dollhouse — Page 27

Day Three Hundred Sixty

March 8, 2021 at 10:26 am by Claudia

Five more days until I mark a year of lockdown. Perhaps we started it here a few days earlier, but I can’t remember. I think that the moment we officially hunkered down coincided with my decision to change the titles on my posts. Does it seem unreal that it’s been a year? Not one bit. It seems every bit as long as a year.

Today starts a warming trend here in the Hudson Valley. Baby steps today, but by tomorrow it will be in the mid-fifties and on one day this week – actually two – we will be in the mid-sixties! It won’t stay that way, of course, temperatures will drop down to the forties next week, but even that is welcome!

I’m going to cut my hair today. I cannot stand it any longer! Since it’s baby fine, it looks straggly when it gets too long and believe me, it’s too long. Don has promised to assist with evening out the initial cut. Fingers crossed!

I put the little wooden house from Helga on top of the desk. It probably won’t stay there, but maybe it will!

Thanks for all your thoughts on bathroom/no bathroom in the English Cottage. A reminder that though this is a period house, it has an eclectic mix of more modern and period pieces of furniture and it will be occupied by someone living in 2021. I don’t do period houses inhabited in times of yore. Many miniaturists do, but I don’t. So, any house of mine is living and breathing in the present day, just as Hummingbird Cottage, a Victorian house, is. So…no outhouses. In eliminating the bathroom, we will just imagine it just out of range of our eyes. I may put a little whimsical sign up, pointing to the loo, or I may just ignore it. Also, this is a very small house and all wall space is taken so I won’t be putting in false doors on the walls – besides, the bathroom would be somewhere just beyond the open back of the house, not in the side walls that are already established as exterior walls made of stone.

This is the kind of thinking and rethinking that goes into any dollhouse construction or renovation. The Beacon Hill, with 8 or 9 rooms, will definitely have a bathroom, as does Hummingbird Cottage. But I’m learning that bathrooms are expendable, if necessary, in my particular imaginary world.

In the meantime, the room won’t be a library. I’ve already purposely added a large shelf system in the living room and it’s filled with books. I do see a stack of books by the chair, however. A nice place to retreat and read in private, if necessary. I do think it will be more of a studio, an artist’s studio. I see an easel and art supplies. The rest of it will evolve as I work on it.

It’s sure more exciting than a bathroom!

Yesterday, Don mentioned that he’d like to work on a small house that functions as a guitar shop. Whoa! Needless to say, I was immediately on board. It would be his baby. Why not two floors, I suggested, and he can live above the shop? Yes. He’s already thought up a story for the owner who is gradually acquiring inventory for his shop. His 70th birthday is coming up, so a kit for the shop might be in order, don’t you think?

Okay. I have to pay a couple of bills, cut my hair, clean, etc.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.

Day Three Hundred Fifty-Nine

March 7, 2021 at 10:13 am by Claudia

Ever since we were vaccinated on Tuesday, I’ve had a few thoughts running through my head. After we got the shot, I found myself wanting to get back home where it feels safe. I’ve had that thought throughout the pandemic. As you know, I’m a homebody, a nester, and my home – whether it was a one-room apartment, my childhood bedroom, or our house – has always grounded me and given me peace.

Don and I talked about this during our second cup of coffee. Just what do we want to hang on to after restrictions are lifted? After 5 years of stress with the previous administration? What have we realized we absolutely must have going forward?

I feel very protective about our ‘world’ here at the cottage. About what we have held close to our hearts over the past year. Though the cottage has always been our haven, it has become more so – a safe place where we can find peace, where we make the choice about how we want to live, how we react to the world, how much of the world we want to shut out, and about the atmosphere we want to maintain and nurture. I’m 68 years old. Don will be 70 in June. How do we want to live our lives going forward?

I read these four words this morning: “an oasis of calm.”

