"HOME" is our FOUR-LETTER word

Yes, around here, HOME is our four-letter word.

The house we bought in August 2004. The house that we are slowly, but surely, turning into our dream HOME. The house with the beautiful mountain and partial river view running through the valley. We LOVE our house AND we love that we are FINALLY, after so many other attempts, in so many other places, FINALLY making this place our HOME. Even though, it is a TON of WORK. A TON of "there's SO much to do that we may NEVER be finished". BUT, we are making progress and it's really beginning to look a lot like the HOME we've been dreaming of.

I was looking at the CD of pictures I took in July 2004 when we first made our offer on the place. It was rough. It was dated. OUT-DATED! BUT, it was HUGE and we could envision each of us, all five of us, having more than enough space to roam, play, nest and rest. Sure enough, there's more than enough room for all that and more. MORE paint. MORE trim. MORE flooring. MORE planning and re-planning. MORE money. MORE time. MORE money. MORE time. MORE work. MORE aches and pains. MORE dump runs. MORE debris. MORE dust. MORE tools. MORE trips to the hardware stores. MORE, MORE, MORE.

Sometimes MORE seems never ending, but the payoff in the end will be grand.

Sure we could just as easily have been content to just leave things "as-is" and just live our life, but that just isn't our style. Like Phillip seeing the potential with the old cars/trucks/motorcycles, I can see the potential here. I love to envision this house in the old bungalow, cottage, farmhouse style - NOT the 1970's Formica, gold fixtures, and in-laid wood-look linoleum. NOPE, not me. Darn them Cottage Living, Country Home, Country Living and New Old House magazines!!!!

So, one room at a time. Well, actually, an area of one room at a time, like I've said before, a room never gets completely done at once, but I do ALWAYS come back to it and do some more. Someday, this house will have gotten a complete update into the past. Say, 1930's or 40's? I just LOVE the feel of that comfortable, casual look, the built-ins and the trim.

Our downstairs bathroom BEFORE.

Here are the AFTER details of our downstairs bathroom.
Old, water/steam worn storage cabinet-BEFORE


Cabinet AFTER painted black with slightly distressed edges. I haven't distressed the doors yet. Why? I'm "test" fitting them right now.....I need to remove them again and sand the edges. I replaced the original gold knobs with these egg-shaped, brushed nickel ones.















Our towel rack. Also painted black and distressed.

The back of the toilet tank with galvanized metal planter holding three candles. I plan to fill this 2/3 of the way full with sand or gravel to hold the candles up higher in the planter.


Our new pedestal sink AND the newly painted wainscoting and trim.

White, waffle-weave shower curtain with brushed nickel holders.

Mirror. A stand-in for now. It is a cheap plastic one that I painted black. I am on the look-out for a wooden one with a little more character.

The magazine holder. A wire basket I found at the local 2nd-hand shop coupled with a black wood/silver hook rack I found at Wal-Mart, of all places. I found one at Lowe's, but the hooks were plastic. Plastic! There's a break waiting to happen. Wal-Marts were sturdy metal. Yay, Wal-Mart.????

Another hook rack to hold the brush and the blow dryer. Pedestal sinks don't have drawers, but I hate having to roll up and un-roll the blow dryer every day. Actually, I only use the dryer on the cold Winter days, but Phillip uses it every day! It's VERY convenient.

New light fixture. I fell in love with these glass light shades. I actually prefer the look of these hanging down, but the light cast make you look like Frankenstein! AND that's not a good way to start the day! Trust me on that! Plus, pointing up, casts more light across the white ceiling and brightens the place up. Sorry, this photo is VERY dark!

New light switches and plugs! Thanks Phillip! You gotta love the little details!

Especially this little upgrade. A new ceiling heater and over-head light. Now we can see in the shower and stay warm without the "old" red/orange heat bulbs. Those things always made us laugh...and laugh even harder when we clucked like chickens under the "fried-chicken-heat-lamps". Yeah, it was funny! But we are no longer living under orange lights!!! Yay!

That's our "new" master bath. Good for now, but the "master-plan", no pun intended, is that the sink and toilet will stay, but the shower/tub insert, behind that waffle weave, will be history and that space converted into a wonderful floor-to-ceiling built-in shelving/closet unit. Complete with lots of drawers in the lower section and some sliding glass doors up top. Reminiscent of the old pharmacy/dr's office built-ins. Painted creamy white with black library-style drawer pulls, of course! Can't you just imagine????

The tub, a new dual-person shower, vanity and another built-in storage unit will go in the adjacent 10x12 bedroom within the "new" master bedroom. Now that's a bathroom! Separate potty room, complete with tons of storage and a pedestal sink!

The to-do list this weekend: painting the new bungalow-style porch floor (thanks! Phillip) a nice vanilla white; staining the outside horizontal cedar porch boards a nice western alder gray/green/brown;

























scraping part of the converted master bedroom ceiling of it's beautiful popcorn ceiling; cleaning out one of the spare rooms downstairs (getting ready for it's turn at new paint, flooring, lighting, etc...); and the BEST....sitting in the new, used HOT TUB.

Thanks to my friend, Kay, who so gratefully sold it to us. We haven't had a hot tub since we moved from Washington State in early 2001 - we've sat in it twice a day for the last two days! Just can't get enough! It's on the lower back patio right outside our bedroom (where that green lawn cart is)AND the view from the tub couldn't be better - mountains, mountains, and more mountains. We even saw a hawk today and the moon and stars last night. Love, love, love it! It's definitely what the house was missing.