This was my front door. I designed it but had it fabricated to be sure it would withstand heavy use. At night, it shone from within like a beacon, and in the morning sun it lit up the whole house. I was going for a bit more of a pastel look but just couldn't communicate that to the builder.
Summer...........Most important rule..............when you love a home and garden and have made it beautifully yours, do not EVER wonder.... or god forbid go back and see ....what the new owners have done with it!!! I had so much fun making my first home "mine" with color and stenciling. Then I worked at the yard until all the kids in the neighborhood all came to talk to the "lady with all of the wonderful flowers". Sold it and drove by a year later............LAWN and BARK. I imagine that the inside is now white as well.
Looks like you have wonderful artistic talent, and will use it beautifully to take the treasure that you have found and transform it into a dream home for yourself!
Ha ha, won't have to worry about that with THIS place. It's a teardown.
One thing I hope for is to create some wonderfully overgrown areas, little tunnels if you will, that others have shown on their "garden tours."
I absolutely love your taste in color and decor. Gorgeous.
Our family room is the same blue- based red as your old dining room, with deep forest green carpet. Our living room is a warm gold with dark brick red trim and multi-colored hardwood floors. I adore deep, rich colors, and can't understand why people choose to live in white houses of blah. :p
Yeah, and then they put 19 layers of tacky, heavy curtains on the windows above 19 layers of tacky, heavy, matchy-matchy bedding ....
I am sad to say that my current house is white......just haven't had the motivation to fix it. I live in a "temporary" tube.....a 14 X 52 mobile home that we bought as a temporary living quarter while we collected the $$ to build a house. The only reason I can still bear it is that my Dad and DH built me a wonderful addition for a dining room and laundry room. Still way toooooooooooooooo small, but it is only the two of us, and I never spend my time inside, so I guess I will survive until the "building of the dream home" or "the end of time"....whichever comes first.
Curtains???? Oh yeah......had those in my last house......
Like you said Summer, there is a lot of joy in NO neighbors!!!!
Well, you must have a plan, jem? Believe it or not, my new house was once a manufactured home. They took it down to the girders.
Where do you plan to end up?
Summer,
I am where I will end up, it is just what my accomadations will be that is in question. DH and I have 5 acres, and although the house is miniscule, he has a 48 x 62 shop. We had intended to build a house in the area that is now lawn, but just have not gotten around to it. My Mom has an adjoining 10 acres, with a dream house of her own. We lost my Dad unexpectedly last year, so now she is living in a 3500+ (can't remember exactly) square foot home that is eventually going to be way to big for her to handle. We are a very close family, so after losing Dad, there is a posibility of ending up swaping houses or all of us living there in the long run. We have everything we could dream of here in terms of a life, so moving is out of the question. As I am content to lay my head anywhere that is out of the rain, time will tell what the final outcome will be. When I don't have any more room to decorate inside, I take my talents into the yard!
Oh, that sounds wonderful. I left home at 17, never married, chose not to have children, moved where the money was, and lost my mother at an early age. Lone wolf woman. So I would treasure that close family!
Have you thought of moving an old barn onto the property & creating a grand bit of artistry out of that for your house? (I'm a timber-framer too, could lend a hand!)
Now, actually, we're getting to the heart of the matter: Why I'm making such a huge move & leaving behind a wonderful b'friend who may or may not follow me. My family is spread across Montana (my home state), Washington & Oregon. And I am a treasured princess of the clan. It is high time that I put myself where they can love all over me & vice versa.
Although there will be a ton of friends & neighbors seeing me off from Kankakee, my father & my aunt Darlene & her family & my best friend Lisa & her family will be there to help unload in Rose Lodge. Not to mention my brother & 2 of his children helping me drive cross country.
It's going to be glorious!
I do treasure my family, especially as Dad was yanked away from us so unexpectedly. In this day and age, I feel that we are "abnormal" with our love for each other and lack of disfunction!
