Thanksgiving Blessings

There is still  so much that needs to be accomplished  at the house in Hooterville within the next few weeks so we  (hubby, daughter and her boyfriend who has no family in Florida, and me) have all decided to use Thanksgiving day as a work day at the property.  The four of us  will, however,  take a break in the early evening  to have our Thanksgiving dinner at a little home-style buffet restaurant a few miles down the road from the new house.    Admittedly, this is quite a departure from our usual huge traditional home-cooked meal with all of the extended family present but it only took us about 5 seconds to agree we are okay with that this year.  What better way is there for us to appreciate and celebrate our good fortune to be blessed with this new home and the opportunity to live what we have dreamed about?

To all my American readers, wherever and however  you spend your Thanksgiving, I want to wish you and yours a bountiful and blessed Thanksgiving holiday from My Cottage of Bliss.

Sunken Floor…NO MORE!

Oh boy, I can’t even begin to tell you how EXCITED I was to see this truck show up at the house in Hooterville Saturday morning! 

 

My daughter has a friend who is a contractor and he made arrangements to have the U.G.L.Y. outdated, sunken living room filled with concrete so it would be level with the rest of the house.  The sunken living room concept might have been fashionable in 1978 when the house was built but in 2009, it sure wasn’t floating my boat so I was thrilled when I found out how easy it was to fix.

 

After the carpet was pulled up and the walls were covered in plastic…

 

…it was time to start pumping!   At this point, I was almost giddy!

 

When the hole was filled, the guys used a long board to level the cement.  The board also helped them  determine if there were any low spots that needed more cement.

 

The cement had a quite a bit of water in it so after a little while, we decided to close up the windows and turn on the air conditioner to help pull some of the excess moisture out. 

There was just one little problem…

Nobody thought to close the window in the living room before the concrete was pumped in!   Oooops!

Daughter’s boyfriend and contractor friend came to the rescue though!

I was holding my breath here!    This could have gone soooooooo wrong!

But all ended well and 24 hours later, the concrete is drying nicely.   It should be dry enough to walk on in about a week and then we can paint.  The carpet is scheduled to be installed the week of Christmas.

YIPEE SKIPPY … NO MORE SUNKEN LIVING ROOM! 

 

Go visit Between Naps on the Porch to see more Metamorphosis Monday before and after posts.

Like Mother, Like Daughter (Sort Of)

This little cowgirl all decked out in the cowgirl hat and fancy chaps is me at approximately age 4.

I was visiting my grandmother when a man came through her neighborhood offering to take pictures of children on his  pony.  Even though this was more than 50 years ago, I still very vividly remember this event, as well as my excitement over being on a real, live horse for the first time.

 

This precious little cowgirl wearing an eyelet trimmed denim skirt, boots, and her hat at a jaunty tilt in the photo below is my daughter at age 4. 

A shopping mall in a neighboring city was offering pony pictures.   That happy grin on her face should have been my first indication that this would not be the last time she would be on the back of a horse!

After we were there the first time, my daughter relentlessly begged me to take her back to the mall the next day so she could “ride” the pony again.  That should have been my second clue that I had a budding equestrian on my hands!

 Throughout my childhood,  an occasional pony ride at the fair or on a brightly colored carousel horse  was pretty much the extent of my horseback “riding” experiences and I soon outgrew my excitement over horses.

On the other hand, in the 23  years since that photo of her on the pony was taken,  my daughter’s  passion for horses has never waned. 

Not.   For.   One.   Second. 

As a small child, she has always had a special, extraordinary love of  all animals but, as the saying goes, she really  “eats, sleeps and breathes” horses. 

She  started taking weekly horseback riding lessons at age 9.  

She was 13 when we bought her first horse. 

At 16, we bought her a second horse.  Even through those potentially troublesome teen years, the only place she ever wanted to be was at the barn, riding her horses. 

Primarily she rides English (Hunter/Jumpers)…

 

 

 

But she has been known to throw on a western saddle and cut a few calves too.

 

She also loves teaching other little girls all about horses, horse care....(like routine deworming with oral paste dewormer)… 

…and how to ride.

 

 

Although she has certainly tried many times to make  working with horses a full-time job, living in the city has made it very difficult and almost cost prohibitive.   However, the 30 acres and 3 barns at our new  house in Hooterville  will give her a place to establish her own business of buying, training and selling horses, running a boarding facility, and giving riding lessons on a full-time basis.

Every time one of her riding students wins their first ribbon at a horse show (like in the photo below), she truly experiences a genuine thrill so my heart swells with love, happiness and pride that she will now be able to make horses her business and share her passion of horses with others on a full-time basis…especially horse-lovin’ little girls.

This is why I am so willing to move away from  My Cottage of Bliss in the city for a more rural life in Hooterville.

And who knows… with horses in my own backyard, perhaps I’ll rekindle my excitement over horses. 

Maybe I’ll even decide to ask Daughter to teach her old mom how to ride! 

 

Priming: What a Project!

We are still plugging along at the house in Hooterville, making progress, little by little.

This past week, we’ve been busy priming.

And priming.

And priming some more!  

I think we went through 6 GALLONS of  Zinsser Bullseye 123 primer!  And 2 gallons of Gripper.

But the priming is finally DONE!

And boy, what a different just one  coat of primer has made in lightening, brightening and changing the atmosphere in some of the rooms!

Would you like to see?

The dining room wall went from this…

to this.

 

The “teal room” went from this…

to this!  (Wow, that carpet actually doesn’t look half bad when it’s not fighting with aqua walls, does it?  But it will still be replaced with something more neutral.)

 

The blah brown master bedroom before…

is already looking a little less dreary with just primer on the walls and baseboards. 

 

The wallpapered office before…

and after wallpaper removal.

 

There are 13 wood doors in this house. Each and every one of  those doors and all of the 5,000 miles of wood baseboards and door moldings needed priming. 

Well…I’ll admit 5,000 miles of molding might be a slight exaggeration but, at my age, it sure FEELS like 5,000 miles when I am sitting on the floor with my legs curled up underneath me as  I paint…and paint…and paint.  

 

Now that the priming is done,  I get to scoot around the house  on my hands and knees a second time, applying crisp, white semi-gloss paint to all the  baseboards and moldings. 

After we got all the doors and moldings primed,  I started to  feel like we have finally turned a huge corner.  In reality, there is  a lot more painting ahead  but now I can actually see we’ve made progress!

If all goes according to schedule, I hope to  start putting color on the walls the day after Thanksgiving!  I’m really looking forward to seeing how much “my” colors change the look and feel of each room.

At some point this week, I will try to take a break from working inside so I can take a few photos of all the progress outside. 

Tractor & Carpet Shopping

Hubby has been looking for a BIG used tractor with a BIG scoop on the front  to use at our property  in Hooterville so today he and I took a  drive a couple hours north of the Tampa Bay area to Ocala, Florida to preview some used farm equipment that will be auctioned off this Friday.

The lobby of the auction house had several of these floor to ceiling display cases filled with all types of model tractors.  I bet little (and big) boys go nuts when they see all those tractors.

Hubby only found one tractor that would meet his needs but unfortunately, it was already sold  so he will continue shopping.

 

Meanwhile, I’m trying to decide on carpet and wood laminate flooring.   I find it so darn difficult to chose a color because the colors always look so much different on a larger scale than they do in the little display swatches in the store. 

Hopefully, I’ll have some more photos of the progress on the house in Hooterville in a few days.

An Apology To Those Who Leave Comments

It has been almost 6 months since I started my blog and up until this week, I had  received only a couple spam comments during that time.  However,  for some reason, I have received 3 or 4 spam comments in this past week alone, primarily on older posts.  I don’t understand why all of a sudden I am now getting a rash of these  unsavory comments but I don’t want links for male “enhancement” products etc.  “dirtying” up my blog.  If possible, I’d like to nip this in the bud so,  for now,  I have decided to enable the Word Verification feature for comments.

It really saddens me to have to resort to this because I know most people dislike having to type those Word Verification letters when they want to leave a comment.   As you probably know, another option would be for me to turn on the “Comment Moderation” feature instead of the Word Verification  but if I use the Comment Moderation,  your comments would not appear until I had a chance to approve them.  With me running back and forth to the house in Hooterville, I might not get a chance to approve your comments right away and I’d really like for  comments to appear as soon as you leave them.

If you have a preference… Word Verification or Comment Moderation…please feel free to let me know.  (To use both would be redundant so it would be either one or the other.)

Again, I apologize for this inconvenience to you.    Please know I only plan on  using one of these features for a short time, in an effort to  see if it will encourage the spammers to go elsewhere.

Ooooops! We Weren’t Expecting THAT!

I guess when you buy a house it’s normal  for unexpected problems  to pop up.

Even if you have the house inspected by a certified house inspector prior to purchase, like we did,  there are bound to be a few surprises.

Our first surprise at the house in Hooterville arose a mere 24 hours after we became the new owners. 

No water! 

Oooops!  We weren’t expecting THAT!

This city girl is accustomed to turning on the faucets and getting city water any time of the day or night.  Now that I’m going to be living in the country, I guess I have to get use to our water coming from a well…and apparently a problem with the well pump can  affect my ability to have water whenever I want it.   Hmmm…who knew? 

Hubby made his first trip (of about 6 since Friday)  to Lowe’s to buy a pressure switch to fix the well pump.

Then one of the toilets started leaking. 

Oooops!    We weren’t expecting THAT!

Hubby went back to Lowes for more parts but ultimately decided that since there are two other bathrooms in the house, he would just turn the leaking toilet off and repair it later.

Once I started stripping the wallpaper in the breakfast room, I discovered a second wallpaper pattern (stripes) under the solid blue paper. 

Oooops!  I wasn’t expecting THAT!

Since stripping wallpaper is one of my favorite projects  (NOT!), I was a little disheartened  to find TWO layers needed removing instead of just one.

Then we removed some decorative wood “shingles” under the bay window and found mildew and rotted wallboard. 

Oooops!  We weren’t expecting THAT!

Apparently the window just needs more caulk outside.  Caulking and replacing wallboard have now been added to the “To Do” list.

On the positive side, all the chair rail has been removed and about half the wallpaper is down.

This wall has gone from this…

to this.

 

And the hallway to the bedrooms has gone from this…

 

to this!

 

All the windows got measured for plantation shutters today but for now,  I just ordered the one for the bay window, since covering that window is a priority for privacy and to reduce the amount of sun (and heat) that comes in that big expanse of  glass.  The ceilings got a fresh coat of paint today too. 

Outside, things are equally busy.  The property has been mowed with a “bush hog.”  All of the overgrown plants and bushes around the house have been cleared away.  (I was absolutely adamant  nothing be left that could harbor snakes!) 

After only 2 days of use, Hubby’s new “farm tough” chain saw already died, which meant another trip back to Lowe’s to return it and get a new one!

The 4500 feet of new fencing (6,000 pounds)  has been delivered and we are waiting for the fence posts to be delivered so the fence installer can begin.  And the big barn got pressure washed today.

Slowly but surely things are happening at the house in Hooterville!

It’s a Done Deal

 

It’s officially a done deal.

We now own a horse farm.

We signed the papers on the Hooterville house this afternoon.

I’m still somewhat shell-shocked because it all happened so fast.  Approximately 6 weeks from start to finish!

After the closing, we spent more than three hours in Lowe’s loading up two carts with our first round of supplies…paint, tools,  a chain saw, new door locks, etc.

 

I don’t know why this makes me laugh so much…  Hubby has his first “farm tough” toy!

Tomorrow we’re off to WalMart to purchase a load of cleaning supplies.

Then the hard work begins.

I will be  updating you as often as possible on the progress.

You Never Know Who You Will Meet Via Craigslist

Recently, I saw this dining table and chairs advertised for sale on my local Craigslist.  I thought it might work for the breakfast room at the house in Hooterville so I contacted the seller and asked to come see it.

 

Interestingly, the seller lives only minutes from me.  And even more interesting…she is a real estate stager/interior designer.   She gave me a tour of her home and it is cottage cute!  Just my style.

As it turned out, her table was much  too big for my breakfast room but in the course of our conversation, I told her how overwhelmed I have been with all the decorating decisions I need to make at the house in Hooterville and  I asked her if she would be willing to  help me with some decisions.  She said she would be glad to and she even offered to give me a very affordable discounted hourly rate. 

She wanted me to email her some photos of my current house, the new house, inspiration photos of rooms or furniture, and a list of things I liked and didn’t like with regard to decorating.  Once she saw the pictures of my current decorating style, she said she was really excited to work on this project with me because our tastes are so similar.

Today, she and her business partner drove all the way over to the new house and we spent three hours walking through each room,  talking about flooring options, the furniture I’m bringing with me from my current house, furniture pieces I need to buy, placement of furniture,  etc.     Overall, their ideas for the house are almost identical to what I had envisioned. 

They did suggest  some interesting paint colors that I would not have selected on my own.   However, they pointed out the new house does not get a lot of natural light so my choices in paint need to be different than what I would use in my current home, which is flooded with natural light, especially in the afternoons.

I think I’m going to step outside my comfort zone and try these colors  anyway because, after all, it’s just paint. 

Having her as a resource has really taken some of the stress of decision-making off of me.  What would be the chances that  I would answer an ad on Craigslist and end up meeting a decorator who shares my love of cottage style?  I think she was heaven sent.

Creamy Crock Pot Chicken with Pasta

Now that the weather is turning cooler, this very easy  recipe will be on the menu a little more often at my house.  Although it is certainly not low calorie or low fat, it is “stick-to-your-ribs” comfort food at its  best!  My family loves it, especially my daughter.   I always invite her over for  dinner when I know I’m going to be making this recipe.

The ingredients and preparation are really simple…

boneless chicken breasts or strips, cream of chicken soup, chicken broth, cream cheese, Good Seasons Italian seasoning, parsley, and your favorite pasta or rice (which I forgot to photograph).

 

Arrange cubed chicken breasts (or strips…my preference) in the bottom of the crock pot.

 

Sprinkle with the Good Seasonings Italian seasoning.

 

Spoon Cream of Chicken soup over the chicken.

 

Pour 1  10 ounce can of chicken broth over that.

 

Cut 8 ounces of cream cheese into small chunks and layer over chicken mixture.  The original recipe called for the cream cheese to be added during the last hour of cooking but I found adding it at the end did not allow enough time for it to cook down and blend well with the sauce.  It always remained lumpy.  Now I add it at the beginning and I am happier with the end result. 

 

Sprinkle with parsley.

 

Cover and cook on low in the crock pot for 4 to 6 hours.  Whisk “gravy” to thoroughly blend before serving over your favorite style of pasta or rice.  Don’t forget the “dippin’ bread” to sop up all that delicious gravy! 

Yum!

 

Creamy Crock Pot Chicken with Pasta

• 4 boneless chicken breasts, cubed (or boneless chicken strips)

• 1 can (10 ounces) cream of chicken soup

• 1 can (10 ounces) chicken broth

• 1 envelope Good Seasons Italian Dressing seasoning

• 8 ounces of cream cheese

• Parsley flakes

• Pasta or rice

Put chicken in the bottom of crock pot.  Sprinkle chicken with seasoning mix, add Cream of Chicken soup, chicken broth, cream cheese cut into small chunks, and parsley.  Cover and cook on low for 4 to 6 hours.  Serve over pasta or rice.

 

I’m linking up with the

Recipe Exchange Party at Southern Hospitality

and

Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum

I’m Late!

I hate to be late.

For anything.

I pride myself in trying hard to be timely in everything I do so I’m so sorry I’m late announcing the winner of my giveaway.  

I have a really good excuse though.  Monday the Hooterville house deal almost went off in the ditch…permanently.  The reason completely blindsided us and  threw us for a loop.   My husband and I did a lot of talking, crying, praying, and more talking.  It was intense and stressful.  We kept wishing we had a crystal ball.

But we’re back on track now and we’re  ready to move forward…just hoping and praying  we made the right decision.

The response to this giveaway was great!    Thank you all so much for your wonderful enthusiasm over  the book, Blogging For Bliss. 

The winner, as selected by the Random Number Generator “thingy”  was…..

#11…...  Marty @ A Stroll Thru Life

Congratulations Marty!  Even though you are a very seasoned blogger with many followers, I’m sure  you will enjoy adding this book to your library.  I will be in touch with you to get your address.

Needed: A Pied Piper of Snakes

I don’t like snakes. 

Period.

All snakes terrify me.  Even if they are small and harmless, I am beyond phobic. 

I cannot even stand to look at them on television or in a book.  I absolutely must  look away or close my eyes.   If you don’t like snakes either, I can assure you,  you will NOT be seeing any pictures of snakes here on my blog.

Now that you know about my intense fear of snakes,  do you want to guess who  had the first snake encounter at the  Hooterville house?

Yep.   I saw it  slither right up and peer  in the bay window of the family room. 

I swear I heard it hiss, “Welcome to life in the country, city girl!”

As soon as I saw it  I screamed.

Then I ran to another room and cried, shook like a leaf and had heart palpitations.

