Our First House

Welcome to our home! We absolutely love it.  Doesn't this just look like somewhere I would live?                                 Notice the bit of white picket fence, which is one of my favorite things.  I was trying to do a video tour, but I ran into technical difficulties, so this is a ridiculously long post full of pictures.

front view of the house

Our side yard with the flower garden toward the back.

The house was built in 1900, and it has all kinds of interesting, old features, such as these nifty light switches  where you push the buttons to turn the lights on and off.

Just inside the front door.  Kitchen straight ahead, living room to the right.

Stained glass looking out over the garden.

Our formal living room.  The books on the shelves include such fascinating topics as dream interpretation, palmistry, phrenology, herbal medicine, and tarot card reading. Our landlady apparently has eclectic taste.

French doors going from the living room into the formal dining room.

Formal dining room. We always eat dinner in here.  Notice the various wallpaper prints in all of the rooms.   

Our landlady used to be an antique dealer, which must be why we have an absurd amount of antique furniture.  There are two desks in the dining room, because obviously you need more than one.

Entering the kitchen from the dining room. We enjoy eating breakfast and lunch overlooking the flower garden. 

Our family room, complete with wood stove and miniscule TV.  The window looks out on to the garden.

In case you are wondering if this house was made for me, browse through the cd titles we found in the house.  Almost all of them are Christmas albums.  Kelson put one on for me as soon as we walked in the door.

Like I said, our house is full of random things.  For example, this cat.  It is by the front door, so I thought it might be a doorstop.  Nope.  It is just a creepy stuffed cat. It definitely belongs here.

Now for the upstairs: This is our landing, complete with sitting area, an extra dresser, and all kinds of random items.

Our guest bedroom.  Now we just need some guests...hint,hint...

Our bedroom, with yet another set of white bedding.  There is entirely too much white in this                                           house-bedspreads, carpets, couches, etc. It is really an accident waiting to happen.

You know when you are watching a scary movie, and the stupid people can't seem to resist going into the creepy attic? I know how they feel.  Our attic door is padlocked, and I have never had such a great desire to pick a lock before.

view from our upstairs windows

our bathroom-gotta love the wallpaper

I mentioned that the house was full of interesting antiques.  Isn't this the coolest toothbrush holder you've ever seen?  Unfortunately, our toothbrushes don't fit in it.

Stairs down to the basement.  Yes, it is as steep and creepy as it looks.  Too bad you can't smell the combination of mothballs and mildew.  It really completes the effect.

Our house, like most of the houses around here, is built directly on  the granite hillside.   When it rains, the water comes up through the ground into the basement, so there are little channels for it to run through and a dehumidifier to keep the basement from molding.  Very interesting.

Doesn't everyone have a gallery of antique paintings in their basement?

Random extra sitting room in the basement. This may be a nice place to hang out in the summer.

We saw this little door in the wall, so of course we opened it.  It goes into the crawl space, which is full of yet more furniture, old windows, and various stuff.  If you are looking for something, you could probably find it in our basement.  Everything is down there.  I'm pretty sure our landlady rents this house out so that she won't have to clean it out.

Another side view.  That door goes into the basement sitting room.