If we do build, we are limited to "stick built". We live on a "mountainside" that makes it very prohibitive to move anything large up or down. DH and I have a large 5th wheel that is a major event to get down the driveway.
When we moved our mobile up, we hiered what was supposedly "the best manufactured home mover" in the PNW to set our house. It took 16 hours and a near death experience to get it up our hill. His parting comment to us as he drove his customer dozer with the 12 way lift for trailers down the hill was "if it's going to come back down, you had better burn it first!". Serously not worried.........with no kids other than the four-legged variety, I can live happily in my tube until the end of time if I have to!
Summer, We crossed when I was replying.
Was wondering on the big move, but wasn't going to go there unless it was volunteered. Family close when you want family close is unbeatable. You can find friends and keep friends through seperation of time and space, but when you are happy or when you are hurting, there is nothing as supportive as the love of family. Sounds like you will be "comming home" in a sense! Congrats.
You are not abnormal! I totally agree with you have conducted yourself ... my elderly neighbors, Tom & Edna, have 4 daughters, and 3 of them have ganged up to ostracize the 4th for reasons that are not clear to me, but apparently with Edna's help. And Jack's family has done the same to me because I am an "outsider." I had a b'friend whose miserable sister created rifts among everyone else in the family, including her mother & her mother's twin sister.
It's heartbreaking to witness that kind of behavior. It would NEVER be tolerated in my family. We Wallas are wanderers, cast like thistle seeds into the wind. But there is no estrangement, quite the opposite. On the rare occasion that a catty relative attempts to cut someone out, people like my brother & me move in as the Angel Gabriel, swords drawn on behalf of the victim.
Summer....perfect...that is as it should be. Our family is close from my Aunts and Uncles to my neices and nephews, but further back than that it is a mishmash. My Mom and Dad moved our immediate family from the midwest to the coast when I was very young, but as time has gone by, I have realized that in doing so they have prevented us from having to be influenced by family "politics". We are not the "huggy kissy" type of close, but I will never forget the day that my brother (6 foot 4 and fairly quiet) stepped right out in front of me at our family business when a man was giving me a really hard time. I have been raised tough, and can hold my own...but this guy was an absolute A@$. Ward (my bro) stepped between us, stretched up to his full intimidating height, and said "you had better watch out...that's my sister you are talking to...". The A@$ stammered, appologized, and left. There was no more significant way he could have showed me how much he loved me...
That is so touching. I will never forget Valentine's Day 1999 -- it wasn't any big day to me, but my brother Wade called & said, "I just wanted to wish a happy Valentine's Day to the woman with whom I have had the longest love affair of my life." (He is a few years younger than I am, and from the moment he was born we were inseparable.)
Still brings tears to my eyes. Though I am the older pathfinder, he has grown up to be the kind of man that even an older sister looks up to.
Gosh, I'm getting all emotional on you all!
How sweet! Moments like that are what give the word "family" it's ture meaning!
Unfortunately, Wade has a dear wife & 5 children so I have to wait my turn for his attention!
But more than a sublime setting, this new house represents my chance to become a family nexus -- Aunt Darlene is already to scheming to ride horses through my hills, and her boys are drooling over the chance of cheap lodging for fishing, whale watching & diving.
My dad is thrilled -- he clearly views me as a stepping stone for tromping on in order to reach the beloved Wade & entice him back West. Dad is referring to me lately as the "bulwark."
Oh, whale watching.....Eugene isn't too far away. Just kidding, what a wonderful house and the surroundings are ideal. Congratulations on such a find! The house and grounds look as if they have been well loved and you sound like you will do the same. A match well made.
Oh Sally, you WILL come visit? I've heard that Depoe Bay is the best for whales ...
Honestly, I will want LOTS of company.
Would love to see the gardens!
Oh my... you'll be sort of near Agate Beach. I'm even more jealous now! I've never been there, but have wanted to go for years. My inner magpie squeaks with delight when I think of all the pretty shiny rocks. *grin*
Welcome Summerkid to Oregon and the coast. I live in the Valley and I only get to the coast in Spring, Fall and Winter because of my business.
