My home is an extension of me...........a mess hahahahah just kidding!
I have a 3 bdrm 1200 sq ft house with no basement (ranch style I think they call it in the US).
When you walk in my door at the side you enter a room referred to as a mudroom. Yep I ceramic tiled the floor myself. The walls are covered with white wallpaper with tiny little blue flowers. (you will note a distinctive theme of blue throughout) There is shelving in there and that is where my freezer and dryer are. My wash machine is in my kitchen beside my dishwasher (don't ask lololololol - its an old house)
The mudroom leads directly to my kitchen which is huge.....and the kitchen to the living room with its royal blue carpet, picture of my cat hanging on one wall and a huge framed picture of dolphins on the wall directly in front. I have black furniture and a couch and loveseat that is black with all kinds of pastel colours running through it including the colour of my carpet. I have a bunch of my nieces pictures hanging above the tv stand.
In the masterbedroom I made this neat blind swag. It is brown silk and matches the beige walls. I have beige vertical blinds hanging down almost to the floor and then I took this brown silk and made my own curtains without any sewing. It looks very romantic!
Bedroom #2 - nothing special just a spare room
Bedroom #3 - actually my computer room. Baby blue carpeting and I sponge painted a darker blue on the walls to about half way up. The upper half is white. I find it a very relaxing and tranquil room to study in.
AND that is my house! It is nothing fancy just a home. It is on a nice quiet street in the middle of the city. The area is nice-a bunch of young families and the houses are mostly older. There is a park just down the road as well as two schools. I am a 5 minute bike ride to a path that goes along a man made lake called Boulevard Lake. Very scenic. I cannot see Lake Superior from my house however if I drive 2 blocks I can see the lake as I drive down the hill I live on.
oh and i have a bunch of flower beds in back and front, an evergreen and a popular tree in my front yard and 3 cedars in front of my house.
This sounds a lovely home. Not sure about the square feet thing, we don't say that here, so I can't picture how big it is. When you sell a house here, the agents say things like 'large garden' or, if it's small (and a lot of them are small in England!) they say it's 'easy to manage'. What is ranch style? What's strange about washing machine in kitchen? Mine is. I don't have a dishwasher, only my Mum!! I like it that you have a picture of your cat on the wall - I do that!! And dolphins? If you remember the picture I got posted of me getting a kiss from the dolphin, you'll know why I have that one in a frame! What is a blind swag? And what flowers do you grow in your flower beds? My favourites are trailing surfinia, preferably in that cerise pink colour.
We have a 3 bedroomed bungalow, which is quite big by English standards (it has to be, with my Mum living here as well as us). I have photos of all the animals I've ever had hanging on walls. I've got little ornaments from all the places I've visited on holidays, onyx stuff from Mexico, a didgerido (Kath will correct my spelling) and boomerang from, you guessed it - Oz! Little dishes and ashtrays from Portugal, Greece and Spain. I collect Wedgewood 'Angela' porcelain, but it's out of production now, so when I'm 478 yrs old, I'll be rich.
My home is a small 2 bedroom. I have a corner lot in an older neighbor 3 blocks from the city park and 2 blocks from the high school. Lots of big trees: mostly oak but my neighbor has a Mimosa that I've tried to start for the 5 years since I've lived here! (Tiny town - population 8000)
My bedroom is light blue and yellow with a quilt on the bed, my grandma's dresser and my night stand, covered in books, perfume, and dust, mostly.
My spare room is still in a state of disarray, no theme. My living room has a celestial theme - suns, moons, stars and everything navy and gold. Oak endtables and coffee table, entertainment center and 2 books shelves, cram packed.
My kitchen has an apple theme, forest green counter tops and floors, oak cabinets and waaaaaaaaaaaay too much apple stuff.
My yard is a decent size with a few trees - but the best part is that across the street is my best friend of 22 years and on the other side is the man who helped me stay sane through my divorce - my handyman neighbor!
Monica
This is your life. Are you who you want to be? ~ Switchfoot
Kid, mine now has a fiancee! I told him that he'd better explain to his wife that he has to build me a new house next to the one they're moving into - I can't be more than 34 steps from his back door!
UGH! The good ones don't stay single for long, huh?!
