Houses I Have Loved

Today is Wednesday, March 19, 2008. It is sunny and warm again today.
Oh, dear! This is my second typing for today. Somehow I pushed a wrong button and zapped out all my "wonderful" writing about this house I love. I am going to start again. Maybe it will be better but maybe it won't. Oh well, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. That's what my "mama" always said. Okay, here goes for the second time.
As we drove up to our house today I was reminded again how much I love this place of ours. It is a big two story white house with dark grey, almost black shutters. Well, big is relative. It looks big and by many standards it is big. It hasn't always been white. When we bought it 16 years ago it was grey wood. It looked nice then but better now. Now it has white aluminum siding. I have always liked two story white houses. They are very popular in Missouri and I have lived in at least three before I got married.
We've made more changes in the house. We had to put on a new roof. It's slate grey to match the shutters. And we had double paned windows installed. It all looks very nice.
There is a window box at the front window. Our youngest daughter planted geraniums there the first summer we moved in and they are in full bloom now, a beautiful pink. We keep thinning them and planting some in other places around the yard.
Under the window box is a bed of rose bushes planted by another daughter. They are in full leaf and will soon be blooming again. To the side of the garage is a flower bed with two medium size junipers and newly planted petunias and marigolds. There are some perennial daisies and other ground cover there as well. Oh, yes, and agapanthas and iris, too.
The front of the house looks very inviting. When we drive up Glen and I say to each other, "Let's stop here and see who lives here." We have a nice size patch of green lawn in front and it is newly mowed.
Upstairs there are two bedrooms and a bath. The bathroom is the nicest room in the house. Even though it is small it has been newly refurbished. There is a good tile floor - large tiles - and a new bathtub as well as a cultured marble shower enclosure. We use a shower curtain to add color. The fixtures are all silver and the wall is textured white. Our youngest son and his friend did the texturing for us. One daughter and son-in-law laid the tile floor. They are all so good to help us.
Downstairs there is the little entry hall into the front room. It is a pleasant room with a large window that looks out at the necterine tree which is in full beautiful pink blossom right now. The most imposing piece of furniture there is our Kimball piano - a beautiful old upright of flaming oak. And we have a new couch and love seat. The love seat rocks and reclines. The sofa has two reclining seats. Such luxury! And there is a fireplace with a large gold framed mirror above the mantle. We feel very rich because we have two fireplaces. One in the front room and a second one in the family room. We used to burn wood but with new city ordinances and my allergies we have converted to gas inserts and they are just right.
The family room at the back of the house was built on before we bought it. That extension includes a room at one end which we use as our bedroom. Our back window looks out over our back yard and we can see the tops of the trees in the yard behind us. It gives us an outdoor feel which we like. It is big enough for our bed, two small chests which are our bedside tables, a schrunk (ammoire in French - schrunk in German), and a mirrored dresser. There is just barely enough space to walk around the edge of the bed.
There is a small bedroom up in front which we use now as a den. It is also a place to store toys for our grandchildren's visits. It has a bunch of books. There is a floor to ceiling bookcase along part of one wall and an antique lawyer's book case full of books. We have a couple of chairs there and a cherrywood settee.
The downstairs bathroom is between that room and the biggest bedroom in the house. When the bedroom is not in use by guests it is my "pilot room" (you know, pile it here, pile it there). I do a quick clean-up when someone is coming to spend the night. There is another little room off this bedroom. It is a part of the back addition. This little room has a door which goes out into the side yard. We have added floor to ceiling bookshelves on two sides of that little room. That's where we keep the organ and other instruments that belong to various members of the family. There is a chair for reading and lots of baskets and pretty metal tins that hold my "treasures."
The downstairs bathroom has been redone since we moved in here, too. We have a cultured marble shower with opaque glass doors. The bathrooms are quite small but they are adequate.
The favorite rooms are the family room and the kitchen. We remodeled the kitchen in 1998 with new cabinets we got from Home Depot. I think they are called Kraft Maid. It was a huge project but the kitchen is very nice. I have a double GE oven. Just right at Thanksgiving time and Christmas. And all other times of the year, too. The kitchen floor is hard wood and there is a big picture window in the west side where we have our dining table.
The table is the round one Glen made for me while we lived in Bakersfield. It seats 10 comfortable and with the right combination of seating can seat 12. The window looks out to the west on our peach tree, the neighbor's lemon tree, our rustic fence with the iris and roses. And we can always see the sky. Of course, we have a view of our neighbor's roof but we don't focus so much on that.
We recently bought a new cook top and I got a brand new sink for Christmas. And it is great! One side is deep enough to hold a cookie sheet and enough dishes to fill the dishwasