Post #204114 by bungy on Thu, Dec 22, 2005 8:29 AM

Oh! My Gosh!!!! Those are pix of famous shop!!! Yes! The goblets were dear ol' dad's creation! In fact he was the first one that started decorating with nets and driftwood (I had to explain what driftwood was to great-grandkids the other day!) His first big sale was to I magnin's for their summer windows!!
The horses were all made of driftwood..legs, body, head! The rest was rope.. but not just any rope.. it had to be used fishing rope to have that certain color! We used to scour the fishing docks in San Pedro for old rope, old fishing nets, old corks! To this day, I can still smell the wonderful smell of them!! (not fishy!) Tar?

Let me tell you about our dining room! Since daddy built the house hiself (with us!) his plans kept changing around.. and they would always change towards more beauty..like.. "If we put this over here we would be able to see the sunset over the ocean better! So the house was kind of odd! The dining room was built upstairs on a balcony which over looked the entry hall, which was supposed to be the kitchen.. but the kitchen was moved to the side where the laundry room was supposed to be. The laundry room was put out side.. a big tin tub over a fire!! That is until San Pedro got its first laundromat!! Heavenly Days! But daddy made everthing FUN.. so I really thought that gathering wood, building a fire, getting water into the big tin tub, getting the clothes into it and swishing them around with a big stick was FUN!! And then, I got to rinse them, and hang them up!!
I digressed! Our dining room table was made of 3.. 1 X 12 planks (found in our favorite Cove!) about 12 ' long. The legs were great big ships anchors, one on each end, that Eli got from a navy salvage store.The chairs he made from barrels with the backs being small wooden ships wheels.. all polished and stained and shining. They weighed about 50# each.. and anytime we had a gentleman over for supper, he would always try to seat one of us.. and we would wait, with anticipated joy.. to watch the expression on his face!! They were always good sports!
We had a ships wheel candlelabra over the table and eventually daddy built us a ship's wheel on a pully, where we could put all the dishes and food on it down below in the kitchen, and then run up the stairs and haul it up to the table! I thought that was pretty modern.

The living room was also upsatirs and had actual 1940's rattan Hawaiian print furniture.Like the ones that are so popular now!. also a couple of those palm/leather chairs from mexico, and a barrel desk.. we had 2, one with the full barrel, that opened and closed on hinges. The top had little shelves and cubbyholes, and the bottom opened up to store my school books.. these were working pieces of furniture! The half barrel had a desk on top of the half, and it opened for storage..
There was a 5 gallon "ship in the bottle" light. it had 2 ships, a light house, an island, a ship's bouy with a light that blinked. This was made by an old German sea salt, Captain Staves, who made them all by hand. He had his shop in his garage.. and we had many of his "ships" at one time or another.
Between the living and dining room was a 3 sided fireplace made from rocks we had hauled up from the beach. We tried to get rocks with holes in them so they wouldn't pop, but we failed in that endeavor and when we had company (which was a lot!) all of a sudden one would pop right out into the living room, and we'd jump up and grab the hot little piece and throw it back into the fire, sit down again and continue our conversation. You see, that was normal for us!!
Sometimes the living room would be full of guests and the wind would shift and start coming directly down into the big ship's funnel that was our chimney.. the living room would start filling with smoke, and Mother would say, "Let's all get our coats on and go out and watch the moon come up over the cliff!" She never admited to the smoke! Then daddy would get one of us aside and say, "Quick! Change the dang funnel!" So, whoever dashed out the door, ran around the house, climbed up the cliff that the house sat directly on, climbed onto the roof, and up to the funnel, grab it with both arms and twist it around so the wind was behind it, while someone else was busy opening windows and clearing the room of smoke! it took me a few years to realize that not everyone had to do this.. they had real chimneys!

Whew! I'm long winded!!! See ya around again soon!
Auntie Bungy (just like they call us in Hawaii!)