This Old House

By My Calculations Our House is About 90 Years Old!

That is OLD by anybody's standards!

Living in an old house has definite advantages. The character and charm cannot be duplicated in a new home very easily. You cannot pay for the mature landscaping and the memories of raising our family here are priceless. There are also disadvantages; smaller, less functional rooms and closets, the repairing, replacing, remodeling can be costly and a big hassle too. But I guess you have that in most houses to some degree.

One of the things we have done is tired to keep the house as true to the era as we could without sacrificing comfort and conveniences. What that translates to is getting what you can for cheap, fixing it up and taking care of it in case it needs to last a life time!

Even though my tastes have changed a lot over the years and if I could just go out and buy all new furniture it would be totally different~ for this time and place in our lives the furniture is just fine. What I do try to do is keep it updated with fun accessories, art, etc. What that translates to is sometimes what you have determines your style more that what you love best. I am OK with that, are you?

Happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want.

Sometimes I trade when I work on someone's house for either services or like last week, I traded my friend, Barbara, for some furniture. I got the fun of helping her pick out all her new furniture (vicarious thrills for free) and at the same time was able to enhance our home with something from hers. We are so happy to have this table because it holds lots of wonderful memories of our family and theirs getting together for dinners through the years.

I got to receive and arrange the new furniture for Barb and decorate her home while she was busy working this past week. It was so much fun and, ladies, this is the only way to fly. By coordinating all the things she loves in her living room, dining room and family room we were able to make one great room out of her L- shaped open floor plan. I will have pictures after we finish everything probably after the first of the year as we need to do window treatments and she is getting her flat screen mounted above her fireplace, etc.

Barb purchased a new gorgeous dining table and hutch. Very Pottery Barn looking and, to die for, I must add. Her old one needed a new home and so it has come to live with us. We are quite happy with it and it looks like it belongs with all our other outdated, but beloved oak furniture. Although the mighty oak has lost face in the market place, our saving grace has always been that our house is a cottage. Something very contemporary and modern would not fit in our setting. Our next house is going to be bigger, newer and a total turn key but, for now we are very cozy here.

So here is our new table and chairs.

It is pretty amazing how it matches our china cabinet,
hutch and small, lighted curio cabinet. With a leaf it can seat 10.

Looking into the library and office

And then we have the beautiful original random
plank oak floors with the wooden pegs.

As you can see this room is very "Oaky" which is one of the reasons we decided to custom paint it with three shades of green and lots of glossy white trim. With all the wood a traditional neutral would not work here. What I want to buy next is a really nice area rug for this dining room. Unless of course you want to make a trade. I am always open to that if you have one that is just right for this room? I am looking for one that will add color, pattern and softness to all the hard surfaces in this room. Fabric usually does the trick. I love that the table is round as that really helps to soften it out quite a bit already. Next big job I get..hopefully you'll be seeing the new area rug! That is unless something else needs to be repaired, replaced or remodeled first in this old house we call home. Fingers crossed~ it is all good.... for the moment.