Wednesday 15 October 2008

Playing tourist again

The tour of Villa Cooper continues to the next room. The window is facing north, there are other windows on the wall left. In this room the ceiling is painted white and the walls are covered with boards and wallpaper. This side of the room is more like our shop.






The other side is almost in its original state. You can see the price tags on the shawls on the sofa, so they are made by our members and thus for sale. It is easy to understand that some people have taken this side of the house as a home museum and not a sales exhibition!





This is the kitchen, facing east. On many weekends the club members show the methods of their craft in the shop. This time Anita is making metal wire weaving at the kitchen table.



I have been writing a lot about mushrooms this autumn. Here you can see a quite new species, ceramic mushrooms!



The pantry is one of the museum details left in the house, with original kitchen utensils of the Coopers from copper coffee pot to a microwave oven.



Next to the kitchen is a small servant's room. There is no original furniture left, so our shelves are there with our products. Wool socks and mittens are a favourite article. I believe most Finnish women still know how to knit but many of them don't have the time and energy to do it. Hand knitted socks and mittens are so much better than factory made that there is always a market for them.



Child size quilts on the to shelf, hoods for wet hair on the next.



I have no picture of the entrance, but there was apparently nothing special about it because I didn't photograph it! On the way out I just wanted to take a picture of the little gazebo. The fancy swimming pool in the front area has been filled with sand for children to play. This is safer than having it empty or filled with water.


The villa is surrounded by high-rise buildings but it still has a large garden. I will be back next spring and summer with pictures of the flowers. In about five weeks our Christmas shop will be opened, and we plan to have a Christmas market in front of the house, with little stalls for members where they can come and sell their own products. It would be nice to have some snow on the ground by then, but preferably a nice weather!

2 comments:

  1. I just love the walk through your shop. Wish I could be a part of your club. Can't wait to see it at Christmas.. can you take pictures for us then please?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for finishing the tour Ulla. What a marvellous place! It is so good that it has been preserved and it's garden also. Here in the UK a lot of town schools have had their playing fields sold off for housing so there is little space for children to play.

    The crafts are gorgeous. My Mum's Mum always knitted everyone's school jumpers as they lasted a lot longer than the shop bought ones. I'm glad so many people in Finland appreciate hand knitted goods.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for coming by! Kiitos käynnistä, voit kommentoida myös suomeksi