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Details: Category: Uncategorised; Published: Sunday, February 28 2021 14:35; Written by David A. Fuess; Hits: 1698

When Natasha's grandpa Larson built his house in 1914 he expected it to first be a boarding house for his logging crew so he built it extra large. Still later, after the logging business dwindled out, it was the boarding house for the teachers at Rock High School, which he also built. Today it's a fully restored four story mansion maintained by Natasha and David in loving memory of Grandma and Grandpa Larson. The work, however, never ends. Our latest project was to completely redo the dining room in more or less traditional Swedish style. The floors, walls, and windows are original to the house. If you look carefully you might be able to just pick out some of the scorch marks from one of several fires that attempted, but never succeeded, to burn down the house.

(Click on any of the images to see and enlarged view.)

Here is the overview. The blue discs set in the shoulder height molding are an extensive collection of antique butter plates made in Denmark. The two large platters on the left are original Delfts from Belgium and would have been used for serving.

Each of the other decorating features will be described separately below.

Early Swedish homes would not be complete without a spinning wheel. Natasha got her first spinning wheel about 55 years ago and still spins when her hands allow. The spinning wheel pictured here was hand made by David several years ago (just to prove to himself that he could!) It's a fully functional "Castle Wheel" which is a very compact spinning wheel that could be easily transported to a neighbor's for a spinning bee or easily stored away when not in use.

"Butterfly on Bluebells" This was an early Natasha & David joint project. The frame content is cross stitch executed by Natasha and the custom Frame was designed and executed by David to complement the image motif.

Note: Natasha has been doing needlework her whole life devoting most of it to recovering the nearly lost art of Hardanger. There are other images on this site devoted specifically to her Hardanger art.

The next two images are from the end wall to the right of the photographer in the overview.

The northeast corner of the Dining Room has a short bias wall that was begging for a custom piece of furniture. Natasha suggested a Demilune table which David was happy to design and build for her. The table is dark Walnut with a Birdseye Maple waist band and drawer.

To finish out that wall David made a Dutch clock.

Details: Category: Uncategorised; Published: Friday, February 26 2021 14:42; Written by David A. fuess; Hits: 2513

I have been pondering the acceleration of time with age. If you're over 50 you know the feeling that time seems to be flowing faster and the older you get the worse it gets. Of course I would not have brought it up if I didn't have a theory :). So here goes. The basic idea is that our perception of time is relative to the time we have already lived. So to a one year old a year is a lifetime. But to a 75 year old a year is like a few days and a week like a few hours. so the perception that it's can't possibly be Friday because it was just Friday yesterday is quite understandable as a fraction of life lived. When you examine everything you have done is the week you see that everything seems to be in order time wise but you still can't shake the feeling that time has somehow sped up. So relativity aside (which holds that time slows with increasing velocity as a fraction of the speed of light) time appears to accelerate as a fraction of age. To first order one could assume the process is linear, but at 74 both last week and the last ten years seem to have melded into some form of "yesterday" so it probably is not linear and may even be exponential. I say this because I can recall some instances in time that occurred over 50 years ago as though they took place yesterday or at the most a week ago. Unfortunately those instances involve some very painful memories and that may also be a factor.

There are a number of interesting articles online that attempt to explain the relationship between the perception of time and how engrossed one is in something or the age at which the time is perceived. I, for one, believe that this perception is purely subjective, hence, probably does not have a precise scientific explanation.

Details: Category: Uncategorised; Published: Friday, February 19 2021 12:44; Written by David A. Fuess; Hits: 1458

Mary Devlin, the proprietor of the Escanaba Old City Hall, had this
really ugly lamp that was in desperate of a new base. Long story short,
we settled on making a new base out of maple burl on a turned walnut platform.
And here it is:

All that was left was to figure out what to do with the remaining burl? Well, how
about stabilizing it and making a collection of burl bowls!

I really love the look of maple burl.
These will be on display in the East Ludington Gallery in Escanaba, MI.

Details: Category: Uncategorised; Published: Sunday, January 24 2021 14:44; Written by David A. Fuess; Hits: 514

Our cottage in the North Woods finally got its winter coat on. This winter 2020-2021 has, until now (late January), been quite mild with almost no snow to speak of. Unlike previous years when the lakes were 90+ percent frozen over there is very little ice to support the ice fishermen. Here's a little history of the house.

The house was built by Charles Larson Sr., Natasha's grandfather, in 1914. The foundation is made from stones collected in the Rock area and is a trademark of Charles Larson Sr.'s construction. It has, with one exception, been continuously owned by a member of the Larson family. Unfortunately, many of the interior walls and doors had been altered by the non-Larsons so only a few of the original lath and plaster walls remain intact. After extensive restoration the interior has been restored to the original layout and is kept in original condition to the extent possible. This and Natasha's Swedish cooking made Vårt Älskade Hem a favorite bed and breakfast destination for visitors to Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

During the late 1800's and early 1900's one did not go to a lumber yard to purchase construction supplies. All of the wood used in the construction of the home had to be cut from the surrounding forest and hand milled. Except for the modern materials used in the restoration, all of the timbers in the house are original (thus a 2x4 was actually 2" by 4"!). During this period the second floor was devoted to boarding Charles' logging crew and Bertha (Natasha's grandmother) made the meals and pies on her cast iron wood stove. She also made numerous apple pies daily using apples from their apple orchard out back to sell in the Larson Store in downtown Rock. While the apple orchard along with the barn and shop was demolished in a tornado, we still have 25+ producing apple trees scattered among the pines at the forest edge. Of course, eventually the UP grew up and so did the Larsons. With logging on the decline and the need for schools arising, Charles built two churches and a school in Rock (among many, many other buildings and homes). Natasha's father, Charles Larson Jr., and his many brothers attended the Rock School and the Larson house became the boarding house for Rock's school teachers. (Elsewhere on this web site you will find Charles Jr."s description of what it was like to grow up in this house.)

While the restoration is essentially complete, we still undertake yearly projects to replace some of the older elements (windows, doors, etc.) with newer always taking care not to introduce modern technology when we can find "like original" components. I did, however, build a complete wood shop onto the back of the garage to facilitate the manufacture of decorative pieces (Swedish door lintels, moldings, etc) used throughout the house.

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