Things Found

     Sometimes decorating is not about painting, or sanding, or reupholstering something.  It can be as simple as finding just the right thing for a space.  As I said in my first post, I live in the styx of North Idaho.  My view out my family room is our lawn, a few fruit trees, and then forest for miles.
  I had struggled with window treatments for years in this room until I finally figured we really didn't need curtains for privacy (unless we were worried about the deer looking in).  I had in mind what I wanted, but it took awhile to find just the right piece.  So one unusually mild February day my husband asked if I wanted to go for a hike up the mountain.
Sure, what the heck, the snow wasn't too deep, so we bundled up, put on the Sorrels and off we went.  On our way back down, off to the side of the trail was a slash pile from some logging, and there in the pile was my perfect log.  It was longer then what is in the picture, and still had the bark on, but I knew the shape would be great for this window.  So I grabbed on to it and drug it through the snow back to the shop.  My husband and I worked on it for a few days peeling off all of the bark, sanding it a bit, and oiling it down.  Then he cut it and mounted it with some shelf brackets.  I love it, it is definitely unique! 
    Sometimes it can take years to find a purpose for something.  Take this old andiron and lantern for instance.  In the 1940's and 50's people would drive up to the woods by where we now live and dump their garbage.  How lucky are we?  We can go out and dig in the ground like archeologists and find great stuff!  Well actually most of the great stuff has already been found, but every once in a while there is still a treasure.  My husband found this andiron in one of the old dumps about 15 years ago and put it on a fence post where it sat until last week.  His dad gave him the lantern years ago, but has just been sitting out in the shop collecting dust.  For some reason he was walking by the andiron and put two and two together and came up with making a hanger out of it for the lantern.  He thought it would look good in the shop, but I thought it was way to cool to hide out there, so now it has a place of honor above the hearth.  I think his things found are way better than my thing found, but together we come up with some pretty unique ideas.