My husband ran outside and pulled the “harmless black snake” off the window.  I’m sure he  must have been thinking to himself, “Damn!  Damn! Damn!  I’ll never get her to move here now!” 

Everybody says, “Oh, once you get everything mowed and the overgrowth cleared out, you won’t have  snakes anymore.

Can I get that in writing?

So put your snake-proof boots on because we’re going outside.   This might be your only chance to see the Hooterville property….since I don’t plan to spend  much time outdoors after my snake encounter.

The house in Hooterville sits on  a little over 30 acres.  The tax appraiser’s records indicate there are just over 28.5 acres and an additional 2 acres of “low lands.” 

 

This aerial photograph shows the property boundaries within the heavy black lines.

 

There are a few neighbors to the north but the properties to the east, west and south are either wooded or used for agriculture.

 

Here’s a zoomed in view that shows the house, barns and there’s even a pond.

 

As I mentioned before, this is a foreclosure property and it has been vacant for almost a year.  As you can see in the above photo, only a little over  half  the property has been cleared but after being unattended for so long, it is all quite overgrown now.

Let’s jump in the truck and drive around the property.

 

This is the realtor’s photo of the main barn before the vegetation got so out of control.

 

It has a nice wide concrete center aisle and 8 stalls. 

This is how it is looking now.  The grass is so long, it is laying over on it’s side.  But this looks manicured compared to what you will see toward the end of this post!

 

There are 2 other small primitive barns that need sprucing up  before they will be usable.

 

These are the strawberry fields on the west side of the property.

 

Now we are heading south to the wooded area of the property.  My husband was able to track down the former owner and he said that in addition to the pond,  there is  a  little stream back in the woods.  He also told my husband  there is/was a road that had been cut through there too.  If it can be found and cleared again, it might make a nice trail for our borders to ride their horses.

 

As we got further south, the photo below is  what we had to drive through!  This  was taken sitting high up in the truck.  (You don’t really think this sissy city girl  would get out in this to take a picture, do you?) 

The vegetation was as tall as the truck and was kind of scary!  Quite honestly,  I have some serious concerns about my husband’s safety when he starts clearing out this mess.  Heaven only knows that dangers lurk in all of this overgrowth!  To me, this is far more scary than any of the dangers he might have come face to face with  in all  the  years he has worked  in law enforcement.  Thank goodness he knows how to use a gun.

 

This is the pond.  It looks like it is pretty big but again, until all the overgrowth is cleared, it’s hard to tell.   Rumor has it there are alligators in it. 

Great.

 

Now we are heading back toward the house and this is the orange grove on the east side of the property. 

 

This is the view out one of the back bedroom windows.  Can you see the grape arbor on the right side of the photo?  (Some of these photos might enlarge if you click on them.)

 

Well, that’s all of  the Hooterville House Tour for now.

The closing has been moved up to October 30th.   Yikes! That’s just two weeks away!   Shortly thereafter, all the hard work will begin so I hope you will check back periodically to see our progress.

“Blogging For Bliss” Book Giveaway

I’m interrupting the Hooterville House Tour to have a giveaway!

Some of you may know blogger, Tara Frey.  And some of you may know that she has written a book called, Blogging for Bliss.

It has been a while since I’ve had a giveaway so I’d like to join the monthly giveaway party at My Romantic Home and gift one of my readers with a copy of Tara’s book.

From cover to cover, the book contains  lots of good information about blogging, like the very basics of how to set up a blog, to how to make your blog and photos more visually appealing, and ways to increase traffic to your blog.

I particularly liked the section on blog etiquette. 

Also, one of the things Tara mentions in the book…and I whole-heartedly agree:  blog readers want to connect with you so you should consider putting your photo somewhere near the top of your sidebar where it is easy to spot.  I know when I visit a new blog, I always look for the blog author’s photo and profile info FIRST, before I even read the post.   It does make me feel more connected with the blogger.

Personally, I also like it when the profile gives some indication where the blogger lives.   When a blogger doesn’t say where they live, I’m always wondering if they live five minutes from me…or halfway around the world.   I can understand not wanting to be too specific by naming the exact city or town,  but  a state or area of a state or country is better than nothing.  I think it’s just another way to enhance and foster a kinship and following  with readers who may live in your area.

In the book, Tara has also profiled some of the best bloggers in Blogland.