Monica
This is your life. Are you who you want to be? ~ Switchfoot
I've gotta see that picture of your cat hanging on the wall. I've seen cats hanging on the drapes, but never hanging on the wall.
(ducking)
Chris
ps. My "old" house was originally built about a hundred years ago and updated several times since. It now has four bedrooms, two and a half baths, an office, a screened porch that is wonderful on most summer evenings, and lots of big trees. My "new" house is about 50 years old, two bedrooms, a cool new basement family room, and it's on almost a half-acre. Alas, all the big trees were cut down years ago (I can tell because the stumps are still there). Both are in the city, about 10-15 minutes from downtown. (Almost 850,000 people live in the combined city-county limits, with several hundred thousand more in the suburban counties.)
well i live in a typical 1970's style 4 x 2 aussie double brick house. reddish brown bricks with reddish brown roof tiles to match. oh and there are double arches across the front where the carport is so the kid's grew up thinking they lived in macdonalds haha.
when i moved in 10 yrs ago it was wallpaper city haha,even that red velvet stuff you used to find in resturants haha, of course it was a feature wall haha. now i have removed most of it only two walls in mr 12's room and mr 17's room still has it, only because he refuses to let me get in there to remove it haha.
lets see, main bedroom has an ensuite and also a walk in robe (to hide all my crap). then there are 3 other bedrooms, one each for the boys and the other one (which is really big) is the computer room. we have also wired up the house so the boys can have puters in their rooms too.
then we have a lounge, dining, kitchen and a family room (which has a spare dining table where i dump my clean washing because i can never get to fold it haha). oh and another bathroom and toilet for the kids.
we live on a big corner block and the house is built more towards the back of the block so we have a long and not too wide back yard. but out there, is a shed (for hubby and other junk) fruit trees, lemon, grapefruit and a lilli pilli.
there is a patio area with the outdoor setting, barby, hammock and my chimenia so i can burn things we i am feeling bad/sad haha.
out the front there are about 15 rose bushes that are as old as the house. i also have azaleas, camelias, bottle brushes, some grass trees and bloody gazanias (hate them but they grow anywhere). there is also a token palm tree and basketball ring haha. very suburban really.
so that is my house. i was looking for a pick of it but cant find one. but sandy will be able to imagine it - 70's red brick hon, at least the benches in the kitchen arent orange or lime green though. mind you the boys toilet is green but i think they used to call it avocado haha, very posh.
When my ex and I were painting the masterbedroom we removed the wallpaper first. Underneath the wallpaper in paint was a huge heart that said I love you Barb. We bought the house from one of my ex's old bosses named Barb and Dan............boy oh boy did we bug them about that the next time we saw them!
Lime green was the old colour of my bathroom!!! YIKES now I know where it came from......Yick! I have pine at the bottom that has nicely cured and the top is painted all white with yellow sponge painting. It looks bright and sunny in contrast to the wood underneath. My dad kept telling me he felt claustrophobic in my bathroom and it is bigger than his.........I used to have this ugly dark purple with other dark colours mixed in wallpaper that somebody had put up. I decided on something light and bright to cheer up the place. Yellow seemed like just the ticket. Then I cut out the shapes from some wallpaper border i found........starfish, shells, etc......and pasted them on.
Flowers - well the back flowerbed has mostly strawberries and tomato plants lololol and I have a bunch of purple lilac bushes on one side of my yard.
The front flower bed has a bunch of different things - tulips that bloom in the spring, geraniums in pink and purple.......hmmm that's all i remember the names of lol I am not much of a gardener lol
"is a very very very fine house. With two cats in the yard. Life used to be so hard....."
Naw. Just one cat.
I have a 3-bedroom, 1-1/2 bath colonial. More like a colonial "cottage" -- it's small, but it's a fine size for the three of us right now. It does have a nice big porch that I enjoy, and a big dining room, which is also the PC/library room. The kitchen is painted a beautiful light peach color, which I love. I painted the living and dining room walls a very light cream color -- w/ white woodwork accents and put a big rose/red/yellow/green flower border around the top. Blush color carpet. Ocean blue bathroom, with a fun fishy shower curtain and little orange fish with bubbles stenciled about on the blue "ocean" walls. My son has a spiderman room. My bedroom is a light blush color with little flowers stenciled about the top. Daughter's room is a bit of a mishmash....
