the gathering room ..

since the house has two living spaces with fireplaces .. rod and i decided to make the lower living space a 'gathering room', at least that is what we are calling it .. this room will be anchored with our dining table and mismatched chairs with additional seating around the room for guests and visiting .. the entire room will get painted white .. the hardwood floors will be cleaned and waxed .. the fireplace will first be painted white and then over time, stripped down to the original wood and waxed ..follow me ..


this is the entrance to the room from the front hall ..


the fireplace .. it will be painted white for now .. eventually, it will be stripped and waxed ..


i scratched the paint on the tile of the fireplace revealing what i knew to be original green tile underneath .. eventually, all the paint will be removed from this to reveal the tile .. the same tile was used in front of the fireplace .. and i have a 5 gallon bucket full of these same color & style of tiles that i have carried around for the last 7 years .. how is that for fate?


rod says the current color of the fireplace surround is deep purple .. i see black .. love the detail of the mantle .. can't wait to see it white ..


i also scratched one of the columns of the fireplace .. at least 6 coats of old paint .. love the wood grain underneath ..


from across the room, near the kitchen .. any angle .. i love this fireplace ..


the entrance to the kitchen area is highlighted by built-in bookcases on either side of the entryway .. the original french doors for this entry are missing .. my plan is to wallpaper the back of each bookcase with some vintage small print wallpaper i have ..


i love the paneled detail of the entry into the kitchen area ..


this wall, once painted will be the perfect spot for our collection of blue bonnet paintings .. seated along the wall will be primitive wood benches for seating, books, plants and the like ..


there are two windows in this room ..they will eventually be replaced .. but for now, just cleaning them up .. between the windows i have a very large mirror that will rest against the wall with a daybed/cot in front of that facing into the room ..


jax and shooger, unsure of their new surroundings .. shooger absolutely HATES walking on the hardwood floors .. ( i took the measuring tape over this afternoon to measure the rooms and forgot to measure .. i will get the measurements of the rooms and add them to the posts later)

off to sew ... enjoy your evening ..

love ya'
troy

the stairway ..

i love the front stairway of the house .. i took loads of pics of the whole house .. so bear with me and i will share as we go along and i will tell you what i envision .. luckily, for the most part, rod and i are totally agreeing on the look of the house .. so it seems to be fate ..

did i mention how fated the house was .. we felt as if God winked at us .. the house was never listed with a realtor .. while house hunting, we drove by it twice and commented on how it needed someone to clean it up .. and how huge the lot was .. the owner listed the house once, on craigslist .. the week sister died .. and he never listed it again .. rod and i decided that what we needed was a duplex, so we could work on one side and live on the other .. we were thinking side by side duplexes .. anyway, i checked realtor.com ... the local papers .. barely missed out on a couple of cute ones .. decided to check craigslist and did a search on duplexes for sale .. it pulled this one up .. almost a month old .. the guy said he hadn't listed it with a realtor and needed to relist it on craiglist .. we were so afraid something would happen before we could close on it, so we stayed as quiet as church mice while we negotiated with him .. i was about to bust a gut the closer we got .. anyway, it is ours now and we are so excited ...

so .. here are pics of the stairway .. you enter the front door and the stairway is off to the right side a little with an entrance into the downstairs living room to the left ..

the stairway originally had carpet, but someone pulled the carpet up and instead of removing all the little carpet tacks, they just tacked down thin paneling over the stairs .. so we are going to work on removing that and removing the tacks and then sanding and waxing the stairs... the wood is pine .. we may leave the railings white and not strip them .. unsure yet .. but we are going to start off painting every room we can white or off white ..


there is a little closet with a 3/4 size paneled door under the stairway ..


love the simplicity of the railings, they remind me of a farmhouse ..


the landing at the top of the stairs will serve a bench well .. maybe a mirror above it to reflect the light ..


love the light that floods the stairwell .. i am thinking just sheer gauze type curtains .. if that ..


view from the top of the landing looking down into the 'foyer' .. ha! just realized we have a foy'yeah ..

there is also a cool stairway down the back side of the house leading from the upstairs kitchen ..

more later ..

love ya'
troy

a reason to work harder ..

as if we needed a reason to work longer hours - or as rod is fond of saying - working smarter -

today we bought a house .. it's a fixer upper .. brick colonial .. built in 1932 .. duplex .. 2 bedrooms 1 bath upstairs and 2 bedroom 1 bath downstairs .. each unit has a sweet little dining room and darling little kitchen .. the upstairs unit has a stairway down the back of the kitchen .. both units have nice old fireplace surrounds for gas heaters .. huge lot .. 93 ft by 200 ft .. big old trees .. an older part of town .. an old 3 car garage with a 1 bedroom garage apartment above ..

i am thinking .. french colonial farmhouse ...

the first thing is to get in and clean and paint .. and remove all the Christmas lights, wires and the satellite dish ..

more pics to come ..



view from the street ..


view from the back of the lot.. near the garage apartment .. looking to the street ..


view from an upstairs window looking across the street to a stately old home ..

well, there is no big front porch .. but there is lots of land for gorgeous landscaping ..

love ya'll

troy

overheard at the dallas flea ..

teen girl .. oh mom, mom .. look .. these are so cool .. they have these little cardboard things and when you hold them up to the light, you can see a picture ...






love ya'll .. enjoy the sunday ..

troy

sat - 9/11 - the dallas flea

saturday we will be at the dallas flea - 1409 South Lamar Dallas, TX 75215 - south side on Lamar -

it's a small - only around 40 vendors - but incredible market - juried show - great mix of wonderful creative stuff ..

the dallas flea

check it out - it opens at 9am and closes at 4pm - a one day show .. it's moves quicker than any show i have ever done .. come out to see us ..

love ya'
troy