Bloggy tour of homes week 8

This is the final week in the bloggy parade of homes. Where we started with the front entrance, we're ending with the back yard. Eammon and I love our back yard and if you frequent this blog I know that you've seen it in many pictures.

When I first brought Eammon to look at the house, he walked in the front door and immediately out the back door, saw the view and said that if I wanted the house, yes. He didn't even realize that there was an upstairs with more rooms because he was just captivated by the view as this is the view from our back yard.

This is the back of our home from a neighbor's dock. I love taking one of our deck chairs to the end of our dock so that I can sit there soaking up the sun whilst reading a book. The pond is stocked with bass, catfish, grass eating carp and is home to turtles, frogs and a myriad of other wildlife so it's fun to watch when one of our neighbor's fish from their dock or are out in their boat. It is so peaceful hearing all the birds singing, the ducks and the geese are always around and my favorite is when one of the blue herons comes in and stands at the waters edge.

Well, that concludes the official bloggy tour of homes, I hope that you've enjoyed the tour. To see previous posts, click on the links below.

Previous bloggy tour home posts:
Week 7: Bonus rooms
Week 6: Bedrooms
Week 5: Bathrooms
Week 4: Kitchen
Week 3: Dining room
Week 2: Living room/ Family room/ den
Week 1: Foyers/ Entrances

Bloggy tour of homes week 7

This week in the bloggy parade of homes we're looking at bonus rooms. So, I'm going to give you a peek inside of not only the bonus room but also Eammon's office. These are the two rooms that Eammon claims as his space. What that means to me is that other than to vacuum and dust, it's not my place to mess with or clean up anything in these rooms.

The room over the garage is set up as Eammon's gym. It's a nice large, bright space with a skylight. My favorite part of this room is the huge 9' x 16' walk in storage room at the far end of the room, and trust me, that is MY space! It's a great space to store future Baby S clothing, toys & gifts as well as all the holiday decorations, suitcases and a myriad of other things.

This is Eammon's office, but these are older pictures. As I said, all I do is dust and vacuum when I can actually make my way into the room and the way it looks now, I wouldn't want to display on my blog. Actually it isn't all that bad it's just that he's working on so many projects, there's just a lot of paper everywhere.

There are really only two differences in the room now. The curtains that are in the picture were left by the previous owner and have been changed to a valance made out of blue, grey and white sailcloth. The other change is the small T.V. seen in the picture has been moved to the gym and he has a new larger T.V. along with a nice unit that matches the bookshelf.

Eammon loves Sponge Bob and Patrick and not only does he have these pillows at home to snuggle with while sitting in his giant chair, he also has a duplicate set of pillows in his office. What he does with them there, you'll have to ask him!

I like the nautical theme in this room with the Chelsea Ship's Bell being my absolute favorite piece in the room. This clock came from my Maternal Grandfather and based on its serial number, it was made somewhere between 1940-1944 and I've just always loved this clock.

That concludes this week's tour, join me next Friday when we look at our back yard.

Previous bloggy tour home posts:
Week 6: Bedrooms
Week 5: Bathrooms
Week 4: Kitchen
Week 3: Dining room
Week 2: Living room/ Family room/ den
Week 1: Foyers/ Entrances

Bloggy tour of homes week 6

Bedrooms, bedrooms, bedrooms. That's what we're touring this week in the bloggy tour of homes.

We have four bedrooms in our home. The master and Baby S's room are on the main level while upstairs we have a guest room with an en suite bathroom, as well as the fourth bedroom which we use as an office. The entrance to the master suite has double doors which lead to the hall as seen in the picture above. This hall, like the dining room is trapezoidal, the builder of this home seemed to like lots of angles. The pocket door to the right of the giraffe painting is the master bathroom, the door to the left of the painting is a large walk-in closet which extends out behind the painting. Where you see the light switch in the foreground, that is a short hall to the bedroom.

When you enter the bedroom we have a nice king sized bed on the wall to the right. The bed is currently in summer mode, to see how it looks in the cold weather, click here. If you look closely or blow up the picture, you'll see my giraffe Gregory on the bed. (I know it's a Geoffrey giraffe, but everyone has a Geoffrey so mine is unique and his name is Gregory.) Yes, I do sleep with him tucked in next to me every night.

The wall directly in front of you when you enter the room is all windows so that we can enjoy the view of the pond. I've had new blinds ready to be installed for the past nine months or so, but have yet to get those put up.

