Thursday Doors – Old farm house

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Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

I am late again! This happens because I only plan a few of my blog posts each week so when life [or work] happens my plans go out the window. I don’t really know what happened to Thursday and Friday this past week, they are a blur of meetings and reading long weighty documents.

Anyhow, I recently took some pictures of my house which is the original farm house in my area and was built in 1929 which is old by South African standards. I also took some pictures of my favourite pieces of furniture. I have collected these over the past 20 years since I got married.

  • Original front door with sectionalised glass panels. The two fly screens against the walls are also original.
  • Original front door bell
Original patio doors and the door to the side is to the bathroom. Very convenient for entertaining.
  • I bought this grandfather clock and, sadly, it stopped working. I’ve tried, but I can’t get it repaired.
  • Doors to the original built in linen cabinet
  • Original Boer cabinet – see below
  • Antique dining room server from Belgium
  • Vintage book case made from stinkwood
  • Antique sideboard from Belgium

Some of my furniture, and a few of my books, featured in my book, A Ghost and His Gold.

“Glancing around, she also thinks the room is attractive. Against the right-hand wall is an antique sideboard. Michelle recalls her delight when she found it in a local antique shop soon after their move. She’d questioned the owner about its origins.

“It is believed to have belonged to Pieter van Zyl, one of the original Boers in this area,” the shop owner told her. “It comprises of two pieces. A large kist, originally used to store clothing and linen makes up the bottom piece, and a glass fronted display cabinet makes up the top piece.”

She pointed at the legs of the kist which ended in the large paws of a lion. “Just look at the beautifully carved legs of the kist, such wonderful detail.”

The fact that the two pieces came apart interested Michelle, and she asked about it.

Delighted at her interest, the shop owner shared a bit more about the history of the Boers. “A lot of Boer furniture was designed so that it could be easily disassembled and packed into an ox wagon when they trekked from one area to another.”

***

“The dining room also holds an eight-seater Rhodesian teak dining room table and matching chairs, as well as a vintage book cabinet made from stinkwood. Michelle’s taste runs to the old and unusual and stinkwood furniture is now rare. Owning a piece of furniture made from this endangered wood, native to South Africa, appealed to her and she’d paid the high asking price unhesitatingly.

Behind the glass inlayed doors of the cabinet, her prized books, including a vintage copy of The Collected Works of Herman Charles Bosman, a well-known collection of short stories about the Transvaal at the turn of nineteenth century, stand in a neat row.

Michelle smiles when she remembers Tom gifting her this heavy book for Christmas.

It is wonderful when your husband knows exactly how to please you.

Tonight, the dining room table is covered by an antique tablecloth, gifted to Michelle by her grandmother. Candles in a pretty silver candlestick holder, a wedding present from her mother, illuminate the room. The highly polished wood of the table and cabinet gleams softly in the mellow light which also picks up the embroidered detail on the cream silk
curtains and the rich patterning of the floral tablecloth.

The curtains, made to her specifications by her father, are deeply satisfying.”

You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2021/11/11/doors-on-veterans-day/

Published by robertawrites235681907

I am a writer of young adult fiction and poetry

Published

55 thoughts on “Thursday Doors – Old farm house”

  4. You’re not late, Robbie. You are well ahead of the cut-off. I remember busy weeks, where it seems the weekend falls out of nowhere. I hope you can relax and enjoy it.

    I love the front door and that doorbell is amazing. Te doors along the patio are also very nice.

    The furniture is lovely. I am particularly impressed with the curved doors on the dining room server. In fact, that piece is my favorite in this group of pictures.

    I love how you incorporated the furniture and setting into your book. I think I’m just going to have to get me a copy of “A Ghost and His Gold.”

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    1. Hi Dan, I am very pleased you like my choices. The Belgium server is also my favourite piece and my picture doesn’t do it justice. My editor said I should make the room more visual in my book, these descriptions are early in the first chapter, at a party my MC’s are giving at their home. They were intended to give insight into Michelle’s character and her interest in history, especially South African History.

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  8. Beautiful pieces you have collected. Our daughter was asking what we wanted her to do with an old bedroom set Laurie’s grandmother had that is very much the style of your collection. Too bad we are a world apart. Sadly, I think clocksmithing, if that is the right name, is a long lost art. Laurie’s parents have an old grandfather clock that they can’t get fixed, either.

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  15. You have some beautiful pieces, Robbie – especially the clock. I’ve always wanted a grandfather clock! But your patio doors look just like mine, although our house is a comparative youngster c.1980s.

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  18. Beautiful doors and furniture, Robbie. Of course they should appear in your book. I love old farmhouses and the beauty that went into the architecture and furnishings. Those details just aren’t in today’s homes. A lovely post.

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  22. Lovely home and furnishings. I have two older pieces both of Cherry Mahogany. One a Buffet or Cradenza, the other a one piece china hutch. Each bought seperately (no history really). I’d have a house full of antiques if I could.
    But most of my furnature is what I call ‘Early-in-law’ – nothing spectacular, but it is serviceable.

    I like your bell too. There must be some history behind it too?

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