I LOVE this house (being one of those escapees from Southern California). It has an old-world charm that the newer renditions just don’t seem to be able to emulate or achieve. It is full of odd nooks and crannies and boasts an outdoor fireplace (nonfunctional now since all the trees direct any smoke straight into our neighbor’s carport) that was built just outside the basement French doors.

When we first moved into the house, we didn’t even know that this wonderful feature existed, as the previous owners had completely covered it up with a built-in hot tub. Once we discovered this architectural treasure lurking behind all that redwood, the hot tub made a quick exit.

As delightful as this old house is, with all of its charm and eccentricities, it does suffer from that one intolerable and endemic problem of all homes of this vintage, almost NO closet or storage space (I do not consider a 2-foot-by-4-foot indentation in the wall a closet).

So, I have had to do a fair bit of improvising when it comes to “where am I going to put this”?

Now, the lack of anyplace to put something has never stopped me from acquiring it, if it is really cool. And one of the coolest things (to me) is mannequins. I don’t know why; I just really like the things.

One mannequin around the house is one thing, but a crowd of them is entirely another. When my mom passed away a few years ago, one of the strange and wonderful things I got was a family of assorted mannequins, including one that looks exactly like Dick Van Dyke during his “Dick Van Dyke Show” days with Mary Tyler Moore.

Although I still have to find the right place for Dick, some of these other folks have been put to use.

So, back to that lack of closet space: I have found that a mannequin does an admirable job of hanging onto belts (around her waist), her neck can be festooned with necklaces and/or scarves and you would be amazed at how many hats can be piled on one mannequin head!

Art keeps neckties, a couple of caps and the occasional vest or two on a male mannequin that stands guard in the guest bedroom.

In the kitchen, I have a very old (even has wooden hands) mannequin who somewhere in the distant past lost her head (or maybe she never had one). However, when I acquired her from a quaint shop in San Francisco, she had adopted a cow’s head, a tin relic from an old butcher shop.

Today, this bovine lovely stands in a corner of the kitchen and holds a woven grass basket that I can put a variety of local produce into.

As an added benefit, when you let mannequins take over, you will have the added advantage of always coming home to a few folks who are quiet and congenial.

July 28, 2006