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Thursday, July 31, 2014

Play Things for Playing House - Letter F


Ah, summer – the reason for FANS.  Yes our home has a modern air conditioning system, but we still rely of fans almost year around.  Keeps the air moving as they say….

We have fans in all but three rooms—dining room, the guest bath and hall bath.  We purposely placed one in the master bath.

I cannot play house without a fan swirling above my head.  It all began looonnng ago as a child when I was “made” to take a nap.  I grew up in north Louisiana in the 50’s without air conditioning.  Air conditioning was opening all windows (with screens) and especially opening those that cause cross ventilation.  The attic fan at that time was a monster of a fan hidden in the attic (hence the term “attic fan”) with a large rectangular opening in the hallway.  If you laid down in front of a window, after a hot, humid morning of playing outside, you listened to the “thump, thump, thump” of the fan’s motor and lazily watched the dust bunnies dance their dizzying dances.  As children, you might not go to sleep, but if you did, you had a sweet nap with the whispering breeze flowing over you.

This is a photo of our first fan.  We especially “designed” it with a business called The Fan Man in the late 70’s for our 1st home’s den.  It has since been moved into four houses; IT moves along with us.  This fan now circulates air in our master bedroom, pretty much non-stop.  The other new fans we have were picked out at the lighting firm our builder guided us to for fixtures.  Although I like them, they are “just” fans to my way of thinking, but not going to live without them!


























If in the south, you found yourself without the benefit of an attic fan to keep you cool, you relied on tabletop fans, such as the ones in the following photo.  Many a time I found my father in the garage, cleaning fish or painting lures, with a fan focused in his direction.  I took a fan such as these to LSU with me in 1966.  Oh yes, there was no air-conditioning yet in my dorm.  Remember the scene in “Runaway Bride” where Julia Roberts is swaying in front of the oscillating fan?  Been there, done that (although thank goodness not at my wedding), while dressed and waiting for a date to show up at the dorm!   My Dad actually re-wired and painted the fan on the right.  It WILL run.

I must apologize for being so long away from my blog.  As you know, my son was married in June, and then we were able to take an Alaskan cruise for 10 days.  There's always the excuse of daily life and part-time work!  In the meantime, the next letter was “E” and for the life of me, I could not come up with an “e” play item in my house.  So I skipped to “F” and we’re moving on!   I took some beautiful shots of flowers while in Alaska.  I think I’ll do a post on Flowers of Alaska.

THERESA

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Play Things for Playing House - Letter D

D is for ducks in the den.  Larry has been collecting ducks for several years.  They are beautiful.  In this home, the ducks landed in the bookcases surrounding the TV.












Theresa
PS - I've added some den shots I found on my iPad to the home tour.