The three case good pieces came from my paternal grandparents. Growing up I always loved this furniture so I feel lucky to have it in my home.

I've always loved the depression furniture with it's unique patterns and lines. I also love that the mirrors are somewhat imperfect and they look old.

Originally as part of this set was a headboard, foot board and night stand. I still have the night stand but the head and foot boards were for a full sized bed, so years ago those were sold.

This bloggy tour of homes has made me realize that the only rooms in our home that we haven't done work on are the master suite and the office. The public areas of our home are pretty and finished. The guest room has color and personality but our private space still has white walls and old blinds. Guess I know what my next project is going to be.

Welcome to the guest room. I love the color of this room even though it's not showing its true color in the pictures. The color is called wedgewinkle and is a cross between wedgewood blue and periwinkle. This is the second home where I have used this color for the guest room. To me this room just feels cheerful, welcoming and comfortable for a guest.

When I was looking for a bed for this room, I knew that I wanted white wicker, but not any of the usual wicker designs. I was out shopping with my friend Teresa and I said that I wish I could find a sleigh bed in wicker and the next store that we entered had this bed in the clearance department. Originally it was a wheat color so I spray painted it white and voilà!!

The wall to the left of the bed has a desk area where if you blow up the picture, you'll see my little cow stool with the pink udder. I also love the wooden girls that hang on the wall. There is a third girl which you'll see in the bathroom picture.

It's too bad that the windows of this room are so small and high as the view is really pretty. Unfortunately the roof of the covered patio comes to the base of these windows so we don't have the option of making them longer.

The entire wall at the foot of the bed is taken up by closets. Behind the mirrored doors is one big closet which is about 3 1/2 feet deep so amazing storage space. The door to the left of the mirrored doors is the largest linen closet I've ever encountered, being the same depth as the adjacent closet.

The wall to the right of the bed has the entrance to the room and the private bathroom. The color of the bathroom is the same as the room, but the skylight in there makes the room look lighter. To the left of the bathroom are lots of old stuffed animals and my Mrs. Beasley doll from when I was a child.

Above them are my mermaids, which I love and Eammon despises. Years ago when I was living up north, Karen Rossi would have an open house at her studio and these are two of her pieces that I bought. I'd love to have these mermaids downstairs but because Eammon doesn't care for them and they match the guest room so well, the guest room they will stay.

Last but not least is my favorite bedroom, Baby S's nursery. I love this room and other than adding her name to the wall above the stepped bookcase and installing a ceiling fan, the room is complete. I love to go into the room and sit in the glider to read or sometimes I sit there whilst chatting on the phone. To see a short video of the room click here. Or to see a full set of pictures, click here.

Well, that concludes this week's tour, join me next Friday when we look at bonus rooms.

Previous bloggy tour home posts:
Week 5: Bathrooms
Week 4: Kitchen
Week 3: Dining room
Week 2: Living room/ Family room/ den
Week 1: Foyers/ Entrances

Bloggy tour of homes week 5

This week in the bloggy tour of homes we're taking a look at bathrooms. We have four bathrooms, two up and two down, all of which I really don't care for but I'll try to say something positive about each. They all have this bad 80's look to them and are in desperate need of a gut rehab which we'll get to one day, but for now we make due. To the left is the door to the downstairs guest bath. The door is rather narrow and for some reason no one could find the bathroom thinking this was a closet or something.  So to keep the guests out of the Master bathroom, I put up these cute metal signs.

The only changes we've made to this bathroom is the addition of the cute round mirror and of course the giraffe hand towels. This bathroom does have a fun shape to it, being a very small seven sided room. In the winter this is the warmest bathroom in the house as it's the only one without a skylight. It also has an in-ceiling heater and since it's such a small room it's warm almost instantly.

I do have to say, the worst bathroom in the entire house is the Master. It does have a nice large corner shower which we enjoy but there is a very deep Jacuzzi tub which is on a 45 degree angle in the corner, just wasting space and it's so big we never use it. This bathroom only has one sink and for some reason the sink is very low. The little separate room with the toilet isn't too bad as it has its own window so it's bright. The main space of the bathroom has a large glass block window and a sky light so it too is a very bright room. This bathroom also has a ceiling heater but since the room is so much larger than the guest bath it never gets quite as warm. To this room we have done nothing!! The room needs so much help, we're just waiting until we can pull everything out and start all over again. The best part of the room is the lovely flower arrangement made by my friend Teresa that helps fill up some of the wasted space behind the tub.

