Does everyone realize that Tammy and Annette are the only 2 in the running for the $25??!! Easy money people. So go HERE to help me pick a new blog name OR/and put a blip about it somewhere on your blog---and opportunity for $75 in Amazon gift certificates or any of the other brand name certificates they carry. Hurry though—contest ends September 22.
I am loving all of the ideas, by the way. My daughter was reading them last night and was voting for several of them. Too bad I only have one blog.
So….today….MORE PICTURES!!
HUZZAH!!
More time spent hiding in my room on the computer instead of dealing with the nightmare that is called “packing boxes”.
HUZZAH!
Shall we start with the Master Bedroom today? I had to capitalize it because, all by itself, it is bigger than my current home.
I could seriously lock the door and live in there.
That is beyond cool people.
Nobody told me you all were having so much fun out there in your “normal” homes and Master Bedrooms.
Sorry this is so long—I just want it for my journal and for reference down the road. Just scroll.
On to the study/office. The doorway is at an angle off the entryway to the right.
This will be a reading/visiting/waiting for your piano student room. I have never had such a beautiful bookcase before so the books are just laying there, waiting for me to be hit with inspiration. (Annette—can you see them???) There are like 20 more boxes of books so~ yes~ I am the crazy,decorates with books lady. These are the kind of decorating pics I save:
I hope someday my piano room will look like this—complete with ladder….
Here it is now…
This looks through to the kitchen which I cannot even find words to express what it will be like to posses—so just gaze……
Tomorrow we shall do the downstairs. And, yes, I get lost all the time. I think they will have to put a beeper on me, just to keep track of me. I am also starting to pack a lunch each time I set out in any direction, that way wherever I end up can be where I meant to be until help and rescue finds me. {snicker}
Thanx for all the kind comments and keep the ideas coming—we are loving them!
*****PPSS--Annette and Tammy--I tried my darnedest to get your names to match in size. I am not trying to make a statement about ANYTHING other than I am BLOG STUPID--please forgive.
In the interest of helping you invent a NEW AND IMPROVED NAME FOR MY BLOG…(click on that to go win yourself up to $75 in Amazon gift certificates!)
…..I have shared with you where the old name came from here. (there really IS a garage door on my ceiling)
Now, I will share some pics of where I am headed.
The new digs.
My fresh pad.
The much more modern (seems to us) mansion.
Our happening homestead.
The sheik shanty.
My au courant abode.
The fantastic fortress.
{{{{{Sorry—it’s a sickness…}}}}}}
Without further word play and in no particular order………feel free to just skim pics—the words are for my journal………blah, blah, blah….
Can you make out that cut out in the ceiling? The guy was a master sheet rocker or something and this house was his masterpiece. There are more of these and all sorts of cool nooks and crannies all through the home.
That is my piano room to the right.
My old upright and new-to-me baby grand will go in here.
Someday there will hopefully be furniture too.
We have decided that we will only buy furniture with cash so it may be a long wait.
I promise the rest of the tour will not have such long narrations.
Except maybe this one.
We have to talk about these doors.
These are what captured my heart to begin with.
I want to be buried with at least one of these doors.
Can you see that little bit of closet door there on the right? Yeah, that's a normal size door.
My main floor doors are all these extra tall, beautiful, magnificent…
well…doors.
The builder had them shipped in from Canada.
Amen, Canada, amen.
What’s that? You’d like to see a close up of the door handle? Well, I just happen to have one!
I think we have all been edified—let’s move on…
This is Bean’s room—the wallpaper is still there but the desk is not. She has a cute little walk in closet.
The guest bedroom and closet.
You have to understand.
I do not have a closet in my room right now so I may or may not be obsessed with closet’s.
Next up—our bathrooms. As Jess so astutely pointed out---we can all simultaneously sit upon a “throne” at the same time! I am overcome with the sheer awe and joy that this realization brings. After 1 bathroom for all of us for 15 years---potty party people! The downside—all those potties to keep clean. Sigh.
Here are just 3 of them.
The upstairs guest bath…
A cute little half bath across the hall that I can’t get in enough to get a pic.
Then the downstairs main bath—I so love this one—needless to say, so do the kids….
And then the downstairs guest/half bath…
Then there is the master bath (tomorrow) and a half bath in the garage and a full bath in the shop/man cave. Holy toilet palooza Batman! The cost of toilet brushes alone………..
Thanx for looking—Part 2 tomorrow and don’t forget—the contest ends on September 22nd!!! Link at the beginning of this post! I’m off to pack more boxes. I have been forcing myself to pack at least one box an hour, no matter what the strain to my psyche or body. This is rough stuff people. Actually, I think I’m just going to go check if our insurance covers fire. There is always that dang accidental forest fire going on around here……………
I thought before I gave you a tour of the new homestead and while you were all thinking up creative new blog titles for me----I would actually let you see the old homestead----so you could truly appreciate the new one.
Let me deep breathe a little……
You probably don’t even want to go here with me.
You probably should just click away.
Coming to my home is a little like going over and helping them build wells in Africa. Everyone goes home being so grateful for what they have…
I think Mom’s and wives and girlfriends all over the valley have been heard to say, “Oh yeah, well at least you don’t have to live in a garage like the B’s do!”
Yeah…….we’re THOSE people……..
You’re still here?
Alright then---but you’ve been warned--------
Once upon a time, over the river and through the woods and up a hill on a scary little bumpy road, in the middle of nowhere Montana—we found 10 acres of beautiful land with a partially finished garage on it.
