Your favorite room

[Kahuna]

I'm hoping a few of you forumites will be willing to share some photos of your favorite room. You know, the room in your house where you feel most comfortable, surrounded by your favorite stuff. A treasured collection, some family heirlooms, a quiet place to read, work on hobbies or listen to music - a place to just feel good.

Here's mine. Just a tiny extra bedroom but it has all the stuff I need to listen to or play music, read, or take a nap. Except for a few family heirlooms - the regulator clock, hula lamp, & croquet set, most of the items were picked up at thrift stores for under 5 bucks. It's a little dusty and verging on the cluttered but hey, that's what favorite rooms are for - a place to relax.


A favorite chair to read in, something to listen to tunes with, & a futon for taking a nap.


My tiki mug collection.


A few books & my 78s


The desk, in case there's bills to pay.


For inspiration, some of my musical heroes looking down from on high.


And lastly, a place to grab my tie and hat before heading out the door.
Sorry for the long post. Please feel free to be as lengthy with your photos.

 

[imoldfashioned]

Love the photo of Bix...! The good die young huh! Also your Deco chair is sweet too. I have a music room I play in & also chill listening to records

 

[St. Louis]

I can see why this is your favorite room! So interesting & comfortable at the same time. Must be a great place to visit with friends.

Here are a few images of my living room, which is where I spend most of my time when I'm not working. It's a good thing you can't see the cat hair ....!

 

[lolly_loisides]

^^^^^
Very nice St Louis! I love your lounge suite.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I can see why this is your favorite room! So interesting & comfortable at the same time. Must be a great place to visit with friends.

Here are a few images of my living room, which is where I spend most of my time when I'm not working. It's a good thing you can't see the cat hair ....!

Gorgeous furniture. And glad to see your cat knows to keep the claws away (I'm not so lucky with mine, but I've come to accept the inevitable...)

 

[St. Louis]

Thanks so much for the kind words! The couch and chair (I didn't know it was called a lounge suite!) came from Craig's List. It had been stored in an empty house & hadn't been used in decades. Most of the rest of the wooden pieces came from flea markets or thrift shops or Ye Olde Dumpster.

I tend to screech at the cats when they eye the furniture. It unnerves them. Anyway, when I first brought the couch & chair home I used a two-sided sticky tape that I found at PetSmart. You're supposed to stick it to the furniture, and evidently the cats find the texture so horrible they lose interest. It really did work for me & didn't harm the old mohair fabric in the least.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I wish I'd thought of that years ago. About twenty years back I found a mohair armchair by the side of the road (most of my furniture was found either at the side of the road or from the "swap shop" at the dump) and I've enjoyed it ever since. My two previous cats didn't go in much for clawing, but my current feline has more than made up for their laxity.

This picture is quite old and some things have been changed since it was taken. The older radio and horn speaker has been replaced by a phonograph attachment hooked to the big radio, and the chair, alas, has seen quite a bit of cat action. But hey, it takes a heap o' livin' to make a house a home.

 

[Nobert]

These are all gorgeous, exactly the kind of thing I've always wanted to have, but as a life-long apartment dweller, could never pull off beyond my own bedroom. St. Louis, your furniture is enviable, exactly the style I like, very '20s-'30s looking but not blatantly "Art Deco" streamline modern. Kahuna, I like your Polynesian theme, and all the instruments (is that a bass uke?). LizzieMaine, I take it that's a Philco cabinet? It looks almost exactly like the one I have except the dial and knob setup are different.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's a Philco 37-10, introduced in January 1937. I bought it at a junk barn in Searsport in 1983 for -- $5. Delivered, no less. I'm actually listening to it right now.

 

[rjb1]

My living room is furnished with two very-large cat toys. After several years of several cats, the couch and chair are too bad to photograph. I would be OK with it, but the cats would be ashamed. (No they wouldn't...)

 

[Kahuna]

I haven't visited this forum in awhile. Nice to see this topic finally get a few responses. St. Louis & LizzieMaine, I really like your rooms. So comfortable and lived in looking. Reminds me of my grandparent's house. And great finds on your furnishings! Free and nearly free is the way to go if you are lucky enough to find nice old pieces like that. And yes Nobert, that is a Kala bass uke. It is a lot of fun to play.

 

[St. Louis]

Yes, I like Lizzie's room for the same reason. My definition of comfortable is -- nice to look at and not too precious for relaxing. Lizzie, I particularly like the way you've arranged the pictures on the wall. Whenever I see photos of real period rooms, the pictures are hung in a way that pleases the occupant and that looks like a natural grouping. The pictures hung up in movie rooms just look too perfectly balanced. It's these little details that evoke the golden era, almost sub-consciously.

Don't you wish you could listen to golden era shows and music with that radio, though?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I do -- I have my own low-power station broadcasting at 1230kc, and can tune in anytime, fed by a second-hand computer running a program called "Daypart," which is a simple sort of automation software for I-Tunes. As long as you keep the power under 100 milliwatts, such stations are perfectly legal, and that's enough power to be heard around the block.

I think the only way to really get the "lived in look" is to actually live in a place. I've lived here for fifteen years, and have had plenty of time for things to settle. My grandparents lived in their house from 1945 until they died, and it was the most lived-in house I ever saw -- lots of honest wear and tear, but you could tell it wasn't a matter of "decor," it was simply where stuff seemed to fit best based on years of experience living with it. That's the real secret to a homey home.

 

[St. Louis]

That's amazing. If only I had the skills to do that. Would it be too difficult for an unhandy person? How did you learn about radio stations? I've read that Jo Teeuwisse actually hooks up an mp3 player to her vintage radio and has arranged the knobs such that they actually change the volume and power.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I worked in radio for fifteen years, and picked up a few tricks along the way. Radio in those days was a really low-budget operation, and you had to know how to do things like attach a tape recorder to a telephone with alligator clips, stuff like that.

Setting up the operation I have here requires no electronic changes to the radio at all -- the transmitter sends out a signal at whatever frequency you choose, and you can tune it in on any standard AM radio within about a quarter of a mile. The transmitter can be built from a kit if you're good with a soldering iron, or you can hire this guy to put it together for you.

Once you've got the transmitter it's just a matter of setting up I-Tunes to play the material you want, plug your computer into the transmitter or an I-pod and off you go.

 

[F. J.]

AM Transmitter . . .

St. Louis,

I have a 1938 radio* that is completely original—save for the ballast tube that burned out and, of course, the capacitors—down to the cord, antenna, and even lightbulb for the dial. I wanted to play period music on it in the way it did in '38: by pulling it out of the air. So I read on the Lounge about the transmitter LizzieMaine just mentioned and bought one pre-assembled. It works just as advertised.

Below are a few threads I found via a quick search which I hope you'll find useful:
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?21742-Transmitting-your-own-signal
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?28608-Old-time-radios
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?32822-What-do-you-listen-on
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?12342-Digital-radio-threatens-my-valve-radio
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?48847-Do-You-Own-an-AMT3000



*Just in case you wanted to know: my radio is an Emerson BA-199. An example of one can be found HERE.
Also, when the ballast tube burned out, the Lounge—LizzieMaine, in particular—helped me diagnose the problem. That thread can be found HERE.