February 15, 2009
The farm update
HighButtonShoe
The Country Sampler feature
interview...
Last summer after the photo shoot
of our farm house by Country Sampler Photographers, I wrote the following
interview to provide the interviewer with some background information of the
farm and to describe in some detail what he was seeing in the pictures we both
had that would be featured in the magazine.
Below is what I sent him. As much
of this was not used in the interview, and many of you will be getting the
magazine and do have our farmhouse CD that is now almost 300 photographs of
the farm and grounds, I thought you might be interested in the interview. I
have added some extra lines that begin with ~~ and end with ~~ here and there
that describe something more fully than was previously written. Words in those
were not in the original written interview to him.
I got my copies of the magazine
this last Thursday and have sold many of them already. I am told they will be
available on
newstand by 3/3.
in my fondest... Tilda
**********************************************************************************************************************
Here is some information about the
farmhouse and our life here. I believe everything of the past has led us to
where we are now, living in this old family farmhouse.
My heart definitely smiles.
August 29, 2008
Information about the house
itself.
The year the house was built is
unknown. Built for great uncle Henry Byers (a bachelor), born in 1852,
the oldest of nine children born to Walburga and John Byers (Johann B. Bauer,
whose name was changed from the German to "Americanize" it as was the custom
in those days) who came to America in 1852 from Bavaria, Germany. Land Tax
records show the property was in Byers family possession in 1883. Only 2~~the
article lists this as 4 generations~~ generations of Byers' have lived in the
house and we are the 3rd. Inez and Herman Byers owned it from 1937 to her
death in 1993, after they lived here 56 years. The original house, was only 3
rooms. Added onto in the mid 1940's, 3 children were born to this house. Ron,
the only son, was born in this house.
While not knowing the year the
house was built, we speculated it from a period of the late 1880's to the turn
of the century, after finding during the renovation of the house, old floor
boards in the upstairs covered with newspaper as insulation, as was the custom
of old houses during that period. One board in particular, was covered with
newspaper with the date, Wed. March 31, 1886 clearly visible in many places.
Still, the date of the house is unknown. We kept that old board, added
non-matching old hooks to it and it hangs on the wall of the dining room, with
the newspaper dates still evident. ~~ the old newspapers are stuck to the
board.~~
The house retains the original
windows and doors of the old structure, along with the original wood floors,
and the original tongue and groove wainscot ceilings of the 3 rooms in their
original paint~~ ( the 'white' bedroom has sage green ceiling, the dining room
and kitchen has aged yellowed taupe color, which may have been a lighter color
originally, but probably darkened due to wood smoke).~~ The new part added in
the 1940's has the wood floors installed then, covered for years with carpet
and linoleum, and in 1995 restored back to their old beauty of bare wood
floors.
In 1995, we began undoing the
renovations made to the house through the years by Ron's folks, taking off the
upstairs, raising the ceilings back to 10' height, and uncovered the old
ceilings that had been covered by drop ceilings and we didn't know were there.
What an immense surprise to find old wood floors and then the original
ceilings! After painting walls, adding the shelves salvaged from the old
floor boards upstairs to the 7-1/2" height, and other changes, we opened the
old house into our shop HighButton Shoe which operated from 1995 to 2005. The
old farmhouse rooms provided a magnificent backdrop for our primitive farm
antiques and folk art.~~ The shop was a great primitive shop for many years
until gradually my passion for primitives would not waver and I stayed true to
that passion while others moved on to another look and imports flooded the
market. I was not interested in being a part of that look. The decision was
made for me, with the realization I could no longer support the shop I loved
so much with slow sales and traffic.~~
While I am not particularly easy
with change, the transformation of the shop back into a house again was made
beginning in fall 2006, when our kids moved back to the farm, our daughter
Robin and her family moved into our old house in 2007, we moved into the old
farmhouse, and our son Steve and Cheryl built a home west of the old hay barn.
The farm has come full circle. It is once again lived on by Byers family. Our
hearts rejoice, as does the farm itself. It feels right, and I truly believe
this is where we are supposed to be.
Just things...
To live here, we mostly gutted the
old bathroom and kitchen to modernize them. For the bathroom, an outside door
from a hallway leading to the bathroom was removed, a bathroom wall removed to
make the room bigger and a huge shower unit was brought in the opening of that
outside wall as it was removed. As walls came down or were exposed for the
first time in many decades, we discovered an old auction sale bill dated
September 29, 1941 for a farm sale just north of Tustin. Well preserved, I
framed it and it hangs on the wall in the bathroom where it was taken from
after being hidden there for over 60 years.~~ (This framed sale bill is shown
in the farmhouse CD.)~~ I painted new oak unfinished cupboards to look old,
and it is furnished as is the entire house with antique primitives cupboards.
