Around the House

When we bought our house in 2007 this is what it looked like.

I thought it had such curb appeal and loved that slanted roof over the front entry.

This was last week.

Where's the house?

The Bradford Pears have gone crazy.  

Now, I like Bradfords, for about a week in the spring when they bloom, although for some reason our blooms don't last nearly as long as some on our street.  But they are a weak tree and only last about 20 years.  

I took this picture this year, because I knew its days were numbered.

For you see, under the tree there is no grass.  It is getting worse every year.  And the worst part is the dirt from the yard washes down to the sidewalk, and so everyone who comes to my front door has to dodge the mud on the sidewalk.

This is the other Bradford, which we kept.  It just got a serious haircut.

Bye Bye 

Why, hello house:-)

Although I will admit it was hard to watch the tree come down.  At least we have a lot of wood for fires in the backyard.

Most of the shrubs were either not favorites, or very overgrown and the grass was all weeds or dirt.

Now after a hard week of work we have this:

(we didn't do a lick of the work)

Almost all new shrubs and new sod.

A little color hanging from the tree.

  

A new bed was added by the street and it's so nice to have a little color out front.

The only work I did was to plant my 2 front pots. 

I always put ferns out front, and then spend the summer sweeping the front porch of all the little dead fern leaves.  I decided this year to try little boxwood balls and ivy.  The hope is that they will actually grow and live for more than a year.

That's one more big job off the retirement list!

But it continues...

Around the House

I'm moving right along in my clean out the house project.

Of course, I'm doing all of the easy rooms first:-)

On the left when you enter our home is our living room.

I confess that we don't use this room much.  If I were building a house, I would eliminate this room, although in this house, this room has many of my favorite things in it.  

This house has a living room and a combo kitchen/family room.  In my dream house I would combine these spaces for a big great room.

In fact, when we were house hunting we did see some houses like that, but unfortunately there were always other reasons it didn't work out.

Luckily I had all of these furnishings from our previous home.  Nothing in this room is new, even the pillows are about 8 years old.

But you know, I still love everything in this room.  I hear on blog land that red, yellow, and green rooms are outdated ~

but I'm not tired of it yet. 

I left this little picture up after Christmas.

My aunt made it, probably in the 60's, out of her "teacher" jewelry.  She stopped teaching at that time, and took many of her costume pieces and crafted this tree.  It is made of mostly earrings and pins and I just love it.

It's one of those things my girls will fight over when I'm gone:-)

More of my real plant project.

Since I took the above picture, I have added 2 crosses to my collection of family and antique prayer books.  The one on the left is actually a rosary from a little shop in Vatican square.  The other cross is made from the stained glass window of the tiny little church in which I was baptized.

The painting above the fireplace was the "cookie" that started my redecorating about 8 years ago.  Do you know the book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie?  I bought the painting at Nell Hill's because I loved everything about it.  The colors and the subject.  It's hard to see but it is just a corner of a living room with a comfy red chair and a table piled with books.

I brought it home to a house with burgundy and hunter green.  My house had been decorated in those colors in some form for a long time.

So, just as in the book, the painting "required" new living room furniture, which of course meant that the dining room needed change, and on to the kitchen, and you get the idea.

Of course, this was all in our previous home, but I wasn't tired of the look when I moved so I tried to make it work in this house too.

We had the woodwork painted white and the walls yellow, and changed the tile around the fireplace to absolute black granite. 

A better picture of the painting.

That box on the table is my treasure chest.  Full of little trinkets and JUNK.  The grands, especially Cooper and Ben just love it.  It was put away for Christmas and Cooper just noticed it was out.  He kind of hinted, because he knows that you can't ASK for a gift from the box, but he was sure hinting:-)

I also have a pile of books from place we've traveled.  We don't buy one everywhere, but we frequently purchase a book with fabulous pictures of the place we are visiting.  It's fun to read and learn more about the area.  And, the pictures are 10 times better than the ones I take.

On the books is a little dish I picked up on a trip to Door County.  When we travel, I don't do a lot of shopping, but I pick up souvenir pins of different places we've been and I keep the ones from overseas here.  The USA pins live in a little basket in the guest room.

