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Friends and Family Welcome

I finally pounded some nails and decided to post photos of the guest/hobby room.  I wanted the room to be comfortable for visitors, yet provide a space for me to organize my family history research and finallly catch up on my kids' scrapbooks.  The result is a room which combines those elements.  The decor of the room is full of family history.


My mom made the quilt on the bed with fabrics left over from projects she sewed while we were growing up.  She also put together the framed piece on the nightstand.  It is a photo, along with a poem my mom wrote in tribute to her grandma. 


John deserves praise for his work on the nightstand.  We found it at a garage sale last week, and the top was scratched up pretty badly.  He sanded the top down, and was able to find a finish that matched the rest of the nightstand exactly! 


My grandma made the cross-stitched picture, and I remember seeing it hanging in her house. 


The armoire is compliments of a family in our neighborhood, who put it out on the curb with a "free" sign taped to the front.  It is designed for a TV, but John installed a rod in the top, so now our guests have a place to hang their clothes.  



Decorating the top of the armoire are a few items from the past.  The doll belonged to my mom, and the hen to my great-grandma. 

When my siblings and I were growing up, the round pictures hung in our bedrooms.  (I remember a vivid nightmare in which the picture of the little girl basically followed me around everywhere.  Somehow she doesn't seem quite so frightening, now that I'm older. But I digress...)  I couldn't get a close-up of the pictures without getting a lot of glare.


The typewriter was another garage sale find.  I distinctly remember it, because I found it at an epic, annual neighborhood garage sale.  The kind of garage sale that becomes a tradition for garage sale shoppers.  The kind where there is designated parking at the church across the street. The kind where non-participating houses are few and far between.  The kind where those in-the-know bring wagons, because otherwise their arms will drop off trying to carry their bargains.  Unfortunately, this was my first year attending this particular sale, and I wasn't in-the-know and didn't have a wagon with me.  The typewriter was free; I couldn't pass it up.  That was the day I learned just how heavy old typewriters can be.  Fortunately, I found it near the end of the day. 

On either side of the typewriter are photos of ancestors.  In the bookcase are photos in various stages of organization. 

I still haven't made my little corner working space cute yet, but I'm really a function over form kind of person.  Hopefully our guests will be able to overlook this cluttered area. 


With our guest room doubling as a family history room, I hope our guests can truly feel at home when they stay with us! 

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