Once upon a time...

There was a girl who found the home of her dreams.  It was in the neighborhood in which she had been raised and it was where she wanted her daughter to grow up.  She and her husband took a risk, put in an offer and sat back while the banks did their business.  Five months later, she closed on the short sale and called the 1910 lady all hers.  Then, she decided she would blog about her adventures and all the things that she and her family would do to put their fingerprints on the home that they never thought they would have.  


Then reality hit!

Thankfully, I can say the above story is mostly true.  Indeed, my husband and I thankfully own the home of our dreams.  Our now four-year-old LOVES her home complete with her pink and purple room that we have decorated for her.  Alas, the blog...it has not been well kept as I would have liked.  It all started with the pesky home computer problems and uploading of pictures.  Part of me feels like you cannot blog if you do not have pictures to show along with the words that you find interesting.  So I am slack.  Some would say I am over extended.  I have one girlfriend who questions if I ever sleep! Yes, I am a busy body.  I love to volunteer and do things...getting out and about is awesome!  Part of my itch to do something was this blog. I am going to do my best yet again to get back to it.  I will post pictures...I owe the World Wide Web something for starting up this domain, don't I?

So if you stumble upon this blog or you have bookmarked it because you are my friend, continue to peep in from time to time.  I promise, I will start to write again and see where this dream continues to go!

Paint progress report...

After much debate, days of scanning countless color wheels, and having multiple color samples painted on the house, we finally bit the bullet and allowed the painters to move forward with changing the colors of our home.  My, oh my, how color can change the way your house looks! I think a girlfriend of mine summed it up best when she said, "Love it! Make it your own, girl." It finally feels like we are making this house "ours" for real, especially now that our touches can be seen not only on the inside but now on the outside as well.  I'll post "after" pictures once the painting is finally complete!

PS: I am tying to figure out why people can't post to my blog entries.  For those of you who tried and emailed me your thoughts on the paint, thank you!

Taking a poll: What do you think?

Well, ladies and gentlemen! The first set of color samples were painted today.  Below is a picture of the first set of colors. Would love to know what you think! I am not going to tell you how I feel because I want some unbiased opinions!!!

Could we have a match???

The sands of the hourglass have slipped to a low and the time has come to make a decision on paint colors.  The painters have been scrapping and sanding the house for almost five days and today, they started priming the wood.  Our lead painter is going to pick up the samples this evening and will paint the window, accent and wall with the colors we are leaning toward choosing.  I have placed a link to the green we like from a historical paint collection.  Beneath the green is the cream color I have asked the painter to get and then, we have picked a red/brown to go inside the window as an accent color.  After he paints a sample tomorrow, I will post a picture to see what you all think :)

House colors

Something old, something new...

...Or really, just something old that is new to us! We purchased our "first" piece of antique furniture for the house last week.  I took leave from work to teach VBS in the mornings and then to do absolutely whatever I wanted the rest of the day.  A true "staycation" of sorts.  Unfortunately due to lingering bronchitis/mild pneumonia, the afternoons were more nap filled than accomplishment filled but if you aren't healthy you cannot have fun, right?

Since VBS was only for four days, a girlfriend and I did some shopping along the many antique stores that dot Church Street heading into the Marietta Square on my full freebie Friday.  As we wandered, we found one particular store that was having a 50 percent off all furniture sale.  Can't beat that, right?  We poked around and my eye kept returning to a beautiful, mahogany corner cabinet from the early 1940s.  It was in beautiful condition and coincidentally, was calling my name.  After making mental notes, we continued along our tour and found a similar cabinet in another establishment.  The piece was the same original price as the other, and the gent running the place is willing to come down about 30 percent.  My heart still longs for the other piece more than this one. Price had something to do with it but the detail of the first cabinet was much more unique than the second one.

After lunch and a few hours later, I found myself back in the first store putting the cabinet on hold.  I was petrified someone would come and snatch it before I could show it to my husband.   I know I want the piece but you have to be certain everyone is in agreement with such a "forever" type of purchase!

By dusk, the sale was made and we will bring it home at the end of the week! We are so excited.  Here is a snap shot from my cell phone.  I love that it has two drawers above the base cabinet.  The top shelf has pie dividers to place goodies in safely.  I can't wait to bring it home.

Another thing we are looking forward to having in the house is a carpet runner for the stairs.  After my horrific fall and too many close calls by not only me (again), my daughter, husband and our poor, black lab, we decided we needed to install the runner before moving onto other projects.  The carpet is on order and we are hoping to have it in place within the next two weeks or so. Since I am still having laptop problems, I have very few original pictures to post.  Here is a shot from the vendor Web site. This is the runner we picked as well as the stair rods.  We chose the antique brass rods with pineapples after seeing similar runners with this option in several of the period homes off the square. Cannot wait to see it in ours!

Looking for the perfect shade of Haint Blue

We've decided that we want to change the color of our home.  That was the easy part.  The hard part is trying to decide what color to paint it.  Everyone seems to have white with black shutters or some sort of brown or green.  We are tired of the grey-blue that is on the home currently.  About the only thing I do know what I want is a Haint Blue for the porch ceiling.

What is Haint Blue exactly? There are various shades depending on the region in which you live.  I found a really good Web site that has researched the history of Haint Blue and its progression.  Basically, a Haint is a restless spirit and the blue color is said to keep it away from the inside of your home.  A spirit pool perhaps is a good description.  Some of the homes in our area have them and all the shades are different.  I think I like the Haint Blues from Savannah, Georgia the best so far.

As for the rest of the house, well....maybe we'll figure that out sooner or later!

May day! May day!

Wow...where in the world does time go?  Thanks to my job, which is completely brutal for the first three to four months out of the year, my spare time becomes extremely rare and things like blogging go completely by the wayside.  I am going to try and catch up.  Now that spring has arrived, there are things I can blog about regarding the home and what we have going on here.

My daughter turned four in April and we all pitched in to get her a new play set.  Long gone are the aluminum swing sets of days gone by. We have a play fort, slide, rock wall, rope wall, tire swing, regular swings, monkey bars and a trapeze bar.  Should make for years of fun, we hope.  My husband marked off the perimeter and PlayNation came and built the set.  After it was complete, the perimeter was blocked off by timbers and will soon be filled in with mulch. 

As the warmer weather arrived, we began to learn what our yard contained.  We have many Camilla bushes that boast fat, pink and white blooms.  I found a cluster of Lenten Roses as well as other beautiful blooms that we are still trying to identify.  There are several white azalea bushes and clusters of daffodils.  The side yard is still wild but by watching things come into bloom, we know where to trim and where we should wait and see what else is waiting to pop up as the temperatures begin to rise.

We bought a dining set for our patio and a large umbrella to sit under.  The next thing we need to do is to hire an electrician to come in and fix the lighting on the back porch.  There are light but of course, there is no light switch to be found that belong to them. 

Now that work has settled down and I have found the USB cords to both cameras, I should be able to get back in the blogging saddle and share some more of our dream with you.