Please give me your opinion.

I would love your opinion, please.

Out of the Kiln this morning.

Two different styles.

My "Tondino Plate" also known as Cardinal Hat Plate, painted in my usual gypsy style.

For more about Tondini plates see an earlier post here

Tondini plates can be recognized by their deep indentation in the middle.  It forms a generous well, perfect for holding delicious morsels. The rim is usually painted in many colors and with very ornate designs to better show off the center motif.

Lately I have been drawn to a more simple style.

Showing lots of white.

Soon our little town will be celebrating Heritage Days.

I will be setting up shop in the old school. Many of our local artists will do the same.  We sell to many visitors and donate some of the proceeds to a good cause, the restoration of the Old School House.

I have another month to get ready for the sale. 

I would very much like to know what you think.

Thank You

my dear Blogging Friends.

Gina

Down the Country Lane, Part II

Continued from here 

While staying at the Erma Hotel, in Cody Wyoming, a few years ago Gene surprised me by having a Western Saddle made by famous Saddle Maker, Jim Kelly. 

Mr Kelly was working on a large order for a riding club in Europe. My saddle would not be finished for another 2 years.

That would give us just enough time to find a few acres to keep a couple of horses near our house in the country. 

We lived in the city.

But wanted to spend the weekends in the country. We fell in love with a run down old stone house near Spring City, central Utah.   I called it the "Fellini" house.  It reminded me of scenes from the movie "Amacord"

I located the owner but he wouldn't sell. 

Instead, we found another run down place, a one-hundred year old simple farmstead. I called it "my foot in the door" to the charming little town of Spring City.

We needed to add a guest cottage. We moved this one from across the street.

It needed a little attention.

While we were looking for a guest cottage to move to our old homestead, we found a piece of property with an old log cabin.  However, it was decided that it was too difficult to move. 

BUT THERE WAS THIS BEAUTIFUL POND,

and we couldn't get it out of our heads.

While looking for horse pasture we immediately thought of this abandoned farm and wondered if the owner would sell us 5 acres. 

He sold us the entire farm and the pond. The pond is spring fed, flowing at 39 gallons per minute. We immediately filed a patent,  claiming the water rights and waited for my saddle to arrive. 

Two  years later, early one morning, clear out of the blue, Gene asked:

How would you like to build a new house by the Pond?

A new house? Why? I was perfectly happy living in the city during the week and in the country, in our simple little farmhouse,  on weekends.

Within a week I found our new house...in House Beautiful Magazine.  A house that was built for an Italian artist in Callistoga, California. We  contacted the architects.

They provided us with the basic drawings and we designed the rest.

Gene and I had been visiting and studying 16th c. architect Andrea Palladio's country houses in the Veneto Region of Italy. They all had one thing in common, strict symmetry, a hall in the middle with rooms on either side. Perfect for us!

 We were lucky, we found a young builder in our area who was excited about building our new house.

I appointed myself as General Contractor. Being the General was a little like playing Sherlock Holmes.  The Internet, in 1994, was not what it is today.  I spent a lot of time visiting new construction sites...  gleaning information from builders and contractors. 

Building our house was the most wonderful experience.

We only had one mishap and as it turned out, it was meant to be.

While transporting a large custom made glass door to the building site it flew out of our truck and landed in a million pieces on the side of a mountain.  I remembered seeing the ballroom doors from the legendary Hotel Utah in a salvage yard.  They now became our Library Doors instead.

Our house was built and for only minor finishes,  was completed in 6 months.  My saddle arrived at the same time.

The problem with living in a small community is that craftsmen are not willing to make the drive from the big city.

Gene and I laid marble floors on weekends.  It took us 4 months.  The marble is cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

Gene  remembered heated floors in a castle hotel in Austria. 

For him, it was a requirement. 

We cut heavy pre-cast cement pieces and installed 3 fireplaces.

Gene worked out the logistics of the curved stair finishes

The Rod Iron stair railings were verdigrised.

Our hall as it was photographed for Utah Homes & Gardens Magazine (Winter 2003)

We gilded and painted for months.

We found antique doors from Argentina.

We brought fixtures from our house in the city.

A few years later we added garages, greenhouse and guest cottage. 

And then we added the Barn 

And a Pergola to the west.

We planted a hundred trees to our house.

And we plant a large vegetable garden every year

Flowers and

Fruit from the garden

And we live happily in the middle of an Alfalfa Field

Yep, it all started with the Saddle, or was it the Fellini House?

Have a great Easter Sunday my dear

Blogging Friends

Gina

Happy Easter

It's Easter, it means that Spring is finally here,

my favorite time of year.

 There will be lots of work in the garden.

Golden Eggs?  It's easy to do.

Paint egg with "size" (white glue)
Wait half an hour, lay on gold leaf, polish with soft cloth.
For more information:
http://www.gildedplanet.com/bole_colorcenter.asp

And paint a few eggs with acrylics.
All materials available in any craft store.

There will be many warm days and the air will be filled with a heady perfume.

And at the end of the day

there will always be 

a shady spot where cool refreshments will be waiting.

Come on over, there is room for you too.

Happy Easter my dear

Blogging Friends.

Gina

Down the country Lane

There sits a Country House at the end of a country lane

That changed our lives forever

At the beginning of this lane you will see many newly born lambs.  This one will spend the summer on the big mountain.  He wears red numbers on his back so he won't get lost.

 This is where I stop my bicycle...it is always shady and cool.

Next is the old Allred Farm.

I couldn't resist, the photo was a natural.

Farmer Allred has passed on.

Little Lambs are growing up in other places.

And at the end of the lane is the Crawforth  House. 

See the inset?  That is how I found it. 

In my years of working for my clients in the oil business, I spent many days checking mineral ownership records in county courthouses and I also spent many years traveling Highway 89.  A highway that begins in Canada and goes all the way to the Mexican border. 

The house had been empty for more than fifty years.  There were no doors or windows.  Sheep and livestock, pack rats, badgers and squirrels had taken the place over. Yet I still wanted this beautiful old stone house.  I could see the possibilities.  It had just the right amount of windows and the architecture was classic and clean. 

No matter how I pleaded and how I begged the man would not sell it. 

 So we bought a 100-year-old farmstead in the same town.  It had also been neglected. We spent our weekends in the country restoring the farm and lived in the big city during the week. 

Our property had a beautiful old barn and an acre for a large vegetable and flower garden.

In an empty lot, across the street stood an old log cabin.  I bought it for $500.

The sheep had lived in it.

But I wanted it, so we moved it over on a flatbed.

I wanted it for our guests.

We spent many weekends enjoying the country life. We worked hard and we played hard. 

And then one day, four years later, the Gentleman who owned the beautiful but abandoned old stone house, called to say that he was ready to sell it to me. 

We were still living in the big city during the week and didn't see how we could take on the task of restoring another farmstead.

Instead we told our friends that the house was now available. 

I had offered the Gentleman $20,000 he now only wanted $7,500.  One of our friends from the city decided to take on the formidable task.

Renovation Style Magazine, September 2001

Our friend Scott has completely restored the entire property, the main house, the carriage house and root cellar.

The beautiful old stone house has seen many happy occasions and one thing is for sure, the house found its rightful owner.

And when Scott had finished restoring his farm house, Farmer Allred came visiting, sitting on his tallest mule he took off his hat, placed it over his heart and he said

"I came a'calling" 

Now, that is not the end of the story.

Soon I will tell you the rest of the story.  How my saddle, made by the famous saddle maker, Jim Kelly of Cody Wyoming,  changed our lives once again.

Happy weekend to you my dear

Blogging Friends.

Gina

http://betweennapsontheporch.net/