Do you own a museum?

[Chuck]

Is your home a museum?

From my very youth, I loved museums and libraries. Everything was there to look at in real life, in detail. Everything was at your fingertips in 3D. Museums are of course educational displays of niches of the world, but they are also collections.

I'll not wax on about what psychologists say about collectors, their needs, the drivers, their insecurities. To me, a collection is a museum, right at home. A library BTW is a collection of books yet I rarely see the shrinks say much about peoples' libraries.

The problem with museums and libraries is that to the experience they are mundane and boring. They are limited to what they display. Not to say the displays aren't cool- look at the insect displays at AMNH and Carnegie. But they don't have everything. And, you can't touch them.

My parents called me "Dr. Why" because I always asked "why." I want to know it all. I must know. I must do it. How do you time the chain after replacing the cylinder head? What does make the AK47 so special, and why do people still actually believe Kalashnikov designed it? Why does our Tiger Swallowtail look different than the rest? What do you mean there were significant economic factors that would induce New England to embrace war with the southern states? What type of bird is that in the headdress? Why do people from Norway look different from the Indonesians? What do you mean Norwegian language is related to Hungarian, how can that be? When did they stop making US coins with silver? Is Stanleyville any better off now?

And so, my home has become a museum and library. And, even better, there's no stupid Starry Night reprints, no junk machine made carpets, it's all cool artwork- bokhara carpets, papyrus paintings, real insects, Fiji warclubs, precolombian masks, antique Hmong hill tribe outfits, Meow tribe silver jewelry, Original US Army photos used for small arms training manuals, Tongan Tapa mats, my god what else, etc.

The library of course delves into incredible details you won't find in public libraries- long forgotten explorers, now forgotten battles of WW2, global history, nature, you name it. Plus of course the antique books.

My wife will tell you I never got rid of anything. This is true; I have my grade school artwork, 50 YO Aurora dinosaur models, cap guns, bb guns, a piece of USS Constitution, you name it, I got it. Except stamps- those I laminated and use for bookmarks. Coins? I search every handful I get and pull out silver and wheat pennies which go in the jug of silver dollars and Kennedy halves. I have type specimens, and in other fields I have the earliest, I have the only one known to still exist.

Oh no! A psychologically challenged collector! Perhaps, but I do part with stuff. When the missus asked how we were going to pay for a new boat I said "I'll sell this item I've had" and done. When she needed a new vehicle I said "oh I just some some of this old stuff, let's pay cash." My museum has never crashed and lost as much as my 401k. And some of this old junk is now stupid money. My god, I wish my dad let me buy that 1969 Shelby Cobra GT500 for $7500. I'd be retired today.

I do not like boring homes with repop artwork prints and cheap fake flowers. I like MUSEUM HOMES! And garages. The focus may not be my thing, so it's fun to explore, ask questions, handle, and learn. YES I DO want to see your Buprestids! One buddy has hundreds of those old planes, he can recreate any crown molding dating back to the early 1800s. Another has motorcyles behind a velvet rope- in the living room. Another who recently passed had every machine gun known to man. The brother restore 1930s vintage racing sailboats (they have some cash.) Another couple has their own maritime museum focusing on local history. I LOVE museums. I suppose since they're not MY collection they don't count for the shrink analysis.

I am in the process of downsizing. Aside from artwork-type stuff that could be considered standard fare for a normal house, at one time the stuff was under every bed, filled every closet, and packed the basement. It's not like you had to navigate through piles of stuff to get around the house. Not that I have a problem with that- the best private museum ever was the Sargon Museum of Natural History (my coin, it didn't actually have a name, just an apartment number.) And this place was floor to ceiling packed with butterflies you've never seen, cultural artifacts, antiquities, fossils, you name it...and not the stuff you could get with money, it was the stuff you could only get with the best connections. Despite what some would call "cluttered" you didn't actually have to move, you could sit on the sofa and just look at stuff. Or, pick up the mammoth ivory arm band, or the Viking spearhead sitting on the coffee table next to a 2' tall stack of books. It was joy.

