The Office
For some reason, this office layout has appealed to me. I don’t know why, it certainly wouldn’t be practical for my work … but there it is.
Looks like a gas lamp; between that and the phone, this could be anytime between 1880s-1910s. I don’t remember in which museum I found it.
I have used phones like the one here – service was cancelled in 1965. Spin the crank to get the operator’s attention, tell her the number you want, and presto – there you go talking to someone down the street. I still have the phone I used but my father threw the guts away because they were too heavy – the guts being essentially a magneto generator that creates quite a spark. It now hangs neutered on my dining room wall.
Woot! First a comment? Either I’m up really late or Sniper’s sleeping in.
I would love to have this beautiful desk. Instead of the utilitarian, gray government surplus pretender that barely adequately serves my needs presently.
The desk is lovely.
The little kerosene lamp is very pretty.
The stool underneath doesn’t look comfy for sitting too long. And I’m wondering what the handles/levers are hanging on the wall to the left.
Your photos are always interesting.
The tools hanging on the wall on the wall on the left: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22brace+and+bit%22
Thank you.
The handles are vintage wood braces, meant to hold auger bits.
(see the attached pik)
I bought one on Etsy last year, manuf in 1865, as well as a set of augers.
I intend to restore them this summer.
Also bought a complete vintage 1921 tap and die set with bits, that I’m going to restore. Lately I’ve had a raging interest in old hand tools.
Beautiful!
I like old garden tools big and small… shovels, spades, trowels, picks, pitchforks. They also have lovely, well weighted wood handles and stems and real iron tynes.
I’ve got a couple of braces (no bits, unfortunately) that I inherited from my father, as well as a little hand-cranked drill (looks sorta like one of those old-fashioned egg-beaters, but with a drill collet) that I first learned to drill with. I’ll pass them on to the grandkids, who will probably look at them and wonder why I had left them antique junk.
Looks like a couple of braces to use with bits for drilling holes on the wall and maybe saws above them. We had those phones on the farm, they were no longer connected to the telephone net work but were a private phone line to connect Grandpa’s house to the dairy barn and to his brother’s house. I think my brother has the one that was in the milk house, but it’s in pretty sad shape after years in the barn.
And it is uncluttered. Refreshing.
Mmyeah, I’m afraid that if any desk or tool bench is uncluttered, it wouldn’t fit in at all at my house.
My primary desk for the past 19 years is a wooden workbench with 6″ cut off the legs. I built it shortly after we moved here. Have you priced desks?
Mine is 8′ long and 24″ wide and 30″ tall. Just try to find a desk that big, I dare ya! If you can find one that is sturdy and well built it will be over $1k.
I built this one out of 2×4’s and 2 layers of 3/4″ plywood and you can park a vehicle on it. I have a 2nd one here in my office right behind me and it too is slammed with “stuff”. It’s just like the first one.
Then, out in the workshop, I have 3 more of these workbenches but they are 36″ and 42″ tall, and all of them are 8′ long. Each of these things cost, at the time, about $50 each to build and they’ve held up well.
Every few years I take everything off my primary desk and get on it with the orbital sander, then give it another coat of Minwax satin poly.
Love the graphic, Ghost. We had an Opossum hanging from a tree outside our front door years ago. He WAS terrified,
I think, because he stayed hanging there
for hours. We did not live in a rural area.
Had a high school right across the street.
High school doods can be especially cruel to animals.
No wonder the little scudder was terrified.
It was Apple Cider Vinegar
and it was staged.
But you already knew that.
So predictable, so animal like.
https://tinyurl.com/2zp79wzs