Merry Christmas Open House

Welcome to our home! We are all painted and moved in. Painting and moving is always hard work, but it was definitely worth it this time.  Owning our own house is a joy. But will also be a lot of maintenance.  As our son said, "You realize you just married a third person when you bought a house."

 

 

The kitchen is now a sunny yellow and all the appliances are stainless.  The stove is the one that came with the house.  The dishwasher, microwave, and refrigerator are new. The dog is half German Shepherd half Husky.  His name is Rerun and keeps that floor polished for me.  Yuck.

 

The other half of the kitchen.  Washer and Dryer in the kitchen. Sigh. Not ideal but I don't have to go out to the cold garage to do laundry. The chair and little table give us a spot for someone to sit and visit while someone (Husband) is cooking.  We wanted an open concept house so everyone would be together all the time, but this house really suits us and makes us happy.

 

Dining room.  We painted it Desert Sand by Glidden.

 

The dining table has another leaf but I don't think we will ever be able to use it as the room is a tight fit as is.

 

Our master bedroom.  I adore it.  I painted the focal wall Grey. I can't remember the name but it is by Behr. The white is the Dry Martini by Behr. It is white but it has the slightest pink tint to it.  When I painted it over the white you could tell it had pink in it.

I have never decorated the bedroom for Christmas before, but I really like this.  I used scraps of velvet to make the red pillows and purchased the plaid for the big pillows in back.  I then made all of the pillow covers.

 

 

 

My craft /guest room got a coat of girlie purple.  I love purple and finally got a room painted in it.  It's pinker than I thought it would be but it works. This is still a work in progress.

 

I thought all of my stuff would fit in these lovely built in drawers but I seem to have too much stuff.  The closet is packed with aprons for sale and costumes.  I can't part with the costumes! What if I need one?

 

The hallway joining the master bedroom and craft room. It leads directly to the living room.

 

The living room did not get new paint.  Mostly because our backs literally gave out.  Husband painted the bricks, shelves, and all the trim. The mantel is brand new and made of oak.  A friend made it for us as a gift.  I stained it with Cherry Minwax.

 

 

 

Oops! Forgot to remove the Double Gulp cup.

 

I made new stockings this year.  All in shiny sari type satin fabric. Each has unique trim.

 

The tree is decorated in Mardi Gras-New Orleans style.  All the ornaments are gold, green, and purple. White glittery poinsettia blossoms. Masks. Chandelier crystals.

The piano in the background is my great grandmother's. She purchased it in 1902. It's kind of heavy to haul around.  Can't wait for Daughter to have a house.  Traditionally it goes to the kid who took the most years of piano lessons.  She beat her brother because she took a semester of piano in high school. Ha Ha! Piano is like 800 pounds! Good luck.

 

Thanks for hanging with me through this fall while we found a house.  Hopefully I will be more consistent with blogging. 

Now, if we could only find the remote control for the DVD player.......

 

Blessings,

Jeannine

Tour of the New House

I finally figured out how to edit

 pictures on my Windows 8 program.  I am not a fan.

 

Anyway, that said, here are the pictures of our new house before we painted and moved in.  We closed escrow on October 18 and got right to work.  Fortunately the weather was still in the 80's so we could paint and move without overheating or getting caught in rain.

 

 

Above is a view of the kitchen.  The wall here is painted avocado. That's my son in front of the microwave.  The first thing Husband did was to remove the microwave and the shelf it is sitting on.  It took up too much of the usable counter space.

 



 

This picture is taken standing by the sink. Laundry straight ahead. the white door goes to the mudroom and garage. The open door on the left is the bedroom and bathroom on the front of the house.

 

The room is a "human tank". It has two massive banks of windows and you can see up and down the entire street.

 

Here's the bathroom.  Lovely avocado.  All of that was repainted my favorite whit, Dry Martini by Behr.

 

We painted in here as well. 

 

Yay! We have a huge front coat closet. 

 

This is the living room.  The part painted white is a funny little addition that will eventually have to be removed and French doors put in.  That will allow the room to have so much more light.  The red bit above got a healthy coat of white as well.

 

Main bathroom.  It is not en suite with the master bedroom, unfortunately.  It has to be shared with guests who might visit and use the craft/guest room.

 

This is the craft/guest room.

 

It has a great set of windows and this entire wall with built-ins. 

 

Master bedroom.

 

Master.  We went from a house with two large walk in closets to this huge master with one shared closet with one rod.  Ouch!  We have to learn to share again.  The room at the right is actually a mudroom for an outside door.  It also leads back around to the living room.  I've never seen  a house with so many doors.

 

 

The dining room has a built in buffet with a mirror over it.

 

I hope you enjoyed this little tour.  We spent most of a week painting the rooms. It took a week or so to move all of our stuff over after that.  But it is now all together and feels like home.

