Decorating the Nickel and Dime Ranch Headquarters: Part 4

The Nickel and Dime Ranch Headquarters is just a fancy way to say our house, an Airlock Log Home built about 12 years ago as a vacation place for a rich doctor in Kansas. Now we live here full time.  People always wonder how we ended up here, so suffice it to say that Southern California Edison and an eminent domain situation gave us the opportunity to give up our old home and relocate to Northern New Mexico. It was either this or a tract house in Riverside County. What a choice.

Chief decorator is Tom, with the same decorating sense as Sherlock Holmes which can be good or bad, depending on what he finds and brings home. As a historian, he wants his memories in plain sight, anything from an old glass Clorox bottle to turkey feathers to bones. So I live in a sort of museum of the interesting and weird.

Bones and skulls have been a recurring theme and yesterday when I was dusting, I discovered this gem setting on top of the lamp.

I am not sure why this bone is here, and I haven't asked.

In the background of the photo above, on either side of the doorway, is a pair of ship lamps that we use when the power is out for an extended time. 

Here is a closeup of the lamp with the clean chimney. The markings indicate it's from a ship called the SS Caledonia, from Glasgow, Scotland. I think they are neato.

The entry was a screened porch, which we really didn't sit in, preferring the outside porch and deck instead. So we windowed where there once were screens, which makes it more of a mud room now.

It holds hiking stuff, boots, gloves, hats, scarves, turkey feathers, more bones, pack baskets, cleaning stuff, paper for starting fires, and extra dishes and little appliances. We try to declutter it once a month, and it is due for another cleaning and purging right now, so I won't show you all the dirty details.

Here's a wall with some of our stuff on it. On the right is a Duluth bag with a pack basket in it along with some military surplus bags and canteens. I like the little school chair hung up because it makes a good ledge if you have to set something down.

We need more quilts around the house to add some soft, girly decor to the Holmsian interior. My quilts are usually given away, but with all the man stuff around there is an obvious need for more quiltiness. Tomorrow I will show you a quilt project which will add some yin to Tom's yang. (Hmm. Tom's yang. Sounds weirdly suggestive.)

Decorating The Nickel and Dime Ranch Headquarters Part 3

All these years I didn't realize we were on the cutting edge when it came to decorating, but a quick look through Country Living, Real Simple or any of the frugal living blogs on the internet solidifies the idea that Tom, the Resident Decorator, aka The Inferior Decorator, is a house decorating genius!

We have lived frugally for years, gathering old furniture from family and friends, frequenting second hand stores, and generally allowing our furnishings to drift into our lives with little planning. At first when Tom has a decorating idea I tend to freak out and not like it, but for many of his vignettes, their time has come and I grow to like what he has arranged. I never did like the nooks he made out of crates to accommodate all our books, though. It was too hard to clean and dust and a squirrel Miss Bonnie brought into the house got caught between two crates and it smelled to high heaven.

But I kind of like what Tom has done for our television area. We bought a big screen tv, but the ironic part is we have chosen not to get the satellite dish hooked up and of course there's no cable or signals through the air in our area. Too many traveling nights in trailer parks and motels with cable have proven there is little to watch on tv. It's easier to get dvd's and watch them when you want and the diggers are wending their way here and there with their fast internet fiberoptic stuff and will eventually get to our place. Then we will be able to hook up the computer to the tv and stream! Woo hoo! Stimulus money well spent, I must say.

Below is our setup. On the left are Swiss Army chests Tom ordered from Sportsmans' Guide, the Surplus Catalog, to hold dvd's and a tangle of wires and cords that we might need some day. That's the dvd player on top of the Swiss Army chests along with a pair of binoculars because you never know when you might need to look out the window and spot something. The telly is setting on Aunt Patricia's trunk from when she was in the military. Her name is stenciled on the top.

On the right is another trunk we bought at a second hand store for 30 dollars and gave to my mom for Christmas. She restored it inside and out. There's another set of binoculars there along with several pairs on the spinning bookcase right next to the trunk. You never know when you may need to grab some binoculars and have a little look-see.

The trunk with the books on it is our coffee table. We think this was Aunt Patricia's too, because there is a Duluth Trunk Company metal tag attached to the top. The rug is from overstock.com.

In between are some snow shoes that will decorate the walls someday.

Here's how these Swiss Army chests look inside. We used old milk crates to hold the dvd's and other stuff.

I think this stuff goes well with our cabin. We look like we might be ready for an expedition or something, don't we?