These are some from our cruise to the Baltic this summer.  It's a little thing, but fun to look at.  They fit easily in your suitcase, and are pretty easy on the pocketbook too.

Little glass candy that I bought from street vendors in Venice.  Love it.

This is probably my favorite candle of all time.  I love that it is from Kansas City too.  I used to shop at the Trapp flower shop in KC.

Favorite photos greet you when you come into our home.

Laura bought me this little pillow in Arizona when she was expecting Elizabeth.  Little did she know that Elizabeth and Grandma would love to have tea together,  those are little tea cups and teapots on the pillow.

Just a glimpse of the before, with the previous owner's stuff ~ gives an idea of the paint colors when we moved in.

Whew, that was a lot of pictures and if you have been reading my blog for awhile, there aren't a lot of changes either:-)

Thanks for visiting.

Joining Richella for her Grace at Home party.

Around the House

I don't think I've ever been gone from my blog this long before!

I've missed it, and missed visiting so many of you too.

After Christmas we had my sister's family until the New Year, and then a few days later my parents' health began to decline.  They live in Arizona and so I have been there, and been on the phone a lot to try to get them into a different living situation.

They are now in a care center, and so I feel much better knowing that they are being looked after.  One thing I have learned from this is to live by at least one of your children as you get older.  All 5 of us live very far away from my folks and it has been difficult for all of us.

Throw in 2 trips to Florida and it probably won't surprise anyone that I am still taking down Christmas decor.  I had 8 trees this year and I am happy to say that as of last Sunday they are all put away!

It feels so good to have something back to normal.

We had our floors done last summer and I am still recovering.  Here you can get a glimpse of the new color.  This was hardwood before and we just had this area sanded down and restained a little darker.

As I put the house back together I am trying to be very purposeful about what I keep out and am trying to fill the back of my SUV with things I no longer need.

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

William Morris

This quote has always been a favorite and I am keeping it in my mind as I slowly work through each room.

The dishes have been washed in the top of the hutch.  

I have begun to look for gold and white china when I am at flea markets and antique stores.  I have 12 inexpensive plates I bought at Nell Hill's ages ago, and I use them quite a bit.  I have a few different Christmas salad plates that go with them, but nothing that wasn't seasonal.  It is fun to hunt for them and I always try to buy even sets, either 2, 4 or 6 of a pattern.

I am trying to add more live plants.  I do love them, but it is hard to keep up when I am gone so much.  I am picking pretty hardy plants so far.

I am also keeping a punch list.  Little, or big, jobs that need to be done, or things I would like to add to a room.  The granite on this little server has been broken forever and I don't plan to replace it, but next time I have some stone work done I am going to see if they can mend it.  If it wasn't on the list I would totally forget about it at that time.

I moved this little dish of foreign coins to try to cover it a little.  I don't shop that much when we travel, but I love this dish of coins.  I am so glad I saved them, because I think the year after we went to Germany and France they switched to the Euro.  After our cruise this summer the dish is overflowing.  I've always liked this dish that I bought in London at the airport.  

The far wall has 2 oil paintings that remind me of Italy.

The wall color is not accurate in the photo below.  It is more like the picture above.

Faux flowers I know, but I love the colors and the flowers.

Here is a better picture of the floors.  You will be hearing more about the floors in more posts about the house.  We had the entire first floor done, except for the library and the guest room and 2 bathrooms.

In ridding the kitchen of the red, I had some extra pots.  I think they will go to the consignment store eventually but for now they found a home in the dining room and these 2 are strategically hiding the cord from the hutch.

I do like them, I just don't know if they are unnecessary clutter.  

Probably yes, huh?

And just to show you the before, this is the house as it looked when we were house hunting.

We had all of the woodwork painted SW Designer White.

The walls in the living area are SW Jersey Cream. {the color of butter}

The dining room is SW Anjou Pear.

The only thing we kept was the chandelier:-)

We have lived here 5 years now, and the room is still basically the same as I first decorated it.  I really don't plan any changes except for perhaps getting upholstered chairs at each end of the table.

The rug and the chair covers are from our previous home and so are about 8 ~ 9 years old.  You can see that I don't change much over time.

I'll try and share the living area next week.  It'll motivate me to keep on cleaning:-)

Joining Richella for her Grace at Home party.