The shack was built in the era of my childhood, 50’s and I wanted to keep some of the warmth of the 50s as I decorated it.
‘We’ did work – ‘I’ dressed and decorated it, and ‘we’ had to do it on a budget. Now, as I sit here surrounded by the creativity of a wonderful generation of unknown women, it feels as though I’m entertaining and living in a story.
I’ve also got a great collection of vintage china. Everything compliments the colours and patterns of the textiles.
Let me say it’s our children’s shack, and when they return home to it, they can adjust the dressing, and it will have yet another life.
Given the choice of dressing, I was able to visit thrift stores and, as we say here in Australia, an ‘Op shop’ for furniture I could re-purpose.
I had a great collection of past odds and ends, including dozens of pinnies. I mainly collected them from thrift stores in the USA, and I have some gorgeous ones that now hang on the makeshift clothes rails in two bedrooms. They are a reminder of more domestic chores done in homes in the 50’s, but they blend well with my other pieces of textile art, much of it is patched and slow stitched creating a genre of hand sewing over generations.
Aprons, or pinnies, were an indispensable part of women’s workday attire. I fondly remember my Nana wearing aprons, and her white hair escaped the hair clips she used to keep in a bun at the back of her head. She always had a few in her pinny pocket. I could see her gnarled hands as she wiped them on the front of her pinny then she opened them with her teeth before she could capture a piece of flyaway hair.
Today I wore one while I painted in the bathroom.
Does this give you the picture.?
I know your heartbreak. We had a holiday place which we ended up renting.
Though the tenants never destroyed the actual house, we had to completely renew the garden after every tenancy.
But I’d be interested to know; did you take the property manager to court? They should at least have to pay back all the monies you paid them. In WA there is a Real Estate Industry body to whom you can make complaint and I’m sure there is one in SA.
Love all your work. One day maybe you’ll do a class I can attend? Cheers Penny
Thanks, Penny, Oh, they wiggled out of it, and we should have done that. We did get a little compensation, but they stated they were there three weeks before the tenants left, and it was perfect, but that couldn’t have happened. I do believe the agent was dismissed, though.
Beautiful! Reminds me of my Grandma.
Seriously? The agent said the tenant had destroyed the place in three weeks? When pigs fly! And how does a garden get destroyed in three weeks? We are having a rental crisis in WA as more and more owners turn to short term letting as more income and less problems with tenants. And yet the state government is tightening the rules that favour to tenant. Go figure…🙄
Yep, so no more agents on both of the houses we have to rent, just family.
Enjoy reading your blog.