First and foremost: We didn’t get any snow. Other areas around here did, but somehow, we escaped!
Okay. The studio/office or office/studio tour. There are a lot of photos, so grab a cup of coffee or tea and settle in.
I’ll start with my little cubicle. I measured it the other day – 8′ x 6½’ – but that includes all of the furniture; cabinet, desk, and work tables. So, the actual amount of space I have to move around in is much, much less.
If I turn to the left as I enter the room,
The pink cabinet is on the left. That’s a cabinet that we found on Craig’s List. It used to be in the hall, but once I moved my creative space from the niche under the skylight to this room, the cabinet moved, too. In front of it is a vintage fire screen that I purchased from Heidi’s shop right before she closed it down. Sorry, I can’t get the floor in the picture! Too cramped.
Dolls, a puppet from Paris, cake toppers, the opening night poster from Anastasia, and a framed program from the play, Claudia, which was on Broadway in the 40s.
Interior: Roseville, McCoy, Vintage by Crystal – minus a few that were downstairs for Easter, a Smurf (a gift from Michael Ausiello who wrote Spoiler Alert, the book the movie is based on. Smurfs figure in the story) vintage glove boxes, magazines and books in which I’ve been featured, my dad’s name from his old office, Laduree boxes.
On the side of the cabinet, lanyards. Almost all of them are from theater productions I’ve coached, but there is one from a Paul McCartney concert – we had VIP seats because we know one of the guys in his band – and there is one from the movie, Spoiler Alert, which hangs from the bulletin board.
In front of me is the desk.
At any given time, it’s a mishmash of craft supplies, favorite things, books on Shakespeare, mail, you name it. You can see my precious putz sheep on the mantel shelf. More details…
Some of my paintings, my brother and I, a wooden box that says California on top, a piece of Roseville, little shells.
A photo of me in Paris, taken by Don with his Holga camera. And more putz sheep.
My vintage Necco candy jar, filled with candy. To the left, a brooch that my late brother gave me. I had it framed in a shadow box.
The desk chair. Cords are a way of life around here, so I don’t try to hide them. You can see that the sewing table that I use to work on Dove Cottage is to the right of the desk. And the Lamb with the Party Hat canvas is hanging on the wall.
I keep lots of supplies in those drawers under the table. And lovely Dove Cottage sits on top.
Perpendicular to Dove Cottage is the long work table which holds the Beacon Hill. Don gave me this restaurant counter/island for my birthday a couple of years ago. It takes up a lot of space, but it enables me to work standing up, if necessary, which gives my back a break. I suppose I would never have purchased this Beacon Hill if I didn’t have this counter space. I’m currently stashing tax stuff in one of the rooms.
On the outer perimeter of my cubicle, you see:
The exterior of Dove Cottage and a Z plant.
And the exterior of the Beacon Hill, with lots of supplies on the bottom shelf.
Okay. If, instead of veering to the left as you enter the room, you head straight into the interior, you see this:
To the left would be my cubicle with the exterior of Dove Cottage. This little area includes many guitars, a mandolin, a ukelele, a screen for filming auditions, and the antique French cabinet that holds my miniatures. It sits on a vintage bench, which contains Don’s Crown Graphic camera and accessories. To the right – a bass guitar and a vintage plant stand full of plants, a table with a lamp, books, a framed Wallace Nutting, and a plant.
Next to the table, a very old and comfy chair covered in a tablecloth, Don’s bag, Wallace Nuttings on the wall, a photograph, my chair back from the movie set, and a map of Paris.
To the right of the chair is Don’s desk.
That desk is actually half of a Renaissance Revival dining room table. I bought it during the first year I lived in San Diego to use as a desk. I really love it. Yes, we also have two amps in this room. The vintage telephone works, but not really. The last time we used it, it dialed 911 instead of the number we were calling and the police came to our door. So now it’s just decorative.
A sombrero Don bought on our trip cross country hangs on the wall along with a photo of me and some horses. A photo of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. The signed poster for Escape to Margaritaville. The bolo ties that belonged to his dad. On the far left, a photo of a dear friend of Don’s who recently passed away.
The chair is a vintage Thonet that we bought for $5.00!
Our printer is to the left of the desk and it sits on a file cabinet.
The infamous Big Boys and the hat that Don wore in Escape to Margaritaville.
