More treehouse view

I decided that since I was doing treehouse views, I would show you how wonderful it is to sit on my upstairs balcony. Mind you, this is winter. I will have to post more pictures when spring green shows.

 From the balcony looking up the drive. Lovely curving drive to the road. I love driving home. You come around the curve and see the house through the trees. It never ceases to make my heart sigh with pleasure.

Sitting on a chair on a warm fall day. I even have a couple of plants out to get sun and warmth for the winter. You can see part of the front fence in the lower left. I love the rustic cedar branch fence. It needs to be straightened up a bit and rebuilt some, but certainly doesn't need to come down like my unimaginative hubby said. It already has a Carolina Jasmine planted by it to cover it in spring. I plan a few more summer flowering vines on it. But I will have a battle with the smilax and wild morning glory vines. The morning glory covered everything. I pulled tons of it up, but there is more to tear down and the seeds are everywhere. This may take a few years to win.

My Treehouse

 I realized this morning that it feels like I live in a treehouse. When you go upstairs, you see the tops of trees. Above is the view of the backyard from the hall window. The gazebo needs new roofing. Maybe someone will get to that this spring.

 This is what it looks like from the front balcony door looking out toward the road.

 This is the front corner of my bedroom. No, not decorated yet, but look at that view when the blinds are opened!

And this is what I see at my desk in my studio room. I love being able to look out at trees and treetops. A lot of the trees are taller than the two story house. I paid my dues spending many decades in horrible near-treeless barren wastelands. Now I reap the rewards of living where I don't have to plant a tree. I will though. I am planning on some beautiful red Japanese Maples in a part of the understory.

Tomorrow and Yesterdays

I have to get up and get going early tomorrow. Father-in-law and I need to leave town before 8am to make the closing at 11. We will meet Kim there, sign our lives away, then take possession of our new home. This whole thing has been very rough. Not just all of the work involved with buying a house, but the details of changing addresses, utilities and such after 20 years in one place, but also of packing up our lives single-handedly. I am so very thankful that Kim will be here next week to help. He has a lot of stuff to pack himself, go through, and help his dad pack.
I have been thinking of our 20 years here. Of the home I loved until it became no longer my solitude and escape. When the trash moved in and claimed our life, making it impossible to live here.
I will miss watching snow or rain fall on the distant landscape.

I will miss spring, watching everything come to life, blooming, and deer wandering in the bluebonnets.

I will look through pictures of my garden before the neighbor made it a dump/junk yard and hope that I can make my new yard bloom as well.

But I won't miss the dried up desolation of summer. The season that I battle to keep things alive. I will take a large portion of my plants with  me. Moving so late in the summer is good in that I can dig things up and they have a good chance of surviving. Heck, if I can make things grow in this little bit of clay over rock, I shouldn't have a problem transplanting to better ground.

Finishing the house tour

 This is the huge master suite that will be Aaron's apartment (Kim's dad). The open door on the right leads to a huge walk in closet. To the right of the picture is french doors to the deck.

 This is his bathroom. Very elegant. At the right is a very nice shower and the vanity is behind the wall.

 This is what sold us on the house. To the left of the bed, opposite the closet is this room. Sink, storage, set up for microwave, and on the left side is enough room to put him a refrigerator and apartment sized stove. WIN!! He lives with us, but separate in his own little apartment!! He is excited. I can hardly wait for him to see it.

 This is his own little porch deck. That is his door outside.

 This is what you see when you go through the front door. The stairs. To the left is the office and half bath. Not sure about the intense blue of the stairwell and the upstairs hallway. We'll see.

 This is in the living room looking toward the kitchen and the backdoor.

 And looking from the kitchen wall toward the living room. I do not like the green in the room. Will be repainting it first thing. It was originally the same color as the dining room.

 This is the office to the left of the stairs. Nice storage closet. I can see my desk in there and books lining the walls. The red will have to go...it's just that one wall and is a bit jarring.

 Sadly, this is the only spare room until Matt gets to move out. This will be my studio, but I am sure family will want me to make it a guest room. sigh. It's not very big. Closet is decent sized, but nothing like I need.

 This will be Matt's room. It's larger than the other room and I can't talk him out of it. There is another small room off of it. I already know he will want to paint it a different color.

 This is a view of Kim's and my bedroom. It is set up as a nursery right now. The living room color can wait, I have to paint over this pink! I love how the small tray ceiling is trimmed out with decorative wood! It has a bathroom off of it. Nothing to write home about.