Some interests go, but the collection doesn't. When I was a teen we'd go to the bank, buy $50 in silver dollars, and sort out the real silver coins. I haven't done that in 45 years but I still have those coins; haven't seen them in three years though. I know I have some old black power cannons- actually shoot- from museum gift shops back in the day. LOL. Not any more! Wait, you want to eat dinner with Cutco knives? Not in this house. I'll admit to having parted with the 1960s Hoover vacuum...technology put it to shame. I do have every single cell phone I've ever had, functional, including the Motorola Brick; this isn't collecting, I may need one some day. It's about time to rotate the 7' hand painting of Angkor Wat for something else.

Why spend money on a new Honda Civic when you can buy used the first year 2009 Acura TLS SHAWD with 307 naturally aspirated HP for less? So every time you need a car, you don't buy a cheap new one, you buy a cheap classic. I'll admit though, without a storage barn the autos became a chore and I did part with most of them. Like everything, if you take care of it it will last a long time, and if you keep them all next thing you know, you have a collection. Uh oh. It creeps up on you.

The library. I always loved those old British manor estates, passed down through generations, because they have a five tier library. Now we're talking. Why toss old books, your great-great-great-grandson might want to read it. So while my library wasn't even three tiers, it was pretty extensive. Wife said I can't keep it all when we move. I was aghast. But there were books I'd never read again, despite being great books, and nobody else seems to want to read them. Heck, nobody in my family has read the books I've written, I just can't understand, doesn't everyone love reference books? So the books have been going to new homes- most, not ironically, other collectors. I've dumped virtually all of my old SciFi, though did pull out Canticle for Leibowitz to read one last time.

So incidentally, almost accidentally, in-depth interests and time have conspired to build me a fabulous museum. You know, I like it.

What's your museum look like?

[kevinkk]

Super post. Well written and well rounded.
My museum is more like all my rooms over the years rolled into one. toys, books and bugs. I like things original, but I can't swing that
original Creature from the Black Lagoon poster, but my Hammer movie posters are real. Besides the science books, there's the fiction.

Arkham house, Lovecraft and his buddies. The Kindle has everything. but there's nothing like holding an 80 year old hardcover by Robert E. Howard.
A little while ago, I stopped adding to my museum because of depressing health issues, but, I realized that I'm not dead yet, so there are
recent additions, and I'm working on more.

The need to know. At school I was teased for being smart, well, ok, call me Mr. Spock. So, how's being a twit working out for you? I collect anything interesting ,and there's a lot of interesting things. My saltwater fish, although they are getting to be love/hate, if that clown fish would quit biting me, it'd be nice. Old things are wonderful, I have all the old family photos I could lay my hands on, not everyone appreciates these pictures, I have them scanned, and the hard copies as well, without history, we don't know where we came from. I see guys riding logs down a river, and stacking hay.
The rule of collecting and saving stuff- like what you buy and buy what you like.

Build bigger rooms, with more wall space. mine are covered in shelving, posters, and one of my favorites, of which you cannot have an original-
the prehistoric cave painting prints, which are really amazing.

[jhyatt]

Chuck, Your house sounds a lot like ours. Main difference is that my cultural artifacts are largely neotropical (Peruvian beetle-elytra necklaces, etc) rather than from the Pacific. Big basement filled with cabinets of Cornell drawers, and a total of 18 tall bookcases around the house (need more, they're piling up everywhere). Probably 90% of the books are non-fiction. There's a greenhouse filled with exotic plants (mostly Cattleya orchids) and the prints on the walls are often 19th century orchid book illustrations, or superb butterfly lithographs done by a wonderful artist from Kentucky.

