Jaunmarupe

It all happened so quickly really. In a way I don’t even remember it because it happened so fast. One minute we were shivering in an attic drafting shop of the architect we employed going over plans and the next we were having Thanksgiving dinner with 20 people in our new house.

My husband knew what he wanted the house to look like on the outside, and I knew how I wanted it laid out on the inside. Working together on this house certainly relieved the aforementioned tension. We found a rhythm in this common goal and it was fun to build this together. Unlike the Big Empty Flat in Aluksne, building this house had a strong sense of permanence to it. We were making a commitment the development of our new little “suburb” outside of Riga called Jaunmaurpe, a commitment to our children with regard to school, and also a long-term commitment to the country which, up until that point for us long term was considered six months.

So in the time from about March to November we built the house. Per my preferences, it was very symmetrical and efficient. It was built like a barn with a hipped roof. A large, open living area was at the center which looked up to a balcony/loft which held three bedrooms and a bathroom. On the first floor on one side of the living room was a family room and spare bedroom, and on the other end the kitchen and another bathroom. In the very center of the living room was a big wood burning stove which was ducted throughout the house. The plan was to use this as the main source of heat. I insisted on huge windows and the changing light bouncing off of all the clear birch woodwork was fascinating. It was incredibly spacious and cozy all at once. At about four times the size of V-77, there was room for the kids to run, and plenty of room for the huge Thanksgiving dinner we ended up hosting.

When it was finally finished (somehow it felt like an eternity to us), we scavenged for moving boxes, lined up the nanny to pretty much live with us for a few days, and we moved. I think I had the whole place set up in two days. It was November, cold, and messy I remember. And I remember lying in bed one of those first nights thankful for how lucky we were to have such a beautiful place not really believing that it was real.

Build a House

So time is marching on in Latvia, and I’ve omitted a lot. I’m offering a glimpse of what it was like to start a family in a very foreign country, and some of the little sprouts that lined the path to my present, but we all know that there’s a yin to every yang, a sour for every sweet, a pull to every push, a positive for every negative.

I believe we’re moved forward through our lives by this string of tension. And truth told, at this point in my life, I was beginning to flounder in it. I’ll allow these mixed metaphors to sit here and just continue with the story by saying, one day my husband was feeling my tension, and by way of compensation came to me one day, looked at me hard and said, “I want to build our house.”

For a few years we’d talked about building a house. We’d done some exploring as to how to go about doing this in Latvia where land ownership was still such a mess among other things, but he was serious, and he found a way. So as quickly as we could (I'm sure in order to relieve the tension), we bought some land, and we started building a house.

Family

Fixing up the Big Empty Flat was a project borne from boredom as much as necessity, but that pressure was off in Riga. V-77 was cozy, becoming full of collections and a short history of life with these two little kids and all their stuff. It was a real home. Not a bachelor pad, not a flop house, not a college apartment, but a real city flat where a real family lived. We had many “family dinners” there in chilly candlelight and warm wine with our little American community of the Lisa, Lisa & Juris with Kiki and soon Kaija, Denise & Jerry, Christopher, Scott, Dave and eventually Sveta. This was our core and our family--people I was growing up with (or in front of), and people I love and respect still. Anyway, we were this cast of varied and harried characters all traveling on that post-Soviet train to God-knows-where together.

One night Lisa honored me with the comment in her sometimes affected Rhode Island accent, “Maren I don’t know how you do it, but wherever you live you always make it feel like a home!” High praise from the woman who can out-cook us all with only a match, a chicken, and a smuggled package of brownie mix. I laughed her off, though, chalking it up to upbringing, but I was secretly flattered and not too sure my mother or grandmothers could have worked this out in a place like Latvia. But never mind, it goes back to the sculpting comment. I’m not a sculptor, nor a decorator. Nothing remarkable. Just plugging along trying to make the best of it and care for the people closest to me.

The Trunk

We did have that oak hutch refinished and whatever half-heartedness my husband felt for that piece immediately dissipated. It is one of my favorite pieces and it makes me happy whenever I look at it or open one of its doors. It was refinished by a man named Dainis whose specialty is furniture restoration, and he brought new life to the tired bones of this hutch.

Dainis and his brother were building a tidy little business scouring the countryside for antiques and either refinishing them or disassembling them and making new furniture out of the antique wood. My friend Lisa was a huge supporter of theirs and because of her their business boomed in the ex-pat community and they were able to export to the US and Western Europe.

It was here that we found our bookcase, a coffee table, and an “antique” TV cabinet. They also restored little pieces, too. I had a butter churn and a big abra—wooden bread dough bowl. It was almost a given that whenever one went to their factory, a purchase would be made, and with limited Sunday afternoon entertainment, we’d go there about once a month. It was fascinating, too, to watch these big men painstakingly sand off old paint or take tiny tools to some ancient carving that had been buried under decades of dirt and varnish.