That’s it. That’s exactly what I want. That’s what we want. I no longer want the extreme ups and downs that I regularly lived with when I was younger. I can control what I let into my head and heart. I can keep the news at arms length. I can decide how to react. I need and want peace.

This cottage often overflows with creativity. Songs, music, recording, dollhouses, books, puzzles…and often, QUIET. I need all of that. And I’m going to fiercely protect that. As is Don. The world will enter in, of course. But how much of the world enters in is entirely up to us.

__________________________

I did do some work on the dollhouse yesterday.

I hung the light over the island.

I started laying the floor in the bathroom, finally covering up the remnants of the dreadful carpet that was in this room when I found the house at the dump.

I finished the floor and stuck this gorgeous chair in the room for a pretty picture.

I don’t like doing bathrooms in a small house. It’s a waste of space – at least, to my eyes – especially in a house with four rooms, or three, now that I’ve made the first floor an open space. Boring: a toilet, a bathtub, and a sink. Inserting the chair in this scene made me wonder: do I really have to have a bathroom? Wouldn’t I much rather have this room be a den or retreat with an easel set up near the window? I’m just riffing at the moment, but what do you think? I already defied norms by eliminating the stairs. Maybe we could just agree that the bathroom is just off the kitchen? Out of sight, but there?

Thoughts?

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday.

Day Three Hundred Twenty-Six

February 2, 2021 at 9:16 am by Claudia

I’d say 20 – 24 inches.

It never stopped. It snowed constantly during the day and all night long. It’s still snowing. This was one of the more massive storms I’ve seen. And we’re getting more snow on Sunday.

Don just went outside to start up the snow blower. I’m encouraging him to take breaks. We don’t have to be anywhere.

I shot this through the front window this morning:

I’m calling it Ghost Furniture.

It got windy in the evening and throughout the night, so there’s lots of drifting.

February promises to be…interesting.

While that was going on, I fixed my wallpaper mistakes by adding this:

Since I have beams and supports downstairs, I figured I could get away with this in the bathroom. It is a very old English Cottage, after all. In the future, I will NOT wallpaper these sloped walls. I should have stuck to what I did in the bedroom but I couldn’t make up my mind what color to paint the wall, so I went with this.

Now for the floors and then the windows and trim.

A word about Hal Holbrook who passed away on January 23rd. His death was just announced today.

I knew Hal and I was blessed to have known him. When I first moved to San Diego to teach in the MFA program at the Old Globe/University of San Diego, Hal was performing in King Lear, as, of course, Lear. He was brilliant. His daughter, Eve, was a second year student in the acting program, so I became her teacher. Because Hal had a connection to the Globe and to the MFA program, he would visit Eve from time to time. That first fall, he came to watch a dress rehearsal of a show we were doing in the MFA program. I walked into the performance space and there was Hal, sitting in the last row. It was just Hal and me in that room and it was the first time I met him. We got to chatting. Hal was the rare person who was focused completely on whoever he was talking to. I felt that throughout our entire conversation. He wanted to know all about me, where was I from, what was my background, did I like San Diego, everything. We spoke about King Lear and he mentioned he’d like to try that role again when he was 80. We talked about Eve. We talked about Mark Twain.

He was enormously talented, but he was even more kind and compassionate and good. A few months later, we went to see him in Mark Twain Tonight and met with him backstage. I will never forget that performance, nor his graciousness to all of us. I saw him several times during that first school year. Every meeting was a blessing.

Don had a similar experience during the summer before I met him. Don was performing in Morning’s at Seven (the show I saw him in before I met him) and Hal came backstage to Don’s dressing room, grabbed his hands and told him how great he was in the role. Again, focusing entirely on Don. Don has said he’ll never forget that experience.

Rest in Peace, dear Hal. Thank you.

Stay safe.

Happy Tuesday.

Day Three Hundred Sixty

Day Three Hundred Fifty-Nine

Day Three Hundred Twenty-Six

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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