The house is okay. The neighborhoods and schools could be better....
hey anthony i remember the early days of your house
it looks absolutely wonderful, congratulations and worth heaps more than the million dollar mansion hahaha (who lives there anyway - anyone interesting haha)
Meaning - I bought out ex and have completely redone the inside. Had to - he screwed all the OW in the bedroom (and probably anywhere else he could, rat bastard that he is).
I have replaced the carpets with hardwood and tile (could have used your help, Kid!!). The redone kitchen has a grey marble counter and backsplash and rully, rully kewl brushed stainless appliances, including two convection ovens and a six burner professional stove. Let's just say that the contractor and I had some, um, intense conversations about its installation.
We - me, son, fiance, his two kids, and his Mom - move in on Thursday. Thank the heavens above, we have four bedrooms and three full baths, plus living, dining and family rooms in approximately 2300 square feet. Luckily, we all get along real well, so with all the room, we won't get on each others' nerves. If anything, the stress of the remodel and the move has proven that.
Nevertheless, I will miss my little rental place. It is half of a forties-era duplex and is quite comfortable for Jr. and me. It has a nice yard for my two huskies and Jr. to romp in and is 1 1/2 blocks from Trader Joe's and the bank where I opened my first non-joint account in 24 years.
Both places are in the same smallish city in the Bay Area - on an island in the Bay east and just south of San Francisco. I tell people that I live on the island without the prison.
“This used to be among my prayers – a piece of land not so very large, which would contain a garden and near the house a spring of ever-flowing water, and beyond these a bit of wood.” --Horace
I always loved this quote and about a decade ago, my prayers were answered. I have never felt comfort in the city and after a lifetime living in suburbia, H and I found a small piece of paradise in rural southern Ontario. The property is 7 acres – 2 of mixed forest around the perimeter of the property with a winding stream through it, 5 acres of grass/meadow (which I mow every 10 days)an 8' deep pond that is home to some huge goldfish we inherited when we moved here. We are often visited by blue herons, kingfishers, Canada geese and mallards, assorted bunnies, a fox family and while there are certainly deer and bear in the area – I have never seen one on our property – probably due to our dogs who keep the property well marked.
I have tea here on warm mornings:
About a 5 minute walk away is a large lake. You can smell it on the breeze at our house and when the loons call in the evening, it is just hauntingly beautiful. Although we do have neighbours on the next concession – the forest keeps us very private. Oh yes, we also have 31 gardens that are a large part of my life now and certainly have been a huge part of my personal recovery. They are home to a large collection of daylilies that I hybridize as a hobby and heirloom vegetables (mostly old-fashioned tomatoes). I guess I am a farmer at heart – for at least six months of the year my knees are muddy, hands stained and hair windblown – but I would not trade it for anything and I have never once missed the convenience of city life.
This is God’s country in the spring and summer, but winters in this area can be brutal. We have learned that electricity is our lifeline and that an ice storm, heavy snow, blowing snow and/or blackout are to be taken very seriously. With animals to care for and sump pumps that can overflow without power and rural roads that don’t get plowed quickly, you can’t just make your way to the nearest hotel for a few days. Every fall we stock up on canned goods, water, batteries, propane and a few of life’s finer necessities (who wants to ride out a storm in front of the fireplace without a good Chardonnay?) – just in case.
The house is a 3 bedroom Cape Cod about 20 years old which always has some project or other going on – when we bought the house it was well-built but needed upgrading and some finishing. We’ve done so much work in the fall/winter months when gardening season has past -- but there
are still a hundred things we’d like to tackle. However, number one on my list is to knock this house down and build a ranch style home. I dislike a two floor home with bedrooms/full baths on the upper level. I worry that we will have to leave here if one of us becomes incapable of doing stairs – I had a taste of several months sleeping on the couch and sponge baths in the kitchen sink after breaking my leg a few years back. It would not be possible to live on the lower floor long-term and it would break my heart to leave. Although the worst times of my life have been here – it is also a place of great healing and peace.
