Guest Post - Gina from Three Ring Cottage

Gina, from Three Ring Cottage, and I have become friends over the past year and half of blogging and I count myself lucky that I found her (or did she find me???) early in our blogging careers.  I just knew Gina would have some interesting things to share in her guest post and boy am I right - I love old photographs and hers are amazing.  If you haven't found Gina's blog yet, you should head on over and have a look at all the chippy, industrial, vintage loveliness.  Thanks for volunteering to do a guest post while I'm away!

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I'm so happy to be guest posting at Sense and Simplicity while Grace is away in Bangladesh training students so they can improve speech-language therapy services in that region of the world. 

I run a little blog called 3 Ring Cottage and I'm a fellow Speech-Language Pathologist just like Grace. Over the last year, we've become good blog friends so I was thrilled when she asked me to guest post about three specific things: the oldest thing in my home, my favorite thing I've made and my favorite room in my house.

The oldest thing in my home

I'm fortunate that my family keeps a lot of stuff and values things passed down through the generations.  I have a lot of stuff that is really old so it's difficult to pinpoint which one is the oldest.  Some of my favorite oldest things are pictures...old family photos. 

Now when I say "old", I mean really old.

Here is my favorite old picture from around 1912.

That is my maternal grandmother in the chair and her brother beside her.

Isn't she the cutest thing?

I also like the blue color that is part of the picture.

This is my father's maternal grandmother.

I'm not sure of the date but I'm guessing late 1800's to early 1900's.

This is my great-great grandparents on my mom's side.

The girl to the far left is my great-grandmother, Mamie.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess we didn't come from a lot of money.

This is my dad's father.  He was born in 1880 so this was 

probably taken around the turn of the century because he was in his 20's here 

(my dad was born when the guy was 50). 

I'm guessing this was taken in Texas purely because it looks like 

an early Texas background although he was born in Canada (Ontario) 

which is where his family lived before moving to Texas.

My favorite thing I've made

My favorite thing I've made is my big red sign which hangs in my entry.

It greets when I come home and I love it.

It has two of our family names on it and it's my favorite color!

My favorite room in my house right now

My favorite room in my house right now is a toss up between

my front porch and our main living area downstairs.

I've always loved our front porch but our main living area has been

my most frustrating and least favorite room since we moved in.

This room should have been the first to be completely decorated because 

it is the main room where visitors gather but it's never been even close.

It has too many windows and open areas and one gigantic blank wall.

In the last few months, I've finally had a vision for that room and it's starting 

to come together...finally.  It still has a long way to go but I'm loving the progress

right now and it's no longer an embarrassment.  

It's a mix of cottage, farmhouse and vintage industrial styles.

pardon the dog bed and shoes...this is how we live folks.