One day, we were browsing and talking to them when at the top of a staircase landing was something we’d never seen before. It was a dowry chest: A BIG trunk with iron strapping, big handles and a big old lock. It was Swedish and under years of grit, they found beautiful rosemaling of flowers, vines, two birds and two hearts. Dainis restored the wood and a lady in their shop filled in the painted design. I absolutely melted. My husband hated it! “It’s nothing but a big useless box! It’s huge and we don’t have room for it! Who cares if it’s pretty?” Now I don’t mean to paint him as an ogre, but he is a very practical man. “Oh, but it’s so unusual! We’ll probably never, ever even see anything like this again! It’s another piece of someone’s history! This belonged to some other young bride who had to ship her own 100 pounds of home to an unknown future in this very trunk!” I don’t know if it was my personal identification with this trunk that won the squibble or not, but the trunk came home with us. Once it got to our flat and he saw how it fit into the grand scheme, and how it was actually a very handy place to store Christmas decorations and off-season clothing, he accepted the trunk.

Markers

When I described my husband’s half-hearted approval of my bed purchase for Sis, I alluded to our already full flat—we’d collected a lot of furniture by that time. We knew that we wouldn’t be living overseas forever, I was determined to make our lives comfortable at home, and we found some beautiful things for very little money that we would never have found in America. We saw these things as markers of our journey. Reminders of where we were when we started our life together and built our family. Everything had a story, too. I’ve shared some of them here between the custom Ikea knock-offs and Sissy’s bed, but there was more.

There was the Estonian furniture factory we found out about. We took some American business men there when they were scoping out exporting opportunities, and the boss ended up purchasing whole container load of their furniture to send to the US to test the market. He had my husband place the order and as they were deciding on inventory, the American casusally told him, “pick out whatever you and Maren want—thanks for taking me there.” So we ended up with several pieces of beautiful solid birch with exposed dovetail joints, including a dining table and six chairs, sideboard with a hutch, a short little dresser, a secretary desk, and a sewing box I fell in love with.

Then there was the day my husband came home and told me about a big wardrobe he’d seen at an antique shop. Closets didn’t exist and we desperately needed a place to hang clothes. He said it was huge, but the nice part was that it was engineered to disassemble neatly (so that it could be moved) and that it had a mirror. We went back together to check it out and I hated it! It was dark, ugly and old lady looking, but then I spotted a gorgeous old crusty oak hutch (another hutch!) with nickel pulls, original etched glass, and jugendstil details and carvings. I told him I wasn’t buying the wardrobe unless we could buy this, too!
“Mar, we don’t need another hutch!” But look at it. We’ll have it refinished. This is a special piece. “Yeahhhhh, maybe you’re right…” Of course I’m right. Meanwhile the Russian shop keeper was cooing at my kids as he dressed them up with heavy, battleship-gray wool Soviet military hats…We checked out the hutch, dusted it off with our fingers and the Russian man saw our mild interest. In a strange mix of Russian-Latvian-German-English, he told us a price for both the wardrobe and the hutch. No good. We dickered with him a bit longer and in the end, we purchased both pieces and all walked out with Soviet hats atop our heads.

The wardrobe certainly filled a need, but its been sitting in pieces in my garage for years.  The oak hutch is one of my favorite things and stands gracefully over me as I type this.

Thanks

It's been a busy week, so I haven't been able to keep up here as I would have liked, but I do want to thank you for the fantastic feedback! I am extremely touched that so many of you have expressed enjoyment out of reading this. It's humbling and encouraging all at the same time. It is my honor to offer a mid-afternoon bender!

Until my thoughts are re-collected and we go back to Riga, 1998, I remain yours truly,

Sissy's Bed

So as my Sissy was lamenting about her deprived life and space, I was trying to explain to her all the good juju that surrounds her in her very own physical place in the world. It was getting through to her that her room was not only lovingly designed by me and decorated by us together, but also that the things that take up her space are meaningful—full of history and reminiscences and love. All things I want to fill her life with.

Then I got to the story of her big oak bed.

When she was a baby, I managed to get out of the house one Saturday morning and walked through Riga’s Old Town which is just a few blocks from Valdemāra 77. It was kind of raining and I didn’t really have any destination in mind, but I found myself walking through a funny little passage I didn’t usually take, and I found a little antique shop, so I went in to get out of the weather and kill some time. This was a tiny place, but it was packed, and also there was a Latvian man running the shop. This was unusual because for some reason Russians seemed to be the primary proprietors of antique shops. The only reason this matters is because I couldn’t speak very well and in turn negotiate with the Russians (I spoke Latvian). So a very sweet old Latvian man was very happy to see me that drizzly Saturday morning and was anxious to offer coffee and let me squeeze through this shop. Honestly, it was more like a crammed closet than a shop, but I enjoyed talking to him and looking around trying to take it all in. It was full of big old wardrobes and dressers, and nothing was arranged—just piled and stacked. But then I saw something that caught my eye. It was oak with a very tight grain and a gorgeous patina, and it looked like little doors. So I asked my man what the heck this was and he told me a girl’s bed. OH!