On the desk, candles from his birthday cake, a shark (a gift from a fellow cast member) and a truck with some cows in it. Don came home from the grocery store one day with the truck which he saw in a seasonal display. “You’re not the only one who buys toys!” he said. I love him so much! Love that he bought this little toy for his desk.
We just bought this lamp a month or so ago. Heidi texted me a photo of it and said it made her think of Don. (It was for sale where she works.) She was right. Definitely one of a kind and we snapped it up.
Desk detail.
By the way, there are also guitars hidden behind the big chair.
A photo I took of Don as he took his final curtain call in Escape to Margaritaville.
Every night during the curtain call, beach balls would fall from the ceiling of the theater. I grabbed these two on closing night. Almost 3 years later, they’re still hanging in there.
And finally, as you walk past the craft closet to the doorway,
My IKEA cart full of paints and dollhouse/miniature tools and supplies.
There you go. We’ve managed to pack a lot into this room. Don is up there right now playing his guitar – just above the den where I’m sitting as I write this.
This room used to be our spare bedroom but we rarely have guests. One day it hit me that we were wasting that space and Don agreed with me. We sold the bed to a friend, cleared out the space, bought my desk from IKEA, moved the sewing table and pink cabinet into the room, and suddenly, we had a creative space that we could share.
Hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to ask questions in the comments.
Stay safe.
Happy Tuesday.
Hello,
What a very cool and interesting space. Very unique items. I, too have several Wallace Nuttings.
Thank you for wonderful tour.
Take Care,
Kaye
Park City, UT
You’re very welcome!
Thanks, Kaye.
Stay safe.
Loved, loved, LOVED this posting. It would have been totally appropriate to have danced the cha-cha while scrolling through. What a lovely home full of memories and places to work and craft! Thank you so much for showing these great spaces. You two are such a great couple!!
Oh, thank you for your kind words, Tana! I’m so glad you enjoyed it.
Stay safe.
This is a great room! So full of memories. I remember your posts about your vintage cake toppers. Thanks for sharing this today.
I had them stashed away for a while but I missed them. So they’re back on display.
Thanks so much, April.
Stay safe.
And butter pats! I never knew what they were til you, Claudia!
I love my little butter pats!
xo
What a wonderful tour of yours and Don’s space. When you said your design was eclectic you were right, and I’m loving your “stuff!” I look forward to your blog every morning. Feel like I’ve known you forever.
VERY eclectic!
Thank you so much, Deb. I’m glad you liked it.
Stay safe.
Thanks ever so much for the tour.
What a delightful space you & Don have created for yourselves,,, filled with creativity, inspiration, memories, and talent!
Wishing you & Don a marvelous week!
Thank you, Amy. We are creative types with a big dash of whimsy.
I’m so glad you enjoyed the tour.
Stay safe!
Oh Claudia, I’m so glad you shared your space! I love seeing studios, the places where people work and consequently are often, if not always, surrounded by favorite things. I see so many details I love — some of which don’t surprise me, like the putz sheep and Crystal pieces, some of which do and delight me. It’s fun seeing Don’s space too, and I’m glad you showed them both! You’re very organized in a tight space and I love that!
Thanks for the “field trip” into a world of wonderful stuff and so much joy and creativity!
You’re most welcome, Jeanie! Thank you for your kind words.
Have to be organized!!
Stay safe.
Claudia/Don — thank you for this post — really glad to know you two can pursue/use your many talents — you all are ‘real’ people, haha!! I have always loved (especially) those sheep — so happy to see them displayed together. can you believe the changes you have made with those houses? hard to realize how a bit of paint and alot of vision can make huge differences — also love these. hope you stay healthy/safe
Thank you so much, Linda. I’m glad you enjoyed the tour!
Stay safe.
Oh, I loved this tour! Your 911 phone made me laugh. (I just called 911 for the first time a few days ago and managed to blubber through ordering an ambulance for Mr. Wizard! It was traumatic, but all worked out in the end—no heart attack, no blood clot, no collapsed lung—and we were back home after 13 or 14 tense hours.)
Also loved seeing Don’s hat from ‘Margaritaville’. We so enjoyed seeing him in that production.
Glad the snow missed you, too!
I’m so sorry – you must have been truly frightened. Glad to hear all is well, Shanna. My love to Fred (and you.)
That hat could tell a lot of stories!