And I leave you with a view of the front door. I am crazy about the decorative wood beams and that fab door! In less than a month from now, I will be living there, trying to figure out where to put my furniture. I can hardly wait!

More of the new house

 I thought I would show you more of the outside of the house before I show the rest of the inside. I love the outside. Above is looking at the back of the house. Nice large covered porch off the kitchen and dining room. The wood clad part on the right is the laundry room which leads to Kim's dad's private space. I love the rustic supports. That's Kim looking around.

 This is the view from the front porch balcony. You can see the large shady treed area and the covered carport in front of the garage. This is where you park when you drive up. From the carport, the drive circles back around to the front.

 This is at the side of the garage in the backyard. The cement pad has a drain. I suppose it's for washing your 4H animals. That covered fenced in area behind it....chicken coop! I can have chickens again!!  You can see some trees to the left of the pen...that is fruit trees. This yard is so set up for me.

 This is the front porch. It even has it's own swing.

 And here is the upper balcony porch. The door out to it is in the hallway, so you don't have to go through anyone's room to get to it.

 This lovely view is from the balcony to the front entrance. Too cute! It needs some finishing up. I love the cedar fence in front. Just decorative.

 This is looking from the garage to the back of the house. Swing set not included. You can see the covered deck that leads to the master suite that will be Aaron's.

And this is the garage. It is begging for a barn red paint job! The left part I suppose you could park a car in, but it has a decked out workshop that will be put to very good use. The right side is definitely large enough for a vehicle, but will be storage for now. There is a nice set of steps inside that lead up to the loft area...more great storage. Behind the garage is an open shed that is very large. It houses the chicken house and tons of storage area.

New Home

This has been quite an adventure so far. Drama, heartache, physical pain, emotional pain, joy, a thrill ride. We found the house of our dreams. Well, honestly, we never dreamed of finding a house like this. It is what Kim and I have always loved. The story of it is long, so I will just do a digest of it right now and give you pictures.
We found it in the Hill Country, just a couple of miles outside of New Braunfels. It is in a subdivision called Pleasant Valley, on a road called Pleasant Lane. Perfect. We  just got the inspection on it, which of course, showed problems that we now have to work out with the seller.

 Welcome to 151 Pleasant Lane. It is built in the typical German Texas style with limestone and rustic posts. There are lots of large trees and tons of cute details.

 When you walk in the front door, you see the living room, dining room and around the corner is the kitchen. Right in front of the door is the staircase which will be in another post. To the left of the stairs is an office and half bath.

 This is the dining area. I love the huge windows and wood clad ceiling.

 The kitchen is fantastic. I like that the cabinet doors are beadboard type. The door at the far end is a very large butler's pantry with plenty of storage. And the kitchen isn't cut off from the rest of the house. Hurrah!

 Just outside the door of the dining room is a covered patio and gazebo! I can see drinking my morning coffee on that gazebo.The yard is a dream. As a gardener, I am going to have a blast here!

Look to the left of the previous picture, and there is a hot tub. Divine. The swing you see overlooks a small pond that is full of water lilies and frogs. I will have to get some koi to keep the pond clean. The deck edge you see on the left is off the added on Master Suite that will house Kim's dad. It is perfect for him...large and with a room set up to be a kitchenette.
We are set up to take possession on the 27th of this month. I hope all goes well. I think we will be very happy here. More pictures will be posted later, but I wanted to get some highlights on here now.

I had a house and lost it

I want out of this stinking hellhole...badly. I love my house, but neighbors have made it stressful to live here. So after discussing it with Kim, I started hunting. My sister found this one. It has 6 bedrooms and over 6 wooded acres, just a few blocks from a lake. The house is huge, the yard is wonderful. It needs painting inside and out, a few fixups, and the yard hasn't been touched in a couple of years. It was priced over 50k under what it would be valued at if it were in top form. Two problems knocked me out of my dream home. Hubby balking, and the bank ignoring me. The bank said we were approved for a loan on the needed amount, but I couldn't get the prequalifying letter from them. I picked the loan officer that was too busy and had her head too far up her behind to be bothered to do anything in a timely manner. She never would return my calls and despite telling her exactly what I needed, she still questioned me.
So now we are a back up bid in case the other one doesn't go through. I will not say anymore about how I feel about this except that I am heartbroken. I found the home of my dreams and it was taken from me. I really resent people who tell me that something better will come along. I don't believe that for a second. I am stuck in this hellhole, the butthole of Texas and if I don't stop now I will be crying again.
Oh, and right now there is yet another Mexican Polka party going on. Going to be a real peaceful evening, I can already tell.

