Good morning!
The weekend is within reach! I thought to commemorate both the horrible weather experience I had on Monday and my non stop interest in the latter years of the 1940's, I would bring you a handful of photos from this flickr user's photostream. Why? Because sixty-six years ago and some change, there was what you would call "real snow" at this married couple's cute little house, and aren't I glad for my own sake that they took pictures of their snow day with young son!
Take a look:
There are a lot of photos in this stream taken in front of very sweet, little Monopoly-pieces shaped houses (the green residentials, not them ho-tels), and it reminds me of how people would pose in front of churches, schools, favorite restaurants, cars of the time-- because it's proud of them they were, to borrow word order from the Irish. Looking at this adorable little box house, which was probably new-or-less-than-twenty-years-old at the time, I'm interested to see the little touches that made the place theirs and as tidy looking as it is. See the stones leading to the front step, the light over the front door, the brass numbers and knocker on the door itself, the mail slot and wreath, the arbor/trellis that gives an almost-overhang feel to the whole set up.
My beloved Dorothy Draper, in Entertaining is Fun, admonished me about the state of my front door, and didn't it make me feel bad! In honesty, she went on to her greater reward in 1969, twenty eight years after she wrote this life-defining text, but her book's chapter on making your home cheerful from the moment someone arrives had me red-faced with shame. My front door? It's a sixties' metal door with no wreath, no knocker, a half-working screen door, and a stoop that honestly should be scrubbed/painted/adorned in some way with a planter or a mat or SOMETHING). I did manage to paint the living room in one bank holiday, but her criticism would still stand about my shabby front door.
Lady! Where are your leggings! People ask me a lot about wearing skirts in cold weather with just tights and boots, and can't quite wrap their heads around the fact that I own like one pair of jeans, and an emergency pair of dress pants-- can't help but wear skirts and dresses in the winter, it's all I got! Now, looking at this pretty mother and wife in snow boots and a plaid skirt...I don't feel so bad!
See what I was saying about the house? It's so tidy and neat:
There are a lot of houses like this in Nashville, I guess from the post-war housing boom, but it feels like people are always trying to add freaking verrandas or porticos or weird wooden porches...ANYTHING but this plain, honest faced front. What gives, house flippers? Why not just add some cheery shutters and a good coat of paint and let the simplicity speak for itself?
Two more of the husband and wife by themselves, I love how cute they are and how thorough the photodocumentation of December 29, 1947 is in their family photo album. It must have been a happy, neat snow day for them:
And as a bonus, here's a group of women from the same photostream in front of another house, I think with the same baby a little while earlier, and the wife from above on the far left. Why include this photo? LOOK. AT. THAT. COAT. ((swoon))
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