Stay safe.
thanks for the studio tour full of photos and descriptions, claudia and don!
i love seeing how people live, especially creative spaces with their talents and inspirations on display … very inspiring (and you both are veryorganized).
liked seeing don’s hat from “margaritaville” … a reminder of a fun trip with my sister and seeing don perform. :)
while i have no place or need for one, i keep looking for a “scotch tape” display rack as on your wall. maybe someday.
glad you were spared the snow. i love prince’s song “sometimes it snows in april”, just not real snow then. :)
happy tuesday. stay safe!
kathy
As I said to Shanna, that hat could tell a lot of stories!
I hope you find one of those scotch tape displays. If I ever come across one, I’ll let you know.
Stay safe, Kathy.
thanks, claudia! :)
kathy
x0
Oh, I remember when your space was on the landing outside the spare room. I loved how you organized that area, as well. Where there is a will, there is always a way! Such fun to see things I had forgotten about. You both have a lot to keep you busy in that room!!
Glad you didn’t get the snow. We had it yesterday. It is sunny today, and 44*. Someday warmer days will come. Just happy it isn’t snowing (again). Take care.
There is ALWAYS a way. Having lived in tiny studio apartments, I always found a way to have a creative space.
Thanks so much, Chris.
Stay safe.
Oh how I loved, loved, loved this tour! I know I have been asking you to do a virtual tour of your whole cottage, so this is so good. I love that you keep all your treasures out for you to see and cherish. And the Necco and Big Boy, what memories! I just enjoy seeing how other people live and you and Don have done such an awesome job of staying organized. It inspires me to do some more Spring cleaning and purging. I see anotherGarage Sale in our future. Thank you Claudia again for sharing. You made my day! Take care!
I love seeing how others live as well – it’s always fascinating, isn’t it?
I’m so happy that you enjoyed the tour, Deb!
Stay safe.
You definitely have a knack for displaying your treasures and you both have many treasures. Obviously you have created a fun place to be creative. Good for you both.
Loving Paris. Wish you were here.
Thanks so much, Kay.
I wish we were in Paris, too! I’m living vicariously through you at the moment. I miss it there so much.
Have a wonderful time, my friend.
Stay safe.
Your ending comments about making the spare room your creative-space room, I get this and have been reassessing old ideas, too. We also rarely have overnight guests so why am I wasting the ‘extra’ bedroom when I’m so in need of space for how I live right now? But then it needles at me to think of letting go of the beautiful bedroom furniture I inherited from my aunt. Sometimes I wish I had a six-bedroom house because I so crave space for everything I own, have collected, that I love, yet it’s all about the downsizing at this later age of life. Sigh.
I have a friend who DOES have a six-bed house and the luxury of space with a big open floor plan with lots of windows and light always makes me want to wilt. They have one bedroom that’s nothing more than an exercise room, where she can spread out, do floor exercises. But that’s how the other half gets to live. One thing about it, though? She’s now age 75 and can’t clean that house on her own. Takes a team of people to clean all that square footage, with the one team doing just the floors on alternate weeks. Me? I live simpler and it costs less money. I’m just quite crowded although I continue to declutter, which I know now I’ll be doing for the rest of my life due to over-buying and over-collecting and a reluctance to part with things. I’ve got some ‘hoarder’ in me.
But I was thinking of how when I was younger, I thought it was so important (just my influences I guess) to build up a stash of stuff for formal dining, like all the china, special flatware, matching glasses/goblets, tureens, tablecloths and cloth napkins; I have tons of it, some is vintage; and I never used any of it because it just wasn’t how I ever lived; I’m a casual person, not a formal one. I aspire to all those gorgeous tablescapes over the years in the shelter mags, lovely photo ops; but it never really was ‘me’ and now I’ve got all that stuff I have to get rid of, although I have a young cousin who wants to emulate the former lifestyles of the grandmas who had their ‘bridge club’ ware, like the glass plates with an indentation for a glass punch cup, pretty little crystal candy dishes, decorative creamer and sugar bowl, etc. Gosh, if you entertained all those decades ago, you seemed to need a lot of different types of ‘vessels’ like big ceramic platters, the large cake stand or tiered stands; a collection of ‘berry bowls’.