It looks beautiful there! I'm envious. Each of our neighbors properties have streams running through them, but our land is the "high ground" in-between. We've got no streams or ponds on our property...
> The property is 7 acres
We have just under 2 acres (1.95). All land in this area is now zoned for minimum 5 acre lots, so our lot size isn't even available anymore.
When we first moved here we were surrounded by forests. 80 acres of tall firs behind us, and another 80 acres across the road. Truly natures finest.
Unfortunately, developers bought the land behind us and logged it all off. Our property suddenly felt smaller. Then the same developer bought the land across the road and logged it off too. Now our two acres seems REALLY small.
> there are certainly deer and bear in the area
> I have never seen one on our property
The deer don't visit as much as they used to. The developers around here made sure of that. Once the forests were gone, so were the deer... We used to have deer every morning and evening. Now we only see them once or twice a month.
Bears are really rare around here. I woke up at 2am one night to banging on the dining window (I think he saw his own reflection in the moonlight). I couldn't believe my eyes and had to wake my wife or else she wouldn't believe me.
The last time was when my wife had a bunch of girls over for a party. As they were getting ready to go out to their cars, a bear came walking around the end of our mobile home. They all screamed and ran back in the house. I think the bear was more scared of all them crazy wimmins... I, of course, was out working in our new house and didn't see a thing.
Every couple of years or so, a bear will pass through the area and make a mess of the garbage cans looking for something to eat. But, we usually don't see them.
> electricity is our lifeline
We don't have your extremes, but we are in a similar situation. We're all electric here, so when the power goes out we lose our water (private well), lights, and heat. We've been snowbound here on our mountain a few times, and it's no fun without power.
We have a woodstove in our new house, so at least we have heat now when the power goes out, and can heat up food to eat.
> I worry that we will have to leave here if one of us
> becomes incapable of doing stairs
We had the same concern when we built our house, so ours is a single story home. All rooms have 3 feet wide doors for wheelchair access, and our master shower is wheelchair accessable (no curbs, doors, or curtains). We plan on living out our days here if at all possible.
I'll have a go at posting some pics I've just taken. Note that the sun is shining!!! A rare occurrence!!
Our house:
Bedroom with Fred and Charles on bed
Garden with, well, stuff you have in a garden
Lounge with computer, cos no room anywhere else for it!
Also, notice photo of Freckles in lounge xxx
This message has been edited by sandy6957 on Jul 5, 2005 1:10 PM This message has been edited by sandy6957 on Jul 5, 2005 1:09 PM
MT - that looks so lovely, I can just imagine being there and loving all that nature.
Anthony, your house is amazing. And I love the visitors, especially the one named Anthony...... xxxx What is that animal, anyway? A racoon? I expect you'll all laugh at my ignorance, I'll have to get Kath to post a pic of some animal that none of you will be able to name!!
Pardon my ignorance, but what's that white band running across the exterior photo of your house? I can't tell what it is from the photo.
The bedroom picture was too dark to make out, but it looks like you've got a screened porch out there? We could use one of those. The bugs around here can really spoil trying to relax outside...
> your house is amazing.
Thanks! My wife and I built it ourselves from 2003-2004. We also built the detached garage ourselves back in 2001. You would think we would be sick of it all, but we still toy with the idea of doing more building projects.
> What is that animal, anyway? A racoon?
Yep, it's a raccoon. It's kind of an unusual perspective, but I thought it was a cute picture.
And why, pray tell, would you want a LAWN in the middle of a FOREST? Egads, man. You'll have to MOW instead of doing useful, interesting things with your time.
I've spent 20 years shrinking the lawn with groundcover beds and plantings and shade trees. That's the trend around here.
The white band is a low brick wall painted white, and just to the right are wrought iron gates to the driveway. You're right about the bedroom, we have what we call a conservatory attached to the bedroom, which you can enter from either the bedroom or the garden. It was already there when we bought the house. Personally, I think it's a strange place for a conservatory, it would have been better attached to the dining room, which is also at the back. In case you guys don't have conservatories, it's mostly glass so it gets all the sun without the cold breeze, and it's really nice to sit out there in spring and autumn (fall?) but boy! does it attract insects?!!
Edited to add - did you realise that right under the pic of the racoon it says 'Anthony'?? Like that's his name!!
