Tuesday, June 9, 2009

This Old House Update

I just want to assure those of you who commented that I was "brave" for posting my Foto Friday pictures that I truly was not offended! If I really didn't want people to see the odd (aka ugly) areas of my home, I wouldn't have posted them.

I wish I had digital pictures of the wallpaper that was in our kitchen when we first moved in. Wowza! It had these large pink and orange flowers all over it! It was even on the ceiling! When we re-wallpapered the kitchen, we were just going to paint the ceiling, but then we saw the condition it was in underneath the old paper. We papered the ceiling with paintable wallpaper that has a stamped tin look to it.

My husband has always said that he would like to steal the sink when we do move out (minus the cabinets underneath). That sink is probably worth a lot of money! It is a cool piece to have.

Through the years, I have just had to chuckle at some things in our house. I think, "What were people thinking when they did this?" In the past, families made do with what they had and shared with others. Remember how I said the flooring in my laundry room was the same as in my neighbor's bathroom? Well, their master bedroom was also the same color as our boys' bedroom was. The two families must have shared the paint and the flooring!

And by the way, if you really loved my kitchen floor, we have a spare roll of it in our coat closet! It came with the house.

Speaking of our coat closet, this closet runs all the way under our stairs. At some point in the history of this house, someone put a toilet in that closet! There is a piece of wood over the hole now. In fact, we lived here several years before I even knew it was there. Apparently, my hubby knew but didn't tell me right away. How would you like to open up your closet and find someone sitting on a toilet?!

Since our house is so old, it has "settled". If you put a marble on our kitchen floor, it will roll all by itself underneath either the oven or the refrigerator. Whenever I bake a cake, I have to remember to go turn it so that it doesn't come out too lopsided!

Oh, I almost forgot the light fixtures. The rule is this: If the fixture calls for more than one light bulb, there will always be one bulb out. For example, our dining room light calls for five bulbs, but we can only have four in there. If we put five in, one will blow out almost immediately!

When our next door neighbors moved in a few years back, they told us that they had looked at a lot of houses in our town during their home search. They said that most of the houses have oddities to them.

Yes, living here is almost comical! I just have to keep reminding myself that it's a family that makes a house a home, not the house itself!

5 comments:

Sue J. said...

You could probably write a lovely book about your house....you'll have to pick an angle, but you certainly have enough material! Treasures of My This Old House. And don't leave out the photos :-)

Deb said...

I've been out of the loop for the last several days so I'm catching up on your "This Old House" posts!!! I am honestly laughing hysterically and empathizing with you the whole way!! The main part of our house is over 100 years old! We have lived here almost 4 years and have been remodeling practically since we moved in! It's always something new and exciting (?) around here. No such thing as a quick, easy, project!!
Love and blessings my friend!!
Deb

Heart2Heart said...

Wow! Something I would have never thought of, a toilet in the closet under the stairs? I can't even think of a rational explaination for that one. Is there another bathroom downstairs already?

Your home has such character, I am dying to see what you unearth next!

Love and Hugs ~ Kat

Tracy said...

I grew up in an old farm house...my mom actually fell through the bathroom floor once while she was sitting on the toilet (no she wasn't heavy ;o}) the floor was just rotted out.

I love old house...so much character. We looked for an old fixer-upper before we built, but the houses needed so much repair it was actually cheaper to build.

nancygrayce said...

The house I grew up in also had a closet all the way under the stairs. As we became teens, all of us had a stair....we wrote all our loves on our stair...there was a lot of Johnny love whoever! It was the one thing we each wished to take from home when the house was sold!