 

Blessings,

 

Jeannine

Happy Thanksgiving

Blessings in Christ,

 

 

Jeannine

House Hunting 3

Well, we did buy a house!  I've been so busy I have not been able to catch up on my blog.  It also took several weeks to get on to a new internet provider that is fast and reliable.  Apparently we live way too far from the regular providers.  Umm, there are 21,000 people in this town! How can we be out of range? Oh, well.  That is all straightened out.

 

Now if I can figure out Windows 8 on my new computer, I will get back to showing pictures!  I love my new house.

 

It was built in 1953, is quirky, and has doors everywhere!

 

Stay tuned.

 

Jeannine

House Hunting Part 2

 

Between July 28 and September 16 We looked at seventeen houses and put in three offers. During that time we were really able to narrow down the parameters of where we wanted to buy a house.

 

 

 

We got pretty good at reading the MLS listings.  We looked at hundreds of houses online. That's where we were able to narrow down the houses we wanted to physically look at.

 

The seventeenth house we looked at had only been on the market five days. We put in an offer that same evening and the offers were presented to the seller the next day.  We found out at 10pm that they accepted our offer.

 

Then the paperwork switched to finishing up the mortgage information.  They sure want to know all the details of our lives!

 

The inspections were scheduled for October first.  Unfortunately Husband is out of the country, so our son went along to follow the inspector around while I spoke to the pool guy. And the Termite guy. And the chimney sweep. Son (he is 25) learned some tips from the inspector.

 

The inspector was extremely thorough.  I kind of had a freak out.  So many little things wrong.  But the house was built in 1953 so I guess that is to be expected. So we are still waiting for official reports. Then we can figure out what repairs to ask for and what the next move is.

 

Thanks for reading my ramblings. It's nice to be able to sort out the thoughts over the house.

 

Now I'm trying to decide on paint colors for the kitchen and dining space.  Currently they are avocado and apricot.  Eww!

The tiles are off white on the floor and counters with fairly new oak cabinets.  The appliances are mixed, black and stainless. Any suggestions?  I have a black dining table and chairs.

 

Jeannine

House Hunting Journey Begins

Husband and I have never owned a house.  We have been married twenty-nine years and have never owned a house.

The first eight years we lived in ten different apartments and cities.  That covered three states.  We always were moving as Husband was in Retail: to get a promotion, he had to transfer stores (and move.) I used to be able to pack the entire house in a day and a half.  Not any more.

Now it takes me a month for two reasons: I work as a substitute high school teacher and we have way too much stuff.

Unfortunately my mother passed away from pancreatic cancer in January. However, she left us with enough to put a reasonable down payment on a house.

So at the ages of 52 and 49, Husband and I began our quest for a house.  We started by getting our finances in order and applying for a mortgage. That is a lot of paperwork! And more paperwork.  And we bathed it in a lot of prayer.

By mid July we were approved.

on July 28 we saw our first house.  It was perfect-open concept, three bedrooms, separate laundry room, quiet cul-de-sac.  It had some drawbacks such as a small back yard with two large trees that would have to be removed immediately for safety.

But it was kind of like going wedding dress shopping.  You may know what you want, the first dress you try on is perfect.  But there are so many out there! How can you choose the very first one? 

So our hunt continued...

Stay tuned for the next chapter and thank you for stopping by.
Jeannine

Union Jack Dresser

In the middle of the summer a dear friend moving from California to the Mid West gave me this dresser.  It is super heavy and solid wood.  However, it had been painted white at one time and then spray painted black. It was in really sad shape.

 

 

 

 

It was the perfect candidate for the Union Jack treatment.  I took these pictures in my Husband's office.  Looks pretty cool. This is for sale.

 

 

 

 

A change of handles was a necessity.  It opens well and these handles don't obstruct the paint treatment.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.

Jeannine

 

 

Lost Year! Missing in Blogland

It has been a long year.

I haven't posted since August  2012.

First, I had no more space for pictures.

 

 

Then in September, my daughter married her sweetheart of five years.  She got married in Sacramento at the Vizcaya. They were so wonderful and it included cake, food, outdoor wedding, indoor reception, bartender, security, and day of wedding coordinator.

 

My mother had been battling pancreatic cancer since February.  She was doing so well that she was able to make her dress and fly down for the wedding of her only granddaughter.

 

This is her at the wedding.

 

In January she passed away.  The cancer had spread to her liver and she just didn't have any fight left.

 

 

My husband and I are now house hunting: looking for our very first house to purchase!  We've been married twenty nine years and are just now able to buy a house!

 

 

Thanks you for stopping by and I'll try to be more consistent in visiting.

 

Jeannine

 

PS Check out my new blog at www.jninecostumes.blogspot.com