This message has been edited by sandy6957 on Jul 6, 2005 7:10 AM
This is the house I sold one year ago after the divorce.
I live in a small apartment, in a very nice complex with a huge view over the river bluff, which is nice. However, I don't like it and see this as temporary.
There is a house in my future somewhere.....I hope.
Anthony: I just love your home – looks like the finishes were done with a “country meets contemporary” concept .... it’s light and airy and very pleasing. H and I have a fondness for the Arts & Crafts period and over the years have collected a bit too much of dark oak furniture.
Mixed with brown leather seating it looks a bit funereal in here. We need to lighten things up! Great idea planning for future needs when you built your home – BTW, thank you for the idea of making the doorways wider to accommodate wheelchairs if we are ever in the position of doing a
huge renovation – that makes such good sense (though I don't anticipate being wheelchair bound for quite some time yet!)
Kath (from Australia, right?) Bears are a concern – especially those that are habituated to populated areas and there have been numerous livestock kill reports in the local news – several on farms less than a mile from here. When I’m out walking, I am aware of the possibility that
one may be in the area, but it really doesn’t bother me as daytime sightings are rare. What is more of a threat are the dogs that accompany their families to their weekend cottages on the lake. Unlike the local dogs that have a good sense of property boundaries, some visitor dogs that are left to roam unleashed can be quite assertive and defensive when you walk by. Some dog owners are such idiots. Ah, well... I will deal with the bears and dogs – and be glad I don’t have to deal with your taipan snakes and funnel spiders and other poisonous lovelies.
RW - That was a lovely house. I hope you find a lovely home sometime soon.
Yeah, I know... I'll be hating it when I have to start mowing it all the time. However, thanks to our climate and the shade from the large trees, I usually only need to mow 4 or 5 times each summer (only mowed twice last year!).
> I've spent 20 years shrinking the lawn with
> groundcover beds and plantings and shade trees.
I'm sure we'll be doing something similar in the long term, but right now we just needed to get something on the bare dirt. We have several spots in the yard where there are big boulders in the ground. They're low enough I can mow over the top of them, but my plans are to transplant some of the fir seedlings to those areas and make more natural beds.
Sandy,
> did you realise that right under the pic of the
> racoon it says 'Anthony'?? Like that's his name!!
Ooops... Just my signature...
RedWolf,
Wow! That looks like it was a big house. How many square feet was it?
M.T.,
> “country meets contemporary” concept
When we first planned our home, we were aiming for a "rustic" appearance. But, during construction, we kept upgrading this and that till it was a bit more upscale. To keep costs to a minimum, we were going to use vinyl floors, prefab tub/showers, unfinished wood ceilings, and very little trim work. But, our finances held out better than we first thought, so we upgraded to Australian Cypress wood floors, lots of tile work, finished ceilings, and lots of clear cedar trim, etc. We love the way everything turned out, but it's a long way from our initial plans.
However, we knew we wanted the T&G pine walls in our master bedroom, and the cedar ceilings from the very beginning. We actually bought the pine and cedar two years before we even started building the house. It's our "cabin getaway" without having to leave the house.
> have collected a bit too much of dark oak furniture.
I built most of the furniture in our house, so we have a fairly good variety of wood colors. Some is natural cedar, some is stained a dark oak, and my computer desk is stained a dark walnut. Whatever color I felt like at the time.
I built all of our kitchen and bathroom cabinets with birch plywood and standard #2 pine. The door panels are made from the pine leftover from our bedroom walls (ripped, glued into panels, and planed). Everything is stained with Minwax "Windsor Oak" gel stain, over a layer of wood preconditioner. The result is a light golden color, fairly close actually to the natural cedar color of our ceilings.
> Great idea planning for future needs
Another tip... These days you hear a lot about "structured wiring". In other words, they run all kinds of cables and whatnot through the house "just in case" you might use it some day. Instead, I chose to install junction boxes throughout the house with sections of conduit running down to the crawlspace. A lot less expensive, and I can easily add whatever cable systems I need without tearing into the walls. It's also easy to replace later as needs change. I've already used it to add cable TV and a computer network. Works great.