[Jshuey]

Again – it all sounds familiar. Forget the collection, our living space is full of museum-like stuff (not so much museum quality though!). And our 140-year old house itself has a lot of detailing you won’t find in most places - like parquet floors, five hand-carved fireplaces, bay windows, leaded glass and so on. All in very poor condition when we purchased the place, but since restored!
In keeping with the spirit of the house, for most of the house we buy quality “old stuff” that blends in with the house proper. Our furniture averages perhaps 150 years old – typically with hand-carved detailing. Antique wool rugs from the Middle East. Decent original art ranging from a couple old Dutch oils and a handful of regional impressionistic stuff from the 30’s and 40’s. We used to love traveling to auctions and buying stuff like this, but also because when you buy quality furnishings “second hand” – they retain value.
And just like many museums, we have a hard time de-accessioning stuff. We need a rule that says “something has to go” if you buy something that adds to the craziness.
John

Before – Fireplace sprayed with stucco for some crazy reason.
After - English Oak Griffin, antique African effigy - plus santa uses this fireplace!

[Chuck]

five hand-carved fireplaces

THOSE are friggin' impressive! Now that's a museum when even the building is vintage! Very cool. Love to see more.

[Jshuey]

We purchased this house at an estate auction. If you hold your hand up long enough, you will quickly discover who the biggest idiot in the room is... . The contents were also auctioned off, and the owners were hoarders. So, people bought piles of stuff cheap, took the one item they wanted, and left the rest for us! I filled a 40 cubic yard dumpster so full that the driver made me re-pack it before he would hull it away. You can probably tell which photos are the before picture, and then the 20 years after picture. It has been a serious piece of work.

Back Yard

Living room

Powder room

[Chuck]

John, incredibly impressive. If I saw the "before" photo 20 years ago I'd have driven you straight to the state hospital and had you committed. There is NO WAY I'd even think of tackling a reconstruction of that magnitude.

The results are astonishing- that building IS a museum itself. Clearly the original owner poured a ton of money into architecture and construction- but what style is it? I've never seen anything like it.

[Jshuey]

Clearly the original owner poured a ton of money into architecture and construction- but what style is it? I've never seen anything like it.

So..., it was built as a typical Queen Ann Victorian with all he gingerbread and stuff sometime in the 1880's. But in the 1920's, it was remodeled into a "modern" house that was like an American four-square - only wood (I'm surrounded by brick four-squares). At that point, they ripped off the wrap around porch and removed the peaks from the roof line and completely reworked the interior. Interestingly, much of the new woodwork, the windows and the fireplace facades were secondhand, so they painted everything (and put stucco on the griffin fireplace). They did the whole nine yards - adding a new (but previously used) grand staircase that they painted lime green, those arches, new (used) windows, wool carpet over the parquet floors, - you name it - anything that was upper-class fashionable back in the roaring 20's.

We purchased the place in 2000 after 80 years of neglect (probably more like 40 years that the previous owners lived there). We ripped out the carpet to find the floors, stripped most of the woodwork that was oak, stripped the stairway, faux-grained the parts of the woodwork that was poplar, stripped the fireplaces, and rebuilt the parts that were literally falling down (there was an alcove in the kitchen, where if you looked up, you saw the sky, and if you looked down, the dirt craw-space). My wife led much of the work herself and coordinated the contractors that did the real heavy lifting. There are still a lot of things that are not quite completed - mostly details.


The exterior was nicer before the remodel for sure! This is the "official" street-facing side of the house - although we really live in the back. I had a really hard time convincing our son (at ~ 10 years old) which side was which - since he grew up on the back patio (and it also faces a street).

[kevinkk]

Pretty cool house Jshuey.
I can see the "Vicky" in the black and white picture. I've seen a lot of them when I lived and worked in northern Calif. every time we
had to go to Ferndale, it was a mixed blessing, those things are not easy to put roofs on, but they were always different.

[Chuck]

Wow, just my opinion, but I'd restore that upper covered walkout and the lower porch and railings too. Can't be tough after all you've done! LOL. Stunning, thanks for taking the time to share photos. Beats photos of skippers