So, whether you are a seasoned blogger who has been blogging for years, or whether you are  contemplating starting a blog, or  perhaps  you are just an avid blog reader,  I think you will enjoy this book.

Since I don’t like a lot of rules connected with giveaways, I am going to make this real simple.  If you would like an opportunity to win this book, all you have to do is leave me a comment on this post by midnight (Eastern time) Sunday, October 18, 2009.

Easy enough, right?

You do not have to have a blog to enter this giveaway.  However, if you don’t have a blog, just be sure you leave your email address in your comment so I have a way to  notify you if you win.  If you don’t want your email address to appear in your comment, feel free to email it to me at:  

mycottageofbliss@yahoo.com

I will announce the winner on Monday, October 19, 2009.

Oh, and don’t forget to go over and sign up for Cindy’s giveaway.

Then visit all the other bloggers who are participating in this month’s giveaway.  Be sure to check the comment section on Cindy’s October 12 post too because some bloggers left the links to their giveaways there before Cindy got MckLinky up.

Hooterville House Tour-Part 2

Wow.  I am just so encouraged by all of the wonderful comments ya’ll have been leaving for me.     Your reassurance that the house in Hooterville  has good bones and a lot of potential has made me feel better.   Even though I know I have months, if not years, of work ahead of me to make this house into a home,  I’m feeling a little less overwhelmed.

Even in its less than lovely condition, my husband is extremely anxious to move into the new house as soon as possible after the closing.  Understandably, this city girl is  not as anxious as he is.   But  since we don’t plan on selling our current home,  there is really no rush to make the move immediately.  I plan to stay put  as long as possible…until at least the painting is done and new floors and carpet is installed.

In addition, this move cannot possibly take place in one weekend.  Probably not even in one month.  We have been in our current home 34 years.  We have a lot of stuff.  Too much needless stuff.  I want to take this opportunity to go through everything and purge things we no longer need or want anymore.  It’s the perfect time to pare down and simplify.  Then, once we have totally made the transition to the new house in Hooterville, we will rent our house out.

In this post, I  thought I’d show you the bedroom end of the Hooterville house.  

Right off the family room is the hallway to the bedrooms.  Is this scary, or what?!    This is the hallway to hell.  I really don’t like this end of the house.

Really and truly, I am stressing most  over how I’m going to  work with the dimensions and layouts of the four bedrooms and 1 of the bathrooms.  

Sadly, the architect who designed this house  put all the square footage in the living areas of the house and really skimped on the bedrooms. 

The dimensions of  two of the bedrooms are marginally adequate but there is not a lot of good usable wall space so furniture placement is going to be very difficult.  The other two bedrooms are so small they don’t appear big enough to even accommodate a queen size bed, much less anything else to make for a comfortable guest room.

The first bedroom on the left of the hall  is really small. And really bright!  New carpet and paint is a must.  Not only in here, but throughout the whole house.

 

I don’t even have a decent photo of this bedroom, which is across the hall but, trust me, it’s small too.

 

Because of this bumped out closet, the room is not even 10 feet wide.   But look!  The only wallpaper I have to remove in here is a border!  Yippeeee!

By the way, THANK YOU, Anita for the tip about the reasonably priced wallpaper steamer that Lowe’s carries.    I had considered renting one but I never thought about actually looking into buying one.   I guess I just assumed they were really expensive.  I definitely will get one and I know it will  be money well spent!

 

This bathroom has 2 doors.  One opens to the hallway (where this photo was taken from) and the other door opens into one of the bedrooms.  You can see the second door is partially open to the bedroom on the right side of the photo.  

This bathroom has a lot of potential but I’m definitely not feeling the 2 different floors here.  In fact, this whole house has a mish-mash of different types of flooring in almost every room.

As you can see, it is actually a nice size  so I am completely baffled why they installed a pedestal sink and wasted the other 4 feet  to the left of the sink.  Based on the weird placement of the lighting fixture, I’m wondering if there might have been  a cabinet style sink in here at one time.  Odd.  Just odd. 

Here you can see how the bathroom and bedroom are connected.  I realized I don’t really have a good photo of this bedroom either.  Small rooms are almost impossible to photograph.

You can sort of get the idea of what it’s like from the reflection in the closet doors…although the mirrors make it seem bigger than it really is.  The room size is only 14 x 11.5.

Neither this room, or the master bedroom is big enough to accommodate our bed and all the pieces of our bedroom furniture so we are going to use 2 bedrooms for the time being.  We will put our king-sized bed and night stands in this bedroom.