It's funny, the two least used bathrooms in the house, the upstairs guest bath and the upstairs hall bath have had the most work done to them. Both of these bathrooms have skylights, so once again they are nice and bright. Both rooms originally had wallpaper but we had that removed and painted the walls and cabinets and changed the light fixtures.

The sage room is the hall bath and it's good sized with a shower, vanity sink and toilet. The skylight in this room faces west so when the sun is shining, as you can tell by the sunspot on the wall, it's very bright.

The guest bedroom bath, I would have to say, is the nicest bathroom in the house. It's painted the same color as the guest bedroom, has a nice big vanity, toilet and a tub/shower combo. Well, I'm glad this week is over because of all the rooms in the house, these four are my least favorite.

That concludes this week's tour, join me next Friday when we look at bedrooms.

Previous bloggy tour home posts:
Week 4: Kitchen
Week 3: Dining room
Week 2: Living room/ Family room/ den
Week 1: Foyers/ Entrances

Bloggy tour of homes week 4

This week in our tour we're taking a look at kitchens. I think that the reason our home was on the market for as long as it was, was the previous state of the kitchen. At the bottom of this post I have pictures of how the kitchen looked the day we did our pre-purchase home inspection compared to how it looks today. I do have to say, it was in a sad state. The cook top only cooked on high, the microwave took 8 minutes to heat a cup of water and the refrigerator leaked. The original colors were yellowish tile on the floor, green and off white tile on the counter tops, the cabinets were beige with oak trim and the wall paper which by the time we purchased the house had been painted white, was originally pink.

One of my favorite parts of the kitchen is the back splash. The 1-inch slate tiles match so well with the granite countertops. The granite color is called blue pearl and has these speck in it, which when seen in certain lights, glow blue, silver or gray. I also love the decorative tiles in the back splash as well as the stainless steel rack which helps break up the wall space. If you look closely in the pig's pitcher, you'll see that there are wooden giraffe salad forks.

In my previous home post I spoke of my chair fetish, well the kitchen sports some fun chairs too. These teapot chairs (and table) were made by my blacksmith friend George Martell. It's rare that we sit at this table as generally we eat at the breakfast bar, which sports coffee cup stools.

Eammon has two favorite parts in this room. Well, actually four favorites with the freezer that magically provides food and the microwave which cooks all food. Honestly though, one of his favorites parts is the view. When I first brought Eammon to look at the house, he walked in the front door and out this set of kitchen doors and said yes. He didn't even realize that there were rooms upstairs. He fell in love with the view and said if I wanted the house, to go for it. These French doors in the kitchen are the ones that the geese and ducks generally knock at when they want to be fed, so they are always somewhat dirty with peck marks.

Eammon's other favorite feature in the kitchen is the instant hot water tap, just what every good Brit needs when tea time rolls around. Sorry that the pictures aren't better, we get such great light with all the windows, but it makes picture taking very difficult.

Below are some before and after pictures of the kitchen. I tried to pair up the pictures to first show how the kitchen looked before we purchased our home, on the day of our pre-purchase home inspection, followed by the same view today.  Just a little difference in the look.

I've gone back into the past weeks posts and added some before pictures, also from the day of the home inspection. It's always fun to see how the rooms have changed. Enjoy!

Well, that concludes this week's tour, join me next Friday when we look at bathrooms.

Previous bloggy tour home posts:
Week 3: Dining room
Week 2: Living rooms/ Family rooms/ dens
Week 1: Foyers/ Entrances

Bloggy tour of homes week 3

This week our tour features dining rooms. I love that when you first enter our home, the first thing you see is the view above. The dining room is a large trapezoidal room which is a little unique and it gives a very open feel as the room flows right up to the entrance and the living room. I have many of my favorite items in this room the largest being the dining room set its self.

The set is red oak with black walnut inlays and decorative metal components so that it has the arts and crafts feel and style of both Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. This set was actually designed by Robert Sonneman and was marketed under the name Urban Primitive. Just before it went out of production I was able to get three pieces, the table and chairs, the sideboard & hutch and the buffet table. To this day I've never seen a dining room set that I've loved as much as this one.

Eammon's favorite part of the room is the view out of the French doors. He loves to sit at the head of the table, looking out...Except when the geese come knocking and begging as they see us sitting in there.

