Bama Planter

When I say it's cold here I mean it's about 50 and sunny, but a bit too chilly to sit on the porch without a blanket.  The sun will warm you up after a few minutes. The Christmas things are being put away today. I ran out of wall so I slid this mule chest in front of the stepback until I can find a space.

We had a sunny day so I made a few pictures of the front room.  The only treatment I've ever used on the floors was boiled linseed oil about 20 years ago.  I'm still learning about crocks. Most of these are out of Bibb and Perry County.  I'm looking for a brown/mustard rug to replace the one under the table.  It's too new and too red. This is my latest mule chest.  The unusual thing about it is that the inside till is on the right rather than on the left.  My cousin noticed this and said he had never seen one with the till on the right. This is a view inside the cupboard.  I open the doors only for photographs, or for the curious who want a look inside. I've grown to appreciate the grey painted dry sink.   The chair to the right has turned legs in the sausage pattern. Wallace Nutting calls it a mushroom chair.  The legs have lost several inches since 1680. The dough bowls are in a 5-board box.  90% of the on-line dough bowls are repros,  new, or

This primitive blue pie safe just came out of a planter's town house in south-central Alabama.  The back is marked Selma, Alabama. I tried to work it into the house but the blue color stood out too much against the browns of the other furniture so I stuck it on the porch. The wear on the front doors is original and not faked.  I know better than to mess with it.   The inside is clean, solid, and unpainted.  And empty for now. The piece next to it is also pine, put together with square nails, and has never been painted.  Both are safe from the rain as the porch is ten feet deep.  Both have been secured to the log wall for safety.  Here is the colonial mule chest I found on line and had shipped down from New Jersey. Above it is a spool cabinet and on top of that is my Christmas tree decorated with dried orange slices.  I bought the pine corner cabinet about a month ago at a local sale. It is square nailed and original except for the inside milk paint job. Milk paint

Here is one of my favorite plants from literature... love-lies-a-bleeding.  My friend in Denver planted this and you can see how well it has grown.  The long flowers will dry and produce thousands of tiny seeds for next year.  The flowers can be anything from dark red to light rose.   These will grow longer and look like dreadlocks.

 My regular Ebay searches for hunt boards, sugar chests, and other antebellum furniture can pull up some really nice things.   When I saw this mule chest sitting in a old house in New Jersey,  I decided to bid on it.    I was the winner and it's slowly making its way from New Jersey to Alabama.  The moving company I use knows that I am in no hurry ( No one in Alabama is in a hurry about anything )  so I get a fantastic rate.  The chest will go from van to van as it makes its way South and should arrive here by the end of the month.  Mule chests ( so named because colonial people kept their mules [shoes] in the bottom drawer ) are a combination blanket chest on top and chest of drawers on the bottom.  I have been looking for one for a long time. 

Welcome to my Alabama home, built seven generations ago by Benjamin and Hannah Wilson when they came to this county in 1816.  It was used as a house until 1906, then used as a barn until 1992 when I cleaned it out, put in a floor,windows, doors, heating, cooling, and everything else, and moved in.    It's a fine spring day and perfect to get a few pictures to inspire me to get out of the house and make some improvements around this place.  Here is a view from my porch across the field to the "old house" built in 1958.  My house is the "new house" built in 1817...perfectly logical in Alabama as I moved from the old house to my "new" one in 1992...hey, it was new to me.    These are my fancy steps to the spinning house. The mill stone came from Chilton County.  The marble was a found piece.    The spinning house has gotten a bit messy during the winter so a clean up/ clean out is in the plans. The loom in front is ready to load.   But firs

  It's Saturday and the temps are in the 70's here in Bama. I'm out walking around the house seeing what all I need to be doing, but doing nothing except taking pictures for the blog.  I'm on the front porch and first up is this neat iron cook pot from Perry County I got last week for ten dollars. It was pitiful looking but a quick WD40 spray and the color is back.   This ebay purchase was an old gear board that someone painted    My friend Charlie had this giant spinning wheel in his shop for over a year and I always liked it so two weeks ago he brought it to me with a yarn winder.  He looked through the furniture in the old house and picked out a cherry table, a small marble top table, and a mahogany hall tree.    He is happy because what he took home will actually sell in his shop.   Of course, I'm very happy.  I think there are enough parts that it will  spin correctly.    Here are some egg gourds drying in the front yard.   They are the size