a tour of my guest room

The guest room is the one place in the house where I can go nuts with the antiques and the grunge and the lace. The one place that doesn't get messed up regularly by actual living, and doesn't need to be practical and easy to clean. It's a display room for all some a small part of the fun stuff I've collected over the years. 

This picture apparently wants to be at the top so badly that I can't convince
Blogger to move it so we'll start with it. This is the far corner as you come into the room.
Dresser to the left, desk and cabinet to the right.
Old family photos in their original frames, lacy side table and doilies all over the lamp.
I'm not showing the bed this time around because I have it stripped down to the
mattress pad so the dog can look out the window and bark at anyone
who has the nerve to use the sidewalk.  

This is the left side of the window, at the foot of the bed.
I bought this oak dresser when I moved out of my mom's house in 1970. I was 17
and still in high school but had a good job and a car. I paid $85 for it, a fortune at the time,
at the antique flea market they used to have in the parking lot out in front of the
Cunningham's drug store I worked at. The mirror tilts and I never had the
silvering repaired, altho I thought about it often enough. That dresser has lived in Michigan,
Illinois and California since I've had it. No telling where all it was before that.

Some old sewing goodies. The large round thing hold several spools of thread
 with a pincushion in the center. I'm a prancing horse in the photo and
my cousin Dea is about to shoot me in the head with her pistol. 

My mother is at front right standing in the washtub with the other neighborhood kids
around 1927. That's her dad in the frame at right. My grandma's little bitty
address book in front of him with her spidery writing. Old leather hair curlers
in front of the kids and a triangle chicken I made at left. 

If I could find a whole set of these dishes, no telling how much I'd be willing
to pay for them, but I've never even spotted another piece at all the
 flea markets and thrift stores I've been to over the years.
Lovely old dresser scarf.

A long shot of the dresser top. I layered 4 or 5 dresser scarves.

A reproduction wall cabinet with various salt and peppers on top.
A large set of made in Japan shakers on the first shelf and
an old pitcher and jar of Leslie's Foot Cream on the second shelf.
Close ups below.

Standing over by the dresser. I put a shelf with pegs above the closet
and hung a garland that my friend Moneka and I made years ago.
Closer shot of the shelf below. Picked up the old wooden ironing board
at a yard sale just the other day.
They said it came with them from Connecticut, but not way to prove it.
That's an old crazy quilt hanging from the cabinet. Close up below.

Part of the crazy quilt and a pin I made years ago.

Chair at right of dresser with pillows I made from old quilts.
The small crazy quilt is one I made during and after a class with
Betty Pillsbury. It was about 100 that day and 14 crazy quilt ladies
were packed into Julie's family room.
That's still one of the top 5 weekends of my life.

The small drop front desk from Steve's side of the family.
His mom entrusted me with a lot of the old family things
because she knew I loved them and would really enjoy having them.
I've had the mirror for years, love the shape of the top edge.
The bed is immediately to the left.

I have so many old doilies that I can't decide which ones to use, so I layer them. 

I bought this old doll at least 30 years ago for a couple bucks.
I know she's quite old but I don't know anything about dolls
and have never had her appraised. I forget if there are any maker's marks.

Another made in Japan shaker. I absolutely adore this one.
The pink and brown, the crazing, the raised work - everything about it.