second floor goods: two boys and a girl

elisabeth's room:

this is a view of my childhood bedroom from the upstairs hall.

there are two doors in the hall that leads to my bedroom. the first door goes to my bathroom and the second is my closet. the wall on the right used to be covered with teenagery things like pictures, notes from friends, postcards, buttons, posters...you name it!

when i was about 12 and outgrew my canopy bed my mom took me to an auction, and we bought this bed. i remember telling her i wanted "spindles". i fell in love with this bed and was so happy we won it.

the quilt on the bed was made by my great-grandmother. the colors inspired the green and pink room. during this recent remodel, my mom took down my pink-with-white-polka-dots wall paper and painted the walls green. the carpet was also pulled up and the wood floors were refinished. the curtains have been there since i was 6. i must say, i still like them!

the quilt hanging on the quilt rack was given to my parents as a wedding gift. the door to the right of the quilt rack leads to my parents bathroom. it's a jack and jill that leads into the master bedroom. i would love to know what the people who built this home were thinking with the bathrooms. my room has it's own bathroom but also is connected to my parents bathroom. i think my parent's loved it that my room was connected to theirs. it's probably the reason i did a lot less sneaking out than my brothers. ;)

this is a portrait of me when i was four.

you will notice that we all have christmas stockings tied to the foot of our beds. usually these stockings are hung from the mantle in the living room but because of the tour and the floral arrangements for the mantle, we hung them on our beds. 14 of the 16 were knit by my grandma. they are each different and make quite a statement when all 16 are hung around the mantle.

jamie's room:

this is my brother jamie's room. pretty much the only thing in this room that has stayed the same is the wallpaper. (notice the white holes in the wall next to the gun? read this post if you want to know why they're there.)

this desk and wall unit are amish made and were in my dad's office before he retired. this was the only wall in the whole house that was big enough for it.

kevin's room:

this is my brother kevin's room. originally, 100 years ago, it was the maid's room. i tried telling my brother that since he had the "maid's" room he had to be the maid. he was five years older than me; he didn't fall for it. the door you see to the left of the bed leads out to an adorable little balcony.

this room looks nothing like it did when my brother occupied it. back then it was grey and red with a buckeye's theme. it's the smallest of the three kid's bedrooms but i think it's always been the favorite.

this is another one of my great-grandma's quilts. it's the same pattern as the one in my room but looks completely different. isn't it just lovely?

my great-grandfather built this desk as a project for his high school shop class. can you believe that? i think at my high school people were making clocks and chalkboards in shop class.

two more rooms to go! next is the library-my favorite room in the whole house- and the master bedroom. until then...i hope you are having a fabulous christmas week!

tour goods: twice in one week! wow! i'm on a roll!

this is the last post for the first floor, yea! here you will see some of the back hall, bathroom and family room. (go here to see more.)

back hall and powder room:

this part of the house looks completely different. newly finished original floors (used to be carpet) and fresh paint (used to be floral wallpaper.) i absolutely love this shade of blue and if i didn't have so many other projects in my own home i would repaint my kitchen this color. the door with the mirror is a coat closet.

this is the downstairs powder room. new additions here are the red paint and tartan carpet.

family room:

through the back hall and adjacent to the red powder room is the family room. this room is probably the most unchanged. carpet was removed to expose original wood floors that were refinished, other than that the room is just about how it's been my whole life. this is where we ate dinner as a family every night and where we watched episodes of the cosby show and family ties. my dad would hurry to the drive through down the street during commercial breaks and get klondike bars for us to eat during the shows. it was a thursday night ritual.

all of the paintings in this room were painted by my brother jamie.

the wool tartan drapes are not original to the house but they have been there for at least 50 years.

next up is the second floor! i am trying really hard to get through all of these pictures before christmas. stay tuned...

more tour goods: dining room and kitchen

here are some more pictures of my parents house from the home tour back in october. you can read about it here, here and here. i must admit, my camera is way too fancy for my knowledge and experience as a photographer; i barely know how to take it off of "auto". some of these photos are taken at night while some are in daylight. i feel the need to post them all since, in my opinion, they each have a different "mood" about them. enjoy!

dining room:

the table and chairs were my great-grandparent's. their house was right down the street from this house.

the painting on the left was done by my late grandmother.

my mom picked up the buffet for around $75, i believe??? crazy considering i've been looking for one for my dining room and where i live i am hard pressed to find a decent one under $400.00.

the white circles you see in the floors are the vents for the air conditioning. when i grew up in this house our "air conditioning" was a box fan in an open window. a few years ago my parents bit the bullet and put in central air. since this home doesn't have air ducts they had to install a system of tubes. the tubes run through the walls, floors, ceilings...pretty much wherever they could fit them. some of the holes are in the walls but most are in the floor. can you imagine installing something like that? from what i hear it was quite a challenge.

they don't make crown molding like they used to...

if i remember correctly, we've gotten up to 16 people at this table in the past. this is our spot for thanksgiving, christmas eve and easter meals. many many memories in this room.

pantry:

this pantry connects the dining room to the kitchen. it's a wonderful space with tons of storage. i would give anything to have a space like this in my home. these are original cabinets and hardware. the wood floor is brand new.

i love the wood bowl filled with cookie cutters.

kitchen:

about fifteen or so years ago my parents completely gutted and remodeled this kitchen. they took out a wall and rearranged everything. during this recent re-do, they repainted the walls, changed the cabinet hardware to chrome and installed a new wood floor.

on the very right of this photo you can see some brass handles sticking out. (i can't believe i didn't take a better picture of this.) this is an old refrigerator that is original to the house. it has four compartments with wood doors and still works! my parents use is to store beer, soda and water.

the florist who decorated for the tour did a candy theme in the kitchen. it was really cute.

this is one of my favorite things that the florist did in the whole house. she took an apothecary jar that she purchased at pier one, filled it with marshmallows, added a scarf and hat and voila! a snowman! isn't he just adorable?

here you see a wreath that the florist did adorned with chocolate suckers, so cute! makes me crave chocolate.

a few pieces of my mom's huge quimper pottery collection.

my brother is amazingly talented. this is one of his watercolors. it's one of my favorite paintings of his. there are actually four apples. (not sure why i didn't take more/better pictures of this part of the kitchen. the reflections on the painting are horrible.)

i hope you are having a wonderful december!  hopefully i will get the rest of the first floor pictures posted soon!