The door to the bathroom is an original wood door in old sage green paint, and
has a large window in it as it was an outside door in its former life of the
house. I have kept that door on the bathroom, as I love it, and we have a
'curtain' made from an old patched muslin pillowcase I had saved for something
special, I took apart, nailed to the inside of the door window for
privacy.~~The door, the old pillow case curtain, and the very primitive
cupboards all show in the CD~~ The door has no lock, as it never did. A trio
of skeleton keys hang from the old glass doorknob, but if needed we use a hook
and eye 2 piece door lock Ron put on.~~ (The bathroom cupboards are painted a
pumpkin base color and sage green overtop that and then peeled to make the
pumpkin color show thru as in old age would have been. In reality my
pumpkin color looked more
Pepto-Bismal color and I covered it with several coats of stain and black
wash, to finally achieve the look I wanted. This bathroom in the magazine
feature does not show any of this. It is shown in the farmhouse CD.)~~
One wall displays part of my
collections of old dresses, and original prairie bonnets. ~~ (Shown in the
magazine) The dress is very old and one of my favorites. The prairie bonnets
are all old. The white dress on the right is a child's Christening dress, with
a small bonnet. The tiny square patchwork hand stitched quilt top matches
those colors of the dress and bonnets perfectly.~~
We use old farm hooks in many
rooms of the house for hanging things, as old farmhouses used these often, in
place of closets. This house has and always did have only ONE closet. It makes
storage a challenge to say the least, for me!
The kitchen:
Leaving the top cupboards of the
kitchen from Montgomery Wards of the 1940's in the kitchen, the original floor
and old painted wainscot ceiling we uncovered, the rest of the kitchen is new
made to look old, and be more in tune with the rest of the house. New
unfinished cupboards were painted and peeled to look years old. A
seemingly out of control fetish for old tins, butter bowls, colanders, dough
boards and pantry jars finds home in this room. Handwritten recipes on old
paper from Mom Byers, and my Grandma Compton are framed and hang on the walls.
Aside from the bathroom door, the house has no curtains and the afternoon sun
lights the room and casts wonderful shadows on its contents.~~ (The windows
shown in the magazine are old and are the only painted windows I have not
redone. All original to the house windows have been left with the old painted
colors they always had, new trim Mom and Dad had done through the years was
painted a deep hunter green for the shop, leaving the old trim as it was. That
hunter green trim is now all painted white and aged. Except for these two
kitchen windows! I must do something with them!~~
The house is filled with memories
of those who once lived here. Black and white photographs of ancestors, who
once walked on these floors and watched the fields out the windows, look back
at us, from the walls. We have interchanged my family history with the Byers
history, so they all are shown here. This is a small rural town and they would
have known each other anyway even back in the late 1880's or early 1900s.
Looking into their images in black and white reflection, reminds us of the
history of this farm and who we came from. The bakers cupboard in the dining
room (not shown) belonged to great aunt Della Byers Skaglin, daughter of John
and Walburga. Her photograph is on a wall in the bedroom.~~ (The bakers
cupboard does show in the farmhouse CD. Above
the flour cupboard, with remnants
of its old sage milk paint color still visible, is a large grey/blue striped
crock with lid and drinking spout in copper. It belonged to my beloved Esther
Gaffney, one of the things I got from her about a month before her death. I
love it!) Oh, yes, the bakers cupboard does show in the magazine. You see it
in one very busy shot in a back wall with a 'pumpkins' sign hanging on the
wall above it.~~
I believe old furniture,
especially farm furniture keeps its past and speaks to us of their previous
owners. Our farmhouse is filled with our family history thru furniture pieces,
the old portraits, quilts, and handed down pieces. We have blended our family
pieces with the treasured pieces of strangers belongings, that they probably
once cherished, but for unknown reasons were given for sale. I keep their
pieces and love them as my own, and often wonder who they belonged to. Quilts,
especially, make my mind wander to who made them and why. Old quilts, like
many old pieces, have a story to tell.
