull my legs up underneath me in them…that’s still my preferred way of sitting, but I can’t do it in a regular hard chair. Sofa’s don’t fit my leg length and I hate to sit leaning back.
yeah, garbage picking is the ultimate in recycling!
Daenel
Oh my word, I do love seeing the pictures of Baby Bettye! You and both with the rattan chairs. I have pieces {or, rather, my mom has} from when I lived in Korea and they’re beautiful — vases and a table.
I can’t remember whether we sat down at the table and ate dinner together. I honestly don’t think we did. I feel like all we did was spend a lot of our time in our car going back and forth to church. It was about a 1.5 to 2 hour trip, both ways.
bettyewp
Ha ha, like I just told Iris, that’s not me in the King&Queen chair, that’s Katie. I’m in the earlier picture with my mother…in the rattan saucer chair.
How often did you make that long trip to church? Did you talk in the car? I love road trips for staring out the window…and for talking, cuz you’re both held captive…whatever you say, they’re GONNA hear you. I used to save Important Topics til I was in the car with Katie and I was like, you may not respond, but I’m going to say this and you’re GOING to hear it and it’s GOING to be in your brain, so…
Iris
LOVE the ‘throne’ chair (and you looked pretty cute sitting in it). Would have loved to see the pictures of your memories. It saddens me sometimes when I remember such special things, but there were not many pictures in my day – and certainly not of furniture.
Iris
bettyewp
Oh! That’s not me! In the King&Queen chair? That’s Katie! That must have been her 3rd birthday. I’m in the earlier picture with my mother, in the rattan saucer chair.
Someday ALLLLLL my pictures and memories will be organized in one place. I still have boxes and boxes of slides to scan that my father took.