 

We’ll put the rest of the bedroom furniture in the “master” bedroom (below) and use it as a dressing room.  At some point, we plan to consult with an architect about knocking out the wall between the two bedrooms and opening them up into one big master suite.

 

I’ve saved the very best part (NOT) of the house tour for last.  The bathroom in the master bedroom.

We won’t even have to leave the house to feel like we are on vacation and staying in a cheap motel! 

Good grief!  What am I going to do to make this better?

Take a  sledgehammer to it is the first thing that comes to my mind.

Next time I’ll show you the barns and the 28 + acres of jungle my husband has to tame.

The House in Hooterville

I’d like to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who left such encouraging comments regarding our impending move to Hooterville.  I really am trying to focus on the positives and look at this move as a great, fun adventure but I’m the type of person who doesn’t require much change.  In fact, I feel most comfortable when things are the same, secure and predictable so this huge change is rocking my formally secure and predictable world just a wee little bit.

The move to Hooterville wasn’t planned.  Buying horse property was  something we have talked about…  

“Maybe someday…”  or “If we ever won the lottery…” kind of conversation. 

Certainly it wasn’t anything we dreamed would happen right now, if ever.  But less than four weeks ago, this opportunity just suddenly dropped right into our laps, so to speak.

Due to a foreclosure,  the property was already listed far below assessed value.  Then the bank ended up accepting our offer of  $77,000 less than their original asking price.   We are still a bit shocked because we aren’t usually this lucky.

We spent the better part of this past Monday over at the house while several pre-purchase inspections were taking place.  So far, everything is progressing along nicely and we are scheduled to close on November 10th.

The house needs considerable updating inside.   I’ve taken a lot of photos so let me take you on a little tour.  But brace yourself because some of the photos you are about to see are not pretty.

The outside is not too bad…a typical brick ranch style home. 

If you come in the front door entry and turn to the left,  you see the  formal “sunken”  living room  (in the  foreground)  and dining room (in the background). 

This photo is taken from the dining room, looking back across the living room to the entryway in the background.  Fresh paint and new carpet is planned for these two rooms.    I’m not real thrilled with the two different levels in the floor and I’m hoping there is a simple, economical way to build the living room floor up to the same height as the rest of the house.

There are two of these crystal chandeliers…one in the living room and one in the dining room.  You can see them both in the above photo.  I can’t wait to take the spray paint to these!

 

There is a nice bay window and a massive  stone fireplace in the family room.   I’m not loving the hugeness of the fireplace  or all the orange and yellow tones of the stone.  I’ve never had a fireplace before so I could use some suggestions on what to do to improve it!  Definitely  lots of paint and new carpet is needed in here too.

This is the wall opposite the bay window.  Just look at that wallpaper! 

Everyone seems to love the rustic look of the kitchen.  Everyone  but me. 

All the dark orangey wood and terracotta colored tiles on the countertops and floor make it feel like a cave to me.

 

In my humble opinion, this was a DIY project gone bad.  Note the gap between the dishwasher and pantry.  Also, there is an unfinished piece of plywood in the bottom of the pantry.   The pantry door is a piece of lattice.  The tile backsplash isn’t even finished off.  The rough edge of each tile was left exposed. 

 

Eventually, I would like to gut the whole kitchen and start over but I will probably just paint the cabinets for a temporary facelift.

 

Behind the kitchen  is the breakfast room.  At first I thought the lower walls were just painted a hideous blue but no such luck.  More wallpaper!

Right off the breakfast room is the office (or 5th bedroom, although there is no closet).  As you can see, this whole room is wallpapered!  After my recent nightmarish experience with wallpaper, I am NOT looking forward to removing all this wallpaper!

 

On the other side of the breakfast room is a sun porch.  It’s a cute little room and I am looking forward to decorating it.

 

Down the hallway from the breakfast room is one of three bathrooms.

And then a little farther down the hall is the laundry room.  If you could see the little dirty, dreary corner of the garage where I currently do laundry, you would understand why I'm so excited about this laundry room.   It's almost 10 feet x 15 feet!!!  It doesn’t look like much right now but believe me, I have BIG plans for this room!

Now that you’ve seen some of the rooms, if you have any decorating ideas, please let me hear them.  I’m going to need all the assistance I can get!

Next time I will take you on a tour of the bedroom end of the house.