Or is it ??
We went on a lovely field trip to a local historical museum a couple weeks back. We toured this sweet Victorian Country home Built by Jesse Pomeroy in 1890. The SIMPLE Victorian house displays Queen Anne/East lake details, including a complex seven-gable roof line and fish scale shingles.
The completely restored and furnished home features special displays throughout the year including quilts during February and March and wedding gowns each June. Each December it is transformed with Victorian Christmas decorations. Antique decorations and clothing from their large textile collection are rotated seasonally. Above is the sitting room. The fireplace was not an original piece to the house. The furnishings were SIMPLY sweet. In the middle of it all there was a modest formal dining room fit for entertaining.
In the later 1900's a Pastor from a Lutheran Church in Escondido lived in the home for many years with his wife and five children. Their wedding photo is actually above the fireplace in the photo above.
Life in this little home was SIMPLE in a way, yet at the same time just think how it was actually very hard work to keep such a small home. Imagine grinding your own coffee beans by hand or having to kill your own chicken or cow for dinner? Making your own bread, using your own fresh fruits and veggies from your garden , making jams, butter, fetching your eggs from the hen house and milking your own cow twice a day? Women would have to wash their families clothes by hand and hang to dry. Work was never finished in a little country home in that time.
The kitchen is sweet and SIMPLE filled with the resourceful necessities of everyday life. The pantry is filled with just the right spices and ingredients a homemaker would need....
No boxed cereal or potato chips here !
Ahhh, the little girls room upstairs...SIMPLE furnishings, SIMPLE toys & dolls, yet has such charm and surely kept a little girl dreaming for hours.
Another SIMPLE bedroom with a lovely piece of art ( A QUILT ) sweet dolls on a side table. There was also a sewing machine where the mother could sew up her clothing for the family.
A little boys room...SIMPLE bed and dresser, a trunk, probably filled with magic !!! You would find books and bears, marbles and wooden toys here. Notice the little pot under the bed? This home does not have a bathroom. If they had to go in the middle of the night without having to run all the way to the outhouse, they would SIMPLY do their business in the little pot kept under their beds... I wonder who in the heck had to empty the pots in the morning...BLAH !!!
The last room is the parents bedroom. Another wonderful quilt... and yet again the SIMPLEST furnishings. It was truly delightful to see.... if you would like a tour yourself
Whatever happened to the SIMPLER life... busy,busy always on the run, stopping by the fast food joints to grab dinner, buying our children the latest gadget. Tis funny to me to see all these kids walking around with headphones in their ears, texting on a cell phone wearing the latest fashions. People are so busy with thinking about what to wear, what kind of car they drive , how big their house is and what name brand furnishings will go with it. We buy our children loads of plastic toys that either break in an hour or less or that they could care less about in the first place.
Well, I can surely tell you I am learning.... I have found it is the SIMPLE things my kids truly appreciate. My daughter is thrilled just playing with a SIMPLE doll or the doll house I built for her.... My son is probably one of the only teens that doesn't have a cell phone... He can be found enjoying a SIMPLE book.
Bye bye Barbie, Polly Pockets, Action figures and Lego's !!!
We are going SIMPLE... It is the Simple things which will be treasured.
I hope you enjoyed these SIMPLE pictures...
Have a lovely weekend ahead !!!
SIMPLIFY !!