And unrelated to military surplus, but still important is the photo below of the amarylis I got for Christmas from Trudy and Pat. It's setting on the window sill above the kitchen sink, adding some winter color. After I took the photo I noticed the dome outside in the late afternoon gloaming.

Decorating the Nickel and Dime Ranch-Part 2

I recently chatted with a person who had been decorating their new home in French country style. Since I get the Williams-Sonoma catalogue like every week in the mail,  I knew what she was talking about and nodded sagely. "It must look gorgeous," I said.

"How is your home decorated?" she wanted to know.

Geez, I really couldn't put my finger on it and my answer of "a little bit of this and that" really wasn't descriptive.

 Later I thought more and decided we are kind of like Mary Emmerling's American Country Style, West.  But I suspect we do our decorating even more thriftily than she does.

We  bought those rugs in the photo below years ago at the Hubbell Trading Post and I know they should be displayed better, but that is as far as we have gone so far. The animal skin was a bobcat Tom caught carrying away one of our chickens. The red blanket is a Hudson's Bay we bought on a car trip to Alaska more than 30 years ago.

Hanging from the post on the landing is a punched tin candle lantern we found while traveling. The wooden signs are found items: Home Made was found in Alberhill, Ca. A garage was going to be demolished and the sign had been used as a shelf. It matches some boards we found in the ceiling of our old house which was on the site of the Concordia Ranch Store. The Irvine Asparagus sign was the end of a box we found at the old ranch house we lived in during the 1970's in El Toro, CA.  The tin sign is a reproduction we found at a swap meet.

Can you see that bottle of Harvey's Bristol Creme sherry? Tom keeps it handy for when I drive him to drink.

When Tom goes out for walks, he brings stuff home: feathers, rocks, old nails and bottles, whatever he happens to see is picked up and toted back to the house. In September when we were traveling in Michigan, Tom found a treasure trove: an abandoned, down on the ground power pole in the middle of the woods chock full of porcelain insulators. We already have quite a few, so I wondered what we would do with these new ones.

Tom bought a pair of lamp chimneys from Ace Hardware and now we have emergency lighting in case of a power outage.

He was really excited about the gigantic insulator pictured below which weighs over 6 pounds. I had no clue what we would do with it, but leave it to Tom

It is our dinner table centerpiece/holder of weird stuff. Last night we had a candle-lit taco dinner. Now, that's class!

Miss Bonnie and Ms. Pearl don't care how the place is decorated (note the shabby chic quilt) as long as they have a place for rest and relaxation.

Hope you enjoyed checking out the decor. This is one of a series of posts about decorating The Nickel and Dime Ranch. Stay tuned for even more!

Decorating the Nickel and Dime Ranch Headquarters

Of course, everyone has an interior decorator, at least that's how it appears in lifestyle magazines like Country Living and Real Simple. These mags appeal to those who want a simple life in the country and have the money to pay for it. If they haven't paid someone, then the man or lady of the house owns an antique store or has quit being an attorney to become a full time stay at home interior decorator.

Here at the Nickel and Dime, we have a decorator, too. He has an eye for the interesting and unique, so although I protest when I see one of his new "vignettes," I know we are on the cutting edge and any day magazine editors will be pounding down the door wanting to do a pictorial.

In the meantime I will give you a little taste of our decor, kind of like a museum and Ripley's Believe It or Not, combined.

This is Boarus, a wild boar Tom shot in California. Tom didn't want the head, so gave it to his friend, Chuck. Chuck decided it would make an excellent housewarming present and had it mounted and taxidermied. When I returned to the ranch from a visit in California, Boarus was on the kitchen wall.

It's disconcerting when you are cooking bacon and a slavering, tusked pig is watching you. So he resides above our door, instead. Besides, I kept hitting my head on Boarus' chin.

Tom likes to repurpose stuff and his history classroom was a wonder of the campus. At Open House kids would bring their parents to see Tom's classroom decor, which was floor to ceiling posters. Maps, timelines, vintage movie advertisements and other popular culture signifiers were packed onto those walls. He brought most of them home and they are being used once again.

The guest bathroom is devoted to popular culture items, including old photos, posters,  and articles from The Weekly World News , a tabloid devoted to wild conjecture, amazing stories about aliens and odd historical events that never happened.

 

Lots to look at while you are in "contemplation mode."

Morally depraved youth figure prominently

After you wash your hands, you can even learn a little first aid. Ernest came out of the bathroom one day and said, "How to resuscitate a lizard. I never knew that."

The guest room/office has maps and movie posters.

...and the stairway landing has an old time vignette which captures the essence of country life here at the ranch.

Have a great day, from all of us here at the Nickel and Dime Ranch.