Owners. Owner Pat Byers and son
Steve. (Lives on the farm now in a newly built house) Steve, dressed in 1820
handmade reenactment buckskins, a reproduction handmade 19th century trade
shirt of muslin, carrying an Ohio Poor-boy Flintlock rifle. Steve belongs to
reenactment groups and does 'shoot's' around Michigan and Ohio. ~~ Ron was
not home that day until later and Steve was here. The photographers were
interested in his re-enactment hobby and asked him to come back dressed in
full garb with his gun. I did not KNOW they would be taking a picture of me,
and was not particularly pleased as I surely was NOT dressed to be
photographed...~~
The living room:
Plate rack on wall belonged to
Ron's great uncle, Jasper Rainey, recovered from the farm chicken coop, about
30 years ago. Jasper was the nephew of the first house owner. So the plate
rack is back where it should be. ~~The 'coffee' sign hand stenciled on a very
old peely paint door piece is by my friend Holly Schmidt.~~
Treenware, a passion of mine in
either early paint or attic finish, sits on the old white over blue paint
grain bin we bought in Alabama on a buying trip. I love old woods, and have
many benches, stools, carriers, wood boxes and baskets collected over the
years.
Old framed etching of Abraham
Lincoln in left profile~~I believe a left profile is more rare to find~~ hangs
on large old white wainscot cupboard. Framed 1891 tax record for the farm
property hangs above it. We have years of the tax records (found here in the
farmhouse) with their distinct handwriting of that time to be put in a long
frame, to validate the long ownership of this land.~~I have an old window pane
that is long and narrow with old glass and plan to put many of these early
1880 and 1890 tax records in that frame to hang on the wall.~~
The French doors put in the East
wall of the living room dramatically changed the house, allowing for more air
flow and another exit door, but what I love the most is the sunshine of
morning that floods the room, changing shadows, dancing and creeping sometimes
only for an instant, into collections of old woods. I sit, too often, with
steaming coffee, and simply watch the sunshine move across the room. It calms
my soul.
Quilts. After realizing I simply
had too many quilts, I began collecting only red and white ones, old ones not
newly made. Condition is unimportant. If it speaks to me, I buy it! But my
real passion remains for the old black, browns, and old navy wool utility
quilts, made from cast off fabrics, often in sign of wear as the wools did,
but the maker embroidered beautiful hand stitching along the seams, and their
skills remain as a testimony of their desire to have something beautiful in
their life.
Dining room:
Harvest table. 3 boards wide,
with wood chairs none of which match. 2 in my favorite color of old sage
green.~~One was in the shop for sale and never sold, the other, the captains
chair was bought in Traverse City Michigan from my friend Ruth Hill from her
antique shop which I can't remember the name of at the moment. They now live
in Ohio.~~ Green arched door in background, original to the house in a
different doorway. It is not functional in this doorway, as it is too large
for the frame. But I wanted it kept where I could see it, so that door
frame has 2 doors on it. The green opens one way, the other old door opens the
other way. I saw this in a house in Kentucky a couple years ago and was so
impressed with that house trait. All doors not original to the house have been
replaced by Ron, with old original paint wood doors, handles and hardware. ( A
tribute to Ron's skills as a finish carpenter by trade). Old doors are
notorious to hang in houses
and most carpenters won't even
attempt the effort.
A collection of old painted
metal dust pans take up wall space in the dining room, some of them original
to the house.~~ I think there are 16 dust pans in this room.~~
Several painted wood boxes are
used for storage.
The table often has place settings
of antique enamelware plates, with the preferred signs of age and wear, along
with aged muslin linens and fork and spoons long past their prime. ~~ I love
that look and the table is most often set that way..~~
A collection of silver salt and
peppers are housed in a wood medicine cabinet. ~~ The medicine cabinet was in
the shop for sale and never sold, so it now is nailed to my wall and is
perfect for the salt and peppers. Two itty-bitty black makedo's from friend
Large cheesecloth pie keep sits
atop a round barrel top. The Sellers Hoosier bakers cupboard in the background
shows small traces of old green milk paint of its original paint. When I
bought it years ago, it had 6 coats of paint on it, the top coat- robin egg
blue, while the porcelain granite ware pull out was painted fire engine red! A
real mess, it took me all one summer to strip it, a chore I rarely do to
furniture, preferring the original paint no matter how worn.
Most of the furniture in the
house is old paint, but a few pieces are not. The ice box and the tall Mission
chair have never been painted. Sheep on cart folk art piece is one of my folk
art pieces I made, using the wool inside batting of an old quilt long beyond
usefulness, hand sewing each piece to the muslin base I made. The sign To
Thine Own Self Be, is an example of signs we make from repurposing old painted
wood door panels. I hand stencil each letter to make the phrase. We have
several of these signs around the rooms.
Kitchen.