Congrats on your piece of Heaven and Earth here in Oregon.
If ever near Corvallis look me up!
D
Thanks, Iris.
And I am delighted to hear about an agate beach -- coincidentally, I was just thinking last night about all the agates to be found in Montana. My uncle has whole canoes filled with them. Why canoes? Dunno.
Why not? :D But if I had a bunch of canoes, I'd more likely turn them into planters. *grin* Hubby has to watch over his little fishing pram to guard it from becoming a flowerbed. The neighbors are on my side... maybe we'll wear him down someday. LOL!
Alas, really no agates left at Agate Beach, though. At least I've never found one.
The Oregon Coast is widely accepted as one of the most beautiful coastlines in the U.S., though. Come summer or winter, Mother Nature is always putting on a show of some sort. You'll love it there, I think.
Really, Katie? How disappointing. :( The Oregon tourism site sure claims differently... hmph. How lame.
Well, I may be wrong. I'm certainly no expert. But I certainly didn't see any the last time I was there, and I assumed it was from the years of people visiting and picking them up. After all these years, I would expect them to be gone. Maybe there's a secret to finding them that I'm not aware of. :-)
It's still a beautiful beach and one can't but help looking for agates while walking along. Maybe that's the best thing - you get to look and hope to find, but you don't end up with bunches of rocks rolling around in the trunk on the way home.
Kathy
LOL I would wind up with rocks anyway, agates or not. My pockets seem to attract rocks wherever I go. :)
There's a real cool thing they do in Lincoln City every summer -- artists make something like 2,000 globe thingies for fishing nets, and they hide them all over the beach. Because only plastic floats wash up these days.
I've heard about that! I would love to find all of them... um, I mean one... I'm not greedy, (yes I am) really!
I'll bet there's a real pretty one with my name on it ...
OOOHHH ...never heard of that before! I also have an (ahem..) small rock collecting habit.....and driftwood......and ......wouldn't floats look absolutely beautiful here and there in the garden?
We now camp/travel mostly on motorcycles, which is really limiting when it comes to bringing things back home, or in a fifth wheel that DH goes ape about the weight in as it is at the top of the size limit when it comes to his truck pulling it (it is a toyhauler, so always has the added weight of quads or the rhino making it super heavy). When it comes to the small rocks, I have my little stash hold where I know he won't look before the trailer is unloaded. Fortunately, on those trips, if I find something big that I just "have to have" he will grudgingly put it in the bed of the truck, shaking his head all of the while!
Who DOESN'T travel with a rhino.
LOL! This one isn't quite as heavy as the original hooved model, and runs on petrol rather than foilage. Methinks it is a wee bit more fun in the sand and the woods as well!
Edited to correct the typo that my little puppy helper in my lap added with her big paws!
This message was edited Jun 12, 2009 8:39 PM
Well, this is a bit of good news! My brother has committed to coming down on July 31st with 2 of his babies; we'll load up & take off the next morning in my truck & the moving van. Yes, it's 7 weeks away, but all the wheels are in motion!
Excellent. I wish you a trouble-free moving experience! :)
I just saw this thread, and was happy to view another garden tour. My goodness, what an amazing place you found! It really is beautiful, and will only become more so as you add your own touches to the garden and the house. Good luck on a safe and speedy move across country.
Summerkid, I will come for a visit as well! I hope the move goes smoothly, and you are soon in your beautiful new home. You will love Oregon and the PNW!
It seems folks of all ages love rocks.
Eeek! New terror. Must you prechill your tulips & narcissi in Z8b?
Although I'm delighted to see how extensive the options are for fall & winter vegetable gardening.
I am in 8b also, and I don't have to prechill bulbs. We do get enough days here below freezing, though it is not usually very far below freezing. At my current location, it has not gone below 15 degrees very often, and then only in the coldest part of the night. Your particular microclimate might be different, being near the ocean