[If you follow that little road on the left that goes up the hill at a diagonal to where it would end up at the the top---that is where we live]
It looked like this….oh yes it did!
Well, we convinced ourselves that we could fix up the garage enough to live in it for a summer while we built our house up on the hill, I mean how bad could it be? A few months max? We only had 3 little girls—we could DO this pioneer thing.
We were absolutely, completely, citified fools. The end.
Okay, okay, not the end of the story.
But I’m pretty sure you should just leave now while you have a chance.
Pioneers everywhere have and will continue to mock me/us for even thinking we knew what it meant to be a pioneer.
I look back on the innocent that was me with fondness.
I said things like,
“ Let’s just roll up the garage door, not take it down. We are only going to be in here for a few months till our house is built.”
“ By all means put a wood burning stove in, it will make it so cozy and we won’t have such a high electric bill.”
“That twisty turny road is no big deal.”
“Girls won’t it be fun to sleep up in that 4 foot high loft? Just like ‘Little House on the Prairie’. Bedrooms are overrated.”
“Honey, I think I’m pregnant and by the way, it’s been 3 years and we are still living in a garage AND if you want wood chopped for the lousy wood stove you will have to do it all yourself now because I refuse to go into premature labor like some pioneer woman in the middle of nowhere Montana!!!!”
And so it went. We added a room onto one side.
We added 2 rooms onto the other side.
I can’t actually find a picture of that addition, you will just have to take my word for it.
That pic above is from one of our “famous” Easter Egg Hunts. When all 5 of our kids (yes we kept accumulating them) were young we would literally fill and hide over 1,000 eggs each Easter. The plastic egg company wrote me thank you notes every year.
Here are some other random Easter photos
I love how I look like I am about 9 feet tall here because for once my height actually matches my weight. I am explaining the 2 rules of the hunt to everyone. Don’t get lost and don’t get hurt. (I think that's why so many parents stayed every year.) Yes, I clung to the mullet hairstyle FOREVER. AND………
Why yes, those ARE Christmas lights hanging above my head. I keep telling you…white trash baby----white trash……….I would now be posting a pic of me demonstrating the egg roll but I think have humiliated myself enough for one post.
Now I think I am ready to give you the tour…
This is what you see when you come in the front door. This is it people. The extent of my kitchen. To the left is my washer and dryer. In the right corner, my oven. The only counter I have is my dishwasher.
Can I just say right here and now that my new house has 3 full baths and 2 half baths indoors and 1 in the attached garage and a full bath out in the shop/man cave???!!!!!!!!!
So, what did you think? It’s okay to need some time. I’ve needed 15 years. Just say you still love me.
Stay tuned—next up—the new homestead!!!!
Don’t forget to go HERE to help me find a new title for my blog and a chance to win a couple of great prizes!!
After 24 years of marriage, 15 of those in a garage, my husband and I are now the proud owners of our FIRST house!!!!
HUZZAH!!!
I will blog more (read TONS MORE) in the upcoming days, but today I just wanted to say----
THANK-YOU
to all those men and women (and their families) out there who have and will give their lives to secure my rights and freedoms;
--while I spend all my time just figuring out ways to live it.
*And if you want to read someone’s blog who is real savvy about all this without going over the top---go hang out with---Pedaling—I love her style…
There are several clues leading you to this fact:
My kitchen has no counter tops
My kitchen is much smaller than this
My kitchen walls are orange
My hair has its own zip code and we are usually dressed like this and in this EXACT pose while I’m in the kitchen…
My kitchen has no counter tops
Oh, I’m sorry—did I mention that?
I am so easily confused, and distracted…especially by yellow appliances and big hair…………….
Meanwhile, although this is not my kitchen, that is the dishwasher I have had since my eldest was born. 22 1/2 years, 5 kids & 8 moves. It is the saddest looking appliance I have ever seen but it fits in nicely with my garage decor and has just kept chugging its little dishwasher heart out for all these years. I had been lulled into thinking that perhaps dishwashers just lived forever.
I am here today to tell you that this is not true.
Not. at. all.
Let’s re-cap shall we?
In the month of August, 2 people that we knew died.
Darren—1987-2010—Gone Too Soon..
And my sister-in-law’s father who called seafood chowder “dead fish soup” and was my hero….I don’t have a picture
(Hence the thesaurus reference. I don’t like the word died. Seems harsh. But not after reading the alternatives. I would list some here but it seems completely disrespectful. GO look it up.)
Just as we are recovering from that, (READ: YESTERDAY) we had to have our faithful and sweet 14 year old dog euthanized. I know she was really ready to go—she will just be missed.
Anyhoo--- (that’s for you DeNae) there I am, back at the garage with my magnificent hair and flowy yellow moo moo caftan thingie, loading my portable dishwasher and I go to shut the door and start ‘er up and………..
……………..it.won’t.shut. It won’t run if it won’t shut. The door is now held shut with duct tape. Sad, sad day.
I was wondering what that springie thingie and cute little metal rod thingie was that I found the last time I moved it over to the sink. My hair is thinking maybe, just maybe, they were something relatively important to the life span of our dearly departed dishwasher.
SERIOUSLY??!! My dog and the dishwasher IN THE SAME DAY??!!!
This is NOT me but it IS what I am doing. Minus the gloves, apron, smile and waistline.
I am supposed to close on my house tomorrow, I feel like blogging it out loud might be bad luck but I am excited! Today its because the house comes with a dishwasher---are you ready for this---BUILT IN~!!!! What will they think of next??!! Little rooms with bars across the top to hang your clothes---it just takes my breath away…………
