Porch Flower Baskets

We've got a beautiful long front porch across the entire house with white railings and columns. I've been working on getting flower baskets growing so they can be hung and enjoyed all summer. Today I got the hooks installed and hung the baskets only to discover that they each need a piece of chain to make them hang low enough that they can be seen and watered easily.

 

 

This is what it looked like the first time I was ever here. October, pouring rain. No garden work for 2 years, just mowing once in a while and they didn't care where the grass clippings went.

 

This is the porch earlier the other day, I had placed the baskets approximately where I would be hanging them.

 

This is one of them. First I had just flowers in it but it had more room so I added Sweet Potato Vine. That should really help it fill out well.

 

Linda gave me two baskets on April 8th, the 9th anniversary of my twin brothers death. They are beautiful baskets.

 

And here they are hung. I have one rusty old chain but its not going to work for all of them so I'll be stopping at Lowes this evening for10 chains that are 8-10 inches long. A couple of the baskets have longer chains or hooks on them already and I'd like all the bottoms of the baskets to be the same height.

 

 

 

And this is the 2nd of the bushed below the railing to bloom. They are gorgeous! After the flowers are dropped I'll be trimming these back so they are below the level of the rail.

Downstairs Bathroom

This is the down stairs bathroom.

 

Its ALL stark white.

 

 

 

OK, its got the fake wood look on the doors of the vanity and the bubbly shower surround.

 

I have BIG plans for this room.

 

I've already painted the closet that the laundry goes in.

 

The washer and dryer are now installed but I can only use the dryer because the water supply is still full of sand.

 

This board is going to be used in the bathroom. I'm going to put it up on the wall in front of the shower and hang the shower curtain behind it. I don't need a shower curtain but I have a cowboy one that I've used for the last 20 years that needs to live here too.

 

 

This old western stirrup is going to become a towel holder.

 

This shower surround SUCKS and I don't know what to do with it for sure yet but its got to go.

 

And the wall on the left is now turquoise. I painted it GEM TURQUOISE by Behr but its not dark enough so I also bought PEACOCK FEATHER and I will give it a coat.

 

The Back Pasture

 

This is the first time I had seen the back pasture, the black berries were 10 feet tall and had over taken the entire area. It was possible to walk to the back of the property (way back by the tall trees) but you would get poked numerous times.

 

November 22, 2014

 

Not long after we moved in Lan was able to spend a day out there on the tractor with the brush hog. He got this much mowed before dark.

January 2015

 

Over the next couple months he got a bit more done but he was spending most of his time over at the old house doing repairs and updates to sell it. This place was just waiting.

 

March 2015

 

Yesterday he got a lot more finished with the bull dozer. There are a couple piles of old stumps he needs to move and burn, some of the trees still need to be pulled up and all the perimeter fences need to be repaired/replaced.

But we know that and will get around to it very soon.

 





Today, April 17, 2015

 

I'm so glad we found this place, its going to be absolutely gorgeous when next summer rolls around and its growing more grass than sticker bushes. 

First time

The first time I was here there were a lot of other people here too, the realtor, the lady who had originally posted about it on FB, her daughter and the daughters friend. I also brought Amy & Dallas with me. I already knew everyone except the realtor but I did get to know her during the buying process.

 

This is the old kitchen, up on the left you can see the front door. When I first walked in I had NO idea what this room was meant for and no idea what we would do with it. The big closet down there was just a big closet, no shelves, no coat hooks or racks, nothing. I'll have a post at a later date about how I changed it.

 

 

This is the living room seen from near the front door. There is a fireplace on the left and the dining room and kitchen are towards the light on the right.

I love the stairs and plan on painting a horse silhouette on that wall one day soon.

The French doors open onto a good size covered patio that for now is just full of stuff. Come summer time its going to get some fixing up.

The bricks on the left are the huge fireplace which is actually 2 fireplaces. There is a wood fireplace in the area we use as an office (behind & to the left of the picture) and its painted white. In the living room there is a propane fireplace and the bricks are the original dark brown. We have no plans to paint them so its very dark in there but I can work on that.

 

This is the upstairs landing.

I absolutely love it. On the first day there was nothing up there, now I have several horse blankets/saddle pads on the railing.

There are two bedrooms and a storage room up there along with a Jack & Jill bathroom. I have our bed in one of the rooms and all our clothes are in the other bedroom, so its our dressing room.

 

The dining room and kitchen are here; I've already done some painting in them. I want to build a big country table using the big boards from the old horse trailer floor. I just won't tell everyone where they came from, some people might not appreciate all the awesome horses that stepped on them and left behind their poop.

 

So much to do.

Adios,

DB

 

 

Welcome to our Country Home

This is the first photo I ever saw of our new country home. A friend just happened to post a link to the MLS & said this would make someone a really nice horse property. I made arrangements to see it the very next day.

It was raining hard, absolutely pouring for two weeks. The ground saw was saturated and nothing was dry so I figured it was an excellent time to see the place.

 

 

And here it is today, raining hard once again. The porch is full of stuff, some is mine and I need to either rearrange it to look nice or remove it completely. There is also a piece of vinyl that came from our old place after we did new flooring there and a china cabinet my FIL left a week after we moved in. I do not like that thing, it needs to go.

 

The flowers are blooming and the grass is growing, leaves are returning to the trees so they can fall all over our yard again in six months. I'm going to need to trim that Rhody to keep it under control and there are tons of bulbs that need to be dug up and replanted. This first year I am just mapping out all the flowers and gardens, I won't be doing a lot of new stuff with them.

 

There are TONS of things I've already done to the house and land and a bajillion more things I want to do; it just takes more time than I've had so far.

 

I hope you enjoy your visit and come back often to see the updates.

 

Adios,

DB