loving my little house

One of the things that I really missed when I was at the farm was my sweet little house and garden.

(and one where the azalea and rhododendron flowers haven't turned brown):

In the little over 7 years that we've owned this house, we have done a lot of work both inside and out in the gardens.  Inside, Matthias totally rewired the kitchen and installed under cabinet lighting, knocked a hole in one of the kitchen to add some more light from the sun porch,

the cut-through in the kitchen wall viewed from the sun porch side

refinished the upstairs floors (tearing up carpeting and under carpeting in one bedroom stripping paint that was on top of the oak flooring).  We've also painted every room in the house (stripping wallpaper in most rooms).  I've posted photos on my blog recently, showing the bright white dining room and sun porch, but we do have colors everywhere, too.  One bedroom is a sky blue (a deep sky blue) and one bedroom is duck egg green.  The kitchen is a bright green

and the little bathroom on the sun porch is lavender. 

I like the combination of some white and some color.  We have plenty of accents and, of course, lots and lots of plants.

And as long as they keep blooming, flowers.

We have plenty more work to do in our house.  Touch up painting over water damage repairs (thanks to frozen gutters in the past).  Final touches on our upstairs bathroom (a project that we've been working on for too long).  And some general decorating.  Many of my "decorative" objects as well as some large pieces of my furniture (including my beloved sofa)

are still at the farm.

We also have plans to revamp the area of the basement that we used as our hangout spot before I left for the farm which right now is simply being used for storage.  Some new white paneling (to replace the ugly fake wood paneling down there now), lots of white floor paint and plenty of bright lights will make it a space that's bright, easy to clean and perfect for working on messy paintings (Matthias is yearning to get back to painting, something he hasn't done since art school). 

Trying to find spots in our tiny house for dog crates will make some rearranging necessary, too.  When we moved into our house Holden was no longer using a crate, so there's no precedent for even one. 

I'm excited for the challenge.  And I'm grateful to be back in my sweet little house.  I'm grateful to Matthias for being such a good foil to my decorating ideas and for giving in at times to things like paint colors.  And, of course, many thanks to him for all the work he's done over the years and for agreeing that this house was "the one" in the first place.  I'm even grateful that the housing market is keeping us here for a while longer because I have plans for the house and garden that hadn't happened yet.  That I get another chance is such a blessing.