We Love Your Style LINDA SHAFER

By Amber Bouthot

Each month, we feature someone whose style we admire. This month it is Linda Shafer. Linda is a teacher at Weisser Park Elementary, a mother to 3 adult children, and wife to a sculptor. She and her husband Cary live with two dogs: Olive and Pepito. Here’s a glimpse inside her fabulous home!

around the sliding door and how it contrasts the white table and chandelier.

Living Room and Entry Way: Our living room is where we display the Blenko glass that I have collected over the years. It’s on the wall around the corner fireplace. The living room is the only room with all white walls, so the colorful glass really pops.

How would you describe your style?

My style is Mid-century modern with a little sparkly glam and lots of color. Our house was built in 1961, and we have tried to keep the original details, but we have updated the floors, the lighting, and plumbing fixtures. We are lucky to have so much art in our lives! My husband, daughters, and many artist and photographer friends have created most all the art in our home.

Tell us a little about each of the areas you chose to highlight. Why did you choose them? What makes them your faves?

Dining Room: We use the dining room for many things: puzzling, board games, and of course, dining. When we have friends over, it seems that we spend hours around that table just eating laughing and playing games. I love the bright floral wallpaper

Kitchen: When we remodeled the kitchen, we decided to keep the cabinets but paint them and change the hardware. It’s a big open space and doubles as a dance floor. We all do a lot of dancing in that kitchen.

Bathroom: My bathroom is the last room we remodeled. It was all pink tile with a pink bathtub and sink. I struggled to let all that pink go because it is my favorite color, but it was getting tired looking, and a lot of the tile was broken. I chose a pink ceiling to remind me of the way the bathroom used to look.

When you think of your home, what’s the feeling you hope your family and visitors have?

I hope that when friends visit, they feel welcome and comfortable. We love to host big and small parties, and our adult children love to bring their friends over too. Fun is important to us, so I hope all our guests sense the fun in our style.

What’s your favorite color?

Pink. a

Name: A. L. DeLeon

Hometown: That’s a complicated answer. I spent a lot of my childhood years in the Columbia City, IN area, but I graduated high school in Albion, IN.

Current town: Columbia City, IN

Title of Piece: Only Now

What inspired this piece:

This is a poem that I wrote several years ago on my Instagram along with an amateur photo of a flower in bloom that I took while I was out walking in my hometown. It was inspired by three things: A significant change in my life, self-reflection, and gratitude.

What is your preferred writing style?

I love the challenge of writing epic fantasy fiction, sci-fi, and poetry, which also happens to be the three genres I read the most. I don’t know if I’d say that I have a preferred style other than I want to write and string words together in a way that is compelling and keeps a reader invested in the story I’m telling.

When did you first start writing?

I wrote a book in third grade as part of a class project called “Pound Puppies” that I still have. That was my very first time trying to write fiction. However, it wasn’t until I became an adult mired in a very unhealthy marriage, that I was inspired to try my hand at writing novels and poetry. That was nearly 18 years ago. I’m sure many women can relate to this sentiment, but I did not want to lose the creative side of myself in addition to everything else that I thought I had lost back then. Writing, it turns out, is also very therapeutic.