Ron made the butter bowl hanger
on the wall behind the table. I have whittled down my collection to more
manage-able, and collect out of round bowls with character. Many of mine have
mends, which to me is the character of the bowl, showing it was used many
years. Very old worn gingham farm aprons, hang on the wall with prairie
bonnets~~These are all very old, right and true~~. Obvious love of dough
boards are stacked against the cupboard.~~ The best and largest one, with
sides and an old metal handle stands against a cupboard on the floor and is
not shown.~~
Handwritten recipes, I cherish not
only for the recipe itself, but for the old handwriting of the writer long
dead, are framed and hang on the wall above pantry jars~~ I collect pantry
jars and have an out of control collection!~~, and the attic finish wood spice
box, handmade and none of the 8 drawer knobs are the same.
Kitchen tinware, noodle cutter and
board, metal salt box, source. Shelly Gregory of Primitives in Thyme,
Cadillac Michigan.
~~The picture in the magazine of
my OLD expensive orginal white paint over blue paint wood grain bin we bought
in Alabama many years ago.~~ Hate that picture. Hope they don't use it!! The
old grain bin I so love basked in sunlight, never looks like that... ~~ well,
they did use it. I still hate it AND it was pushed over to a place and angle
it never would have been, wedged between the dining and living room so you
could not enter the living room. AND I never would have had THREE flower
arrangments on it. Never! The article refers to it in one place as an ordinary
trunk!! I shutter~~~
Bedroom
4 Poster bed dominates the room,
the only room with a closet.
Quilt on the 10' high wall is wool
in dark browns, with the colorful, skilled embroidery work of its maker long
ago.
Wood rakes in the corner, 2 of
many in the house, both from the farm itself and collected. Used in farm life
for moving hay and straw. ~~Four rakes in different styles are in the other
bedroom and some show in the farmhouse CD.~~
Quilt throw on the bed, designed,
pieced and sewn by niece, Pam Keller Hall, as a gift to Ron.
Rooster and Cat rug hookings were
worked by Ron's Dad Herman, In his 70's, with crippling arthritis of his
hands, he took up rug hooking to pass the time. Primitive and naive in style,
the rooster was his first work, the cat in the quilter frame, his last before
he died. I cherish them. ~~ I really would have liked that mentioned in the
article. It was important to me, but it wasn't said.~~
Pumpkin sign, one of 2 in the
house, a reminder of my fondness for pumpkins, I suppose, is hand stenciled on
old wood door panels. ~~ We make these signs from old door panels and hand
stencil each letter.~~
Small houses on the high boy
dresser were hand made and painted by Ron's dad Herman. 2 very old wood fish
decoys (perhaps the work of a local renowned carver Oscar Peterson,
whose decoys are sought after by American collectors, purchased from a
neighbor at a garage sale, telling me they belonged to his grandfather) and
old tin lighting sit atop the tall boy dresser.
Entire house is filled with old
lighting pieces, in lamps, lanterns, and candlesticks.
From my friend Wendy
Stys-VanEmerin, I found this saying which fits our life in this house
perfectly.
I am bound to them, though I
cannot look into their eyes,
or hear their voices.
I honor their history, I cherish
their lives, I will tell their story,
I will remember them. ( Author
Unknown.)
Ron was born here. Dad and Mom
lived here 56 years and both died in these rooms, but they remain still, in a
house rich with their memories, their lives and laughter. Farm people, they
lived a simple life, one we are striving to return to.
This is their house, their story,
our story. We will remember them. ~~this entire last piece I would have liked
to seen in the article. I thought it was important. It is not there..~~
Summer porch.
Not heated in winter, this is the
first room you enter into and the overflow of my collections often comes here.
Ripping out green grass carpet that was on the floor, we opted to leave the
cement floor bare, as we found them with cracks and all.
The wood taupe and black splotched
paint table was found in Alabama. A chicken feeder wire rack holds 40 or so
of the probable 150 enamelware plates of my seemingly out of control
collection. Apparently I could never pass up enamelware plates at auctions,
flea markets or garage sales!
A large hand carved treenware
trencher from one piece with handle included was a gift to me from Ron,
stopping into an antique shop in Colorado on his return from a hunting trip.
~~ Ronnie took some gentle ribbing from the rest of the hunters when he made
his way back 35 miles one way to town to get this trencher for me, and yet he
still did it. I love the piece~~~
The vintage wood mortar and pestle
was a gift from Irene Raab.
The red paint crock
cupboard~~referred to in the article as a book case~~ often holds more than
just crocks. One crock is filled with turkey feathers cast off from the wild
turkey flocks that roam our yards and fields of the farm. A collection of old
pocket watches fill a yellowware bowl.
Childrens vintage shoes turn up in
unlikely places filling available spaces for such things.
Wood shoe forms on the table were
found in an ancestors attic before the house was taken down, and I treasure
them as part of our families heritage to pass down.