Also in the room are three leather giraffes, the largest being the same height as I. We named the giraffes but we obviously aren't very creative as the largest one is named Gia as in gia-raffe... The mid-sized giraffe is Gia-too and the small one is Baby. To further display our lack of creativity, the bunny and pig that you can just see under the antique radio, they're named Bun and Pig. I know, we're losers and it's amazing that we're going to be allowed to name a child all by ourselves!

Another favorite of mine are these three drawings that were done by my maternal grandfather. It's interesting that in all the homes where I've displayed these, I've always hung them vertically. I guess that's just how I always see them in my mind and it's amazing because in each of my homes, there's always been the perfect spot to hang them. If you look off to the right, you'll see the entrance to the master suite and of course a giraffe painting greets you as you enter that space.

In addition to my love of giraffes, I also have a bit of a chair fetish. I love chairs that are unique, even if somewhat impractical like the one pictured to the right. When I first saw this chair I just fell in love with it and had to have it and I've always been able to find a spot to display it. The built in shelves surrounding the French doors give me lots of space to display some of my trinkets and helps to keep all my clutter in one spot.

Last but not least are my lady & man chairs which flank the sides of the sideboard & hutch.

Above the chairs are some paintings that Eammon always teases me about, telling me that they look like ladies with willies, but I'll let you be the judge on that one.

Here are some pictures of the room before we bought our home. These were taken on the day that we did our pre-purchase inspection. The previous owners used what we use as the dining room as their living room.

Well, that concludes this week's tour, join me next Friday when we look at kitchens.

Previous bloggy tour home posts:
Week 2: Living rooms/ Family rooms/ dens
Week 1: Foyers/ Entrances

Bloggy tour of homes week 2

Last week we welcomed you to our home with pictures of our entrance and foyer. This week the theme is living rooms/family rooms and dens. As you noticed in last weeks post, when you enter our home, there is no real foyer, you walk right into the living room/dining room space. The original plans for this house called for the dining room to be where we currently have our living room and the living room to be where we have our dining room. I switched this around though as the space originally designated as the dining room is small and I wanted a larger space for all the dining room furniture and since we generally use the family room for us and even when we have guests over, the living room being on the small side didn't bother me.

I love that the living room has a half cathedral ceiling and is open to the dining room. The door on the right is a pocket door to the kitchen and the double doors lead to the family room and back hall. I love my red sofa and can't wait until all the local adopters have their babies so that we can take our own red couch picture. I have two other favorite pieces in the room, the antique radio which is next to the kitchen door and the gilded lily table which is in between the two club chairs.

The gilded lily table is from my parents. It is the one piece of furniture from their home, that I always wanted. When they moved to Florida a few years ago, they didn't have a place for the table so it came to us. The radio was in my maternal grandparents home and that was the one piece I had always wanted. I'm not a big antiques person, but I've always loved this radio.

The sofa has a funny story to it. The first time I saw the sofa was in a black and white publicity shot for the show Frasier, in the T.V. guide that comes with the Sunday paper. How I actually saw the sofa though all the cast sitting and hanging on it, I don't know, but I did know that I wanted that sofa. I called the show and spoke to their props department and asked about it and they put me in touch with the company that did the publicity shots who in turn, put me in touch with the company that made the sofa, Galerkin Design. They were so fabulous to work with, they sent fabric swatches and pictures and then shipped the sofa cross country and there you have it, a mail order sofa.

Our family room is where we spend the most time.

I love that it is open to the kitchen and that it is a large two-story voluminous space with lots of windows, a sky light and views. Looking out we see our small back yard, the covered patio, the deck, the dock and the pond.

There are always ducks and geese in the yard so always something to see out the windows.

Eammon's favorite part of the room is the big screen T.V. and that the sofa turns into a recliner. My favorite part in the room is my teapot table and chair set. It was made by a good friend of mine, blacksmith George Martell. He does gorgeous work and I love that we have a custom made piece. I also love the built in book shelves as it gives me a place to display all my stuff without cluttering up tables. At the bottom of the stairs we have a little wet bar and on the door that leads to the garage we have a dart board. I'm better at hitting the door than the board when we play, but it's fun.

Here are some pictures from before we purchased our home, they’re from the day we did our pre-purchase inspection. The first two pictures are the family room. The bottom two pictures are what we currently have as our living room, the previous owners used that space as their dining room.

   
Well, that ends today's tour. Check in next Friday to see our dining room.