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!

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