March 2, 2011

My Old House: The Bedroom



The last room in the house to show you is the bedroom (I will do a post on the barn studio soon). As I enter from the work/tv room, I see the old dresser against one of the knee walls, which is a wall dropped down from the slanting ceiling. Behind that wall, running the length of the room, is a walk-in closet for only the tiniest of people, like me. As in the work room, the floor is made of unfinished wide planks of spruce. The room faces east, into the rising sun, and as there are no shades, I awake very early in summer and later in winter.




In the far corner of the room is an old chair, generally covered with clothing, and a small round hooked rug which I made from a pattern when I was first learning the technique. The knee wall on the right side of the room is lower, starting farther back on the ceiling, and thus allowing for a larger usable space.




Here is Poppy, luxuriating on the bed. Her brother Blinky is usually there too, reclining on a pillow. The painting is a small figure study I did many years ago.




This is the rug at my bedside, which I designed and hooked several years ago, before I thought of making artworks using the hooked rug technique.




I think this is my favorite piece of old hardware in the house, with its extravagant and fanciful shape.




When I moved into this house, the bedroom walls were covered with several layers of old wallpaper and paint. One winter's project was to strip the wallpaper and refinish the walls, which I did with a mixture of joint compound, white paint, and color concentrate. I thought I was mixing a blue, but got a cool green. My trowel work was not very adept, so the walls came out uneven and rough, but both inadvertent results ended up looking fine.




This small sculptural diptych by Sam Thurston hangs above the dresser and gives me a great deal of pleasure every day.


*I hope you're enjoying this tour through my house. To see the previous rooms shown go to:
The Work/TV Room
The Staircase
The (Tiny) Front Hall
The Living Room
The Guest Bedroom
The Back Room/Office
The Mudroom
The Kitchen
The Pantry

7 comments:

  1. Altoon, this room reminds me of your paintings. Your touch is everywhere. Lovely.

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  2. Thanks so much, Connie, it's nice to know that a sensibility is in evidence.

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  3. Yes, your sensibility is so present. Your trowel work is such a lovely hand touched job and the color is just right. So neat, I am impressed!

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  4. Just what I needed to lift my spirits on this gray morning. The walls are perfect and that door-handle must be a constant small pleasure every time you touch it. And it was interesting to see your ruglets as a rug. So many very personal touches in this most personal of domestic spaces.

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  5. I love the texture of your walls. I noticed it in some of your recent photos and meant to ask you about it. Thanks for the detail. I wouldn't have thought to pigment the plaster itself...the result is marvelous.

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