Baby turkeys

A few weeks ago, a turkey hen brought her wee brood too close to the house. Dogs scattered them and momma lost them. I heard the babies and slowly caught them one by one. I kept waiting for the mom to come back for them, but the hen that showed up didn't seem interested.

Aren't they precious? The next afternoon I called the vet and he gave me the name of a couple that raised birds. I called and they were thrilled to have them. Turns out, they had been thinking of trying to find a nest of them. They had them before and had only one hen left. So babies went to people who knew how to raise birds. There place was fantastic! There were the show chickens of all kinds, ducks, the fatest geese I have ever seen, and pigmy goats. I left the babies in very good hands. I need to go out and check on their progress soon.

There is always something going on out here.

Why is he here?

See that guy? He is a Ruby-throat hummingbird. First, this is not his territory. We have black-chin hummers here. Second, this isn't migratory time. That comes in at least another month. So why is he here running off the locals? Pushy little bird!

I am back to updating my space here. It's been a wild ride the past couple of years but I will try to keep up with things now, so lots of updating to do. Tomorrow.....turkey babies.

What it looks like now

I am trying to load my room now. I have a ton of stuff in there now and need to start organizing. But I stand in there totally confused as to what I should do first. I keep having to walk away to clear my head. So, now for the tour and you can see the reason for my confusion.

You walk in the door and turn to the left, as before. I managed to get the wardrobe in there, but the pie safe is coming apart and we have to put it back together before I can do anything with it. In the corner is part of my fabric and sewing stash. A minor part.
Now turn right. This is the west wall where the machines will be set up, except for the back wall which will be storage cabinet. The corner is stacked with yarn. There is a large table hiding behind the cart. It will be my cutting table that sets in the middle of the room.
Turning right again....the north part of the machine wall and the north wall. You can see my fabulous air conditioner set in the wall. I love my A/C. Behind the rocking chair is the cedar trunk I made in Jr. High. It will be the pet seat.
This is back toward the door. The door looks black, but is a deep eggplant. I was going to paint the room some light color of lavender, but fell in love with the pale creamy yellow, so had to have purple somewhere. The corner with the white bookcase is my yarn corner. I hope to have it set up with yarn, books and magazines, and the rocking chair to knit or crochet in. You can see the ironing board cabinet opened up
See....told you that was the pet seat. Missy has already moved in. She loves the peace and quiet in there right now, sleeping in the sunshine.
Well, that's the room as it stands right now. I have tons of work to do. One thing is the trim you see around the windows. It has flower embossing that you can see partially painted in the cat picture. I found my paints, so need to finish painting the flowers. Then I will put on a coating of white wood stain. I need to get out a piece of leftover trim and decide if I want to sand it a bit before putting on the stain, or not.
I still have a storage room full of tubs of fabric and still furniture and bookcases with fabric to put in.

The Room is Finished

First, you walk in the door...to the left and turn east, or left. The walls are a color called Contentment. It is the color of sunshine against the wall. The east wall will house my antique cabinets, the wardrobe and pie safe that were my great grandparent's. The short wall is on the south. It will eventually have a huge storage cabinet built in from wall to wall...floor to ceiling.
Now you turn to the right. That is the storage cabinet wall to the left. This is the west wall. It has an outlet strip almost completely across it. It will house all my sewing machines and sergers. These pictures were taken before we got the windows trimmed out. How about that floor!
Now turning right again, this is the north wall and the northwest part of the west wall. The window on the north wall will be set up for the cats and dog to watch out the window.
Now we turn right again and are back at the door and the east wall that is the house end. You will see the ironing cabinet mounted in the next set of pictures. Also, the door is painted eggplant now. In this shot you can also see the track lighting. I love this lighting setup. The track is flexible and the lights can be aimed in any direction. Also, I can add more lights to the track.

But now starts the hardest work of loading everything in it and organizing it. The next day, when I started putting my stuff in the room, Kim walked in and said "I can already tell that I made the room too small". Ummm, yep!

Next post will be of the total mahem in the room.