For a little European-sized twin (slightly smaller than a standard US twin), it’s massive. The headboard is almost 5’ tall and footboard slightly shorter. They are constructed as in an Arts & Crafts fashion, except that they have delicate floral hand carvings at the top. If I had to date it, I would say this was built around 1920 when the Arts & Crafts movement met Art Nouveau. You can understand why I thought they were little doors. Then I asked my man how they worked and he showed me the two big rails that looked more like beams leaning on another wall. OH!

It was perfect. No damage, no stains, perfect. This bed was clearly made and taken care of with a lot of tenderness and purpose for a very special and very loved little girl. All I could think about was this little girl falling asleep feeling like a princess with her dad’s handiwork and protection cradling her sleep. This felt like a secret treasure and I had to rescue it for my girl. So I asked my man coyly how much. 50 USD he told me. OH!

I felt too guilty to even dicker with him. I ran home to get my car. I don’t even think I called my husband to tell him what I was doing. I had my keys on me, so I just took my car and zoomed back down to Old Town to try to park close to the shop. It used to be that there was no driving through Riga’s Old Town—you had to have a special permit or have diplomatic plates, so I had to park somewhere on the outskirts. I ran back to the shop(as if someone was really going to steal my treasure in the rain from that mess of a shop in the 10 minutes it took me to return), I plunked down my $50 and lugged this bed three blocks to my car. Four pieces took me four trips. It was kind of a ridiculous site really. The rails are at least 60 lbs. each and are about 6’ long, and the headboard I'm sure weighs more than me, but I carried ALL of it in the rain to my big old car.

When I got home, my husband was a little irritated that I went and bought even more furniture for our already filled flat especially since Sissy was still an infant. I think he was cursing under his breath as I enlisted his help in hauling all of this up two flights of stairs, and then we got it in. And he LOOKED at it. Then he looked at me and said, “Yeah, you needed to get this.”

So, Caroline, I believe your special bed was crafted especially for a little Latvian girl who's riches surrounded her. And I believe this bed was waiting in that crowded corner of the little old Latvian man’s antique shop just for me to resurrect it for you. There is lots of love that surrounds you as you sleep tight in your very own room.

Sissy's Room

So our Sissy is now 11. She is on that tender cusp between little girl and snotty teenager and I’m desperately trying to keep the snot out. Sis has always been a mamma’s girl. Without question, she adores her father, but she has an inherent need to be connected to me physically and spiritually, so we foster that. My mother would tell you she is exactly like me from her quick temper, to her endless collections, to her always-game-for-an-adventure attitude, to her eager drive to see things through. With that, I’m going to side track our tale for a bit and share a relevant slice of the present…

Last week, she was eager to “do something” with her room. Her brother just had a cool man-chair added to his room to help encourage high school studying, and she, naturally, was feeling short changed. I told her I’m not discussing anything about her room until it was CLEANED UP, and surprisingly, she didn’t fight me on it. She was really angling… It should be noted that in Sissy’s 12’x12’ish room, she has a desk, chair, narrow chest of drawers, 32” round pedestal table, end table, her bed, and Tuna-the-cat’s bed.

Finally she announced that her room was vacuum ready and with tape measure in hand, she ordered me up to discuss rearrangement options. She was bent on rearranging things herself, was desperate to move her massive bed around, sling her dresser and desk to opposite ends, add a man-chair of her own and bring in a dance floor. She did not like me telling her it’s not gonna work. We pulled the tape, we monkeyed with curtains, we discussed balance, and finally I had to pull out my Professional Interior Designer card and tell her (in the same gentle terms I tell all of my clients things they don’t want to hear), that there is no other way to arrange her room for more floor space and that what she has is the very best way to arrange her room. (It should also be noted, too, that through all of this I’m laughing to myself as I’m rolling my eyes at her—after all, this is my determined little thing—MY most recent sculpture—the same girl who for Christmas two years ago wanted crown molding in her room!) She was crushed, though. Life isn’t fair, Jims gets EVERYTHING, and she never gets anything, lalala…

Once she finished her tirade, we sat down on her bed, and with her silky brown head in my lap, I reminded her that her corner desk was mine growing up where I did all my homework, wrote in my diary, and read my Nancy Drews while I sat in the same old maple almost Windsor-backed chair that used to be Grandpa Evans’ kitchen chair when he was a boy. Then I told her how her side table came from the radio cabinet makers in Aluksne from our first home, and how I fell in love with the chest of drawers from Latvia crafted by a friend who made new furniture from recycled antiques scattered around the Baltics. I asked her if she remembered when she was six and we found her pretty, shiny, black round pedestal table at a funny furniture store in the town where her Grandnan lives. I reminded her about how I stumbled upon her fantastic Tord Boontje die-cut light fixture while in Paris with her Aunt Lisas, and how I had to have it for her because it was called “Misdummer Light” even though it meant I had to hand carry it all the way home. And then I told her the story of her gorgeous bed...a story that will have to be continued tomorrow…