> I don't anticipate being wheelchair bound
> for quite some time
Same here, but you never know what will happen in the future. If nothing else, it helps to open the house up, and makes it much easier to move furniture in and out.
On a related note, when I was designing our house, I made sure that EVERY room was an easy straight shot in from the front door. After trying to get furniture in and out of houses and apartments with tight twisting hallways and whatnot, I was determined to avoid that. Ironically, we probably won't be moving much furniture in or out anymore.
> daytime sightings are rare.
Sounds like the coyote's in our area. We'll hear them yelping and howling every night. Sometimes it sounds like they're right in our own back yard. But, in 15 years I've only seen one briefly running across the road as I was driving home.
I remember you describing this house long time ago, quite a thing to actually see it in colour.
I am good with the pics on the computer or I would've put the up the pics from the demo of the original house and the transformation to my current house.
That was one lovely home. If it helps at all, my friend had a beautiful house, and a nasty husband. Really nasty. She had 3 miscarriages due to his violence - one time he threw her down the stairs and she miscarried there and then, but he just walked out and went to the pub without even calling an ambulance. She's left him now, thank goodness, even that was an event in itself, she had to jump out of first floor window to the police waiting below who caught her. She is now married again, she has nothing in the material sense, but she is so happy. And her first baby is due next month.
xxx
Charlie, as the experts aren't here, I'll tell you how I did mine:
Went to image, selected resize, took it down to 40% and selected pixels, saved it
xxx
> How did you get those pictures to a low enough
> resolution to post them?
Any graphics editor should allow you to do this.
I personally use Paint Shop Pro (still using version 4).
1. Load the picture in
2. Lighten or darken the picture if needed (I use gamma correction for this)
3. "Resample" it down to 400x300 (works better than resize for color photos)
4. Follow that with a "sharpen" operation (resampling down tends to blur the details).
5. Save the photo to a new file (short name, no spaces)
6. Use the "Insert Object" button, when composing a message on this forum, to upload your photo.
You know I did change the resolution to 500x something and also renamed it and I'm still getting a "file too large" message???
Being a tiny bit of a computer geek, I just haven't had time to play with these darned picture programs. Too much school work.
I'll try after I get some new pics :>)
Charlie
This message has been edited by charlie288 on Jul 7, 2005 12:32 AM This message has been edited by charlie288 on Jul 7, 2005 12:31 AM This message has been edited by charlie288 on Jul 7, 2005 12:31 AM This message has been edited by charlie288 on Jul 7, 2005 12:29 AM This message has been edited by charlie288 on Jul 7, 2005 12:28 AM This message has been edited by charlie288 on Jul 7, 2005 12:25 AM This message has been edited by charlie288 on Jul 7, 2005 12:24 AM
> You know I did change the resolution to 500x
> something and also renamed it and I'm still
> getting a "file too large" message???
Are you saving the file as a JPG? I haven't had any problems uploading files in the 50K to 80K range.
When you click the "Insert Object", you'll need to select the "Temporary Files" realm, then upload. Browse to find the file on your system, then click Upload. Once it's displayed on the web page, select the picture and click "Insert Image".
Make sure you don't have any spaces or punctuation in the filename. I haven't had any luck uploading those. Keep it simple, i.e. "house01.jpg".
It just goes to show that happiness is out there somewhere. My friend would never have believed that five years ago. It also shows that money don't bring happiness. xxx
rw, taht was a beautiful home, but FIVE bathrooms - help haha
charlie was it you who mentioned ground covers? got any ideas for fast growing, hardy even sun tolerant covers. i have no lawn haha, it is a weekds, but i could do with ground covers.
It's winding down. There's still plenty of work to do, but no real rush to get any of it done. I'm looking forward to the day when I can sit back and relax without a care in the world. But then, aren't we all...
> The square footage was 5200'. It was 5 bedroom 5 bath.
Yowzers! Sounds like the millionaire mansion across the street. You had deeper pockets than me, or at least were more in debt...
"was it you who mentioned ground covers? got any ideas for fast growing, hardy even sun tolerant covers"
It wasn't me but if I didn't want grass and wanted ground cover, depending on your area, maybe ivy or some type of ice plant if your in a hot area. There was lots of ice plant when I lived in San Diego and we also had ivy that did well too.