I wish that I actually HAD used some of this stuff because it’s so dignified and elegant. Speaks of a less hurried lifestyle. Like a lovely ‘coffee set’ my grandpa gave his brother for a wedding gift, that had the gold-gilt porcelain coffee pot and matching cups/saucers. Where you’d make a visit an ‘occasion’ and bring out the pretty stuff, almost as a tribute to your guest and the experience. Or the ‘lemonade’ set my grandma had (somebody had given it to her in the 1920s, so I don’t even really know just HOW old it actually is) — I don’t think it’s for lemonade as it’s painted ceramic (little blue-purple violets), not glass — with the ornate pitcher and set of slim matching tumblers. It was a way of life so seldom experienced now; people used to make time for a sit-down with nice accompaniments. I’m sure my grandma always had a homebaked pie as a go-with, like her lemon meringue for summer. Point is, they made the effort. Whereas I may be just plain lazy. I think of this recently when somebody came over and they got a bottle of water; shame on me. Very INelegant.
Wow, it’s a lot to look at today, Claudia. Fun post! I always love that little nook with the skylight and where you once had your sewing machine, true? Intriguing space for me; I’ve always loved it; you can see it peeking thru in your first photo. As for today’s room, love the big ‘ol comfy chair with the tablecloth, the detail on that old desk. LOVE the story of dialing a number on the rotary dial only to have the cops come to the door because it went to 911. Oh, that pink cabinet. So many treasures. You’re a little cramped, small house like mine, but you’ve managed as always to display your things to your pleasure and purpose; it’s all so cozy and real. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Vicki
I have a younger niece with a beautiful large old house. We share a taste for all the more formal stuff. When I moved and had to get rid of lots of antique furniture, china, rugs, etc. I gave them to her. It was great to see her reimagine these items and now I get to visit them. Win, win. Maybe this would work for you and your cousin.
Regards,
Anne
Anne V: Thanks for your comment. Encouraging to hear that your niece goes for the formal ware. I didn’t think of the ‘plus’ that, when visiting my young cousin, I’d see how she used my things in probably a new and fresh way. The stuff does live on and will always find a home, even if its story is lost; of course you see things in the thrift stores/antique stores. There will always be people who love the old things. I have to stay out of those stores because I still, even to this day, want to ‘rescue’ precious old aprons, tablecloths, handkerchiefs, newborn-baby dresses; bits of lace; the things so lovingly crafted in the home-sewn days. I always hope the younger generations are keeping alive the home arts like basic sewing of clothes and curtains, but also tatting, embroidery, needlepoint, knitting and crocheting, even quilting and weaving; that they have the patience and attention span for it (I never did; but I aspired to it and was/am awestruck by the talents of others!).
Sometimes you have to make a tough choice, Vicki, and only you can decide if your Aunt’s furniture is more important than using that space differently.
We, too, live a very casual lifestyle, yet I have two sets of formal dishes, which I never use! But I love them – one was my great-grandmother’s and one I bought because I loved the design. There’s a ton of stuff like that here because my weakness is china and pottery.
So glad you enjoyed the tour, Vicki!
Stay safe.
Thanks for the tour! You and Don are both very creative people and it shows. Quick question, do you nibble on those Necco wafers from time to time? I have a sweet tooth and love the chocolate ones, even though my family thinks that flavor is gross.
No, I don’t nibble on them. I don’t eat sugar anymore, but even if I did, I bought them expressly for the jar display so no one is allowed to eat them. I used to live not far from the factory where they made them – when I lived in Cambridge, MA. You could smell them!
Stay safe, Jen.
Thanks for the tour Claudia. It is quite astounding all that you have in that room. But, it is all out, and you can enjoy seeing it. I remember your landing creative space….you have a lot more room now compared to that. Kudos to you both for making this shared space work so well.
Glad you escaped the snow…I couldn’t imagine all the predicted snow this late in the season. Enjoy your evening! ;)
We’re hardly ever in that room at the same time, so it works out well, Donnamae.
Glad you enjoyed the tour!
Stay safe.
I love this tour and how much you have managed to put in the studio and make it work for both you and Don. I’ve been working on changing my craft/art room space to make it more useful and need a good worktable or desk to really up the function. I have my eye on an Ikea desk or table. All the lovely things you’ve collected make it so warm and personal. I love having my collections in my home. Hugs.
Thank you so much, Linda. My desk is from IKEA and I really like it.
Stay safe, my friend.