Pottery bust is handmade and
resembles a Native American Indian, purchased long ago from a local antique
shop.
.Spring often comes slowly, trying
ones patience in northern Michigan, but I get out flower pots and early plants
as soon as possible. The outside porch is used in all seasons, with 2 old
weathered church pews void of paint for seating, and Grandpa's porch swing to
enjoy the seasons with. Collections of terracotta flower pots and old garden
tools fill the antique wood box probably used in a barn. ~~ The picture is not
shown in the article.~~
Pictured as a medicine cabinet.
The once painted and stripped oak
medicine cabinet with beveled mirror has hung in the house since we got it. I
made the gourd garlands from dried gourds raised one year here on the farm. We
have dried gourds all over my house in baskets, crocks and large butterbowls.
I have collected rolling pins for
years, in direct contrast to the fact that I cannot make a decent pie crust!
Finally restricting myself mostly to green handled ones, as the collections
became too large unfortunately. I imagine it really only takes ONE rolling pin
to make a good pie crust! ~~ I REALLY had to smile when I saw the words about
this picture! Told I could not have all the probably 200 drieds gourds in the
house, for the feature and taking them all out the day before, I forgot the
gourd garlands on the door. Thinking the photograph would probably be about
the medicine cabinet or the rolling pins, and specifically asked about those,
I was mildly amused to see that the entire article of that picture is about
HOW to dry gourds!! ~~
Oddly, as my former house was
filled with both primitive antiques and folk art, and as a shop this house was
the same, I find that as a farmhouse once again, it dictates to me what it
wants for decor, not the other way around. Trying to add my own folk art and
that of my favorite artists I have collected, I am met with disapproval by the
house itself. It prefers attic finish primitive antiques, painted pieces, old
lighting, probably the same type of pieces a house of this era knew in its
early beginnings. So I abide by its wishes and strive to fill it with the old
things it would have known, and ones I love. We have truly come full circle.
Often collectors want pristine
antique pieces. I am the opposite. I prefer and seek out and embrace pieces
showing wear, mends, fixes, and ponder over who owned those mended wares and
treasure their belongings as much as they once did, so many years ago, evident
enough to mend and keep them.
We, in our business of selling
primitive antiques and folk art, often used old cast off farm items to
repurpose into something else. The farmhouse has many of these repurposed
items. The bathroom has one single old wood ski in attic finish, with its
original leather bindings, to which Ron welded a metal door knob on a piece of
steel as a holder. From our old outhouse, I took its great old rusted wire
paper towel holder and hung our toilet paper from it.~~Shown in the farmhouse
CD~~ I love having unusual things around the house. I was asked just the other
day "how do you come up with your ideas"? To which I would reply, from the
homes of other people, magazines, and perhaps just a natural attempt to use
the things I love so much. We 'salvage' many things.
If I had to describe the farmhouse
in one phrase, I might use 'detailed clutter'. I love imperfections, found
objects, old wares, muted colors of soft milk paint sage green and off whites.
I once heard the term 'hands on
style', and while I am not certain exactly what that suggests, I have come to
believe perhaps it hints at our satisfaction of our surroundings, when we have
placed ourselves in the midst of things we love. That we had a hand in what we
were creating, rather than merely following the trend. We should always find
our own trend. If others love it, so be it. If they don't, but you still do,
that is what your home should reflect. It should always reflect you.
Folk art:
HighButtonShoe/Patricia Byers artist; Wendy Stys-Van Eimeren
www.pineberrylane.com ; Holly Schmidt
Tinware in kitchen: Shelly
Gregory of Primitives in Thyme Cadillac Michigan (231) 392-2713
Outside porch: Old Paint Farm
Divided Box: Primitives in Thyme Shelly Gregory
~~In the farmhouse CD, many of the
antique pieces of the house, the smalls, are from Shelly's shop. She has
wonderful
boxes, apothecaries, firkins, LOTS
of tinware and great folk art pieces. The CD shows not only rooms but closer
vignettes that often change with season or my whim of that week. It has the
Christmas season documented and shows my absolute passion in trying to capture
the sunshine on old woods of the house.
We are offering the farmhouse CD
for $8.00 post paid for February and March 09. I have a limited number of the
Country Sampler Tour of Homes to sell. Check with shops that sell the
magazine, or big box stores that also sell Country Sampler. Remember it is a
special issue. Not part of your subscription and is NOT the regular CS issue
that features folk art for sale as well.~~
~~I hope you will purchase the
magazine of homes and let me know what you think of the features! And our
farmhouse CD as well.~~
Thank you for asking to be a part
of our farm.
in my fondest of thoughts and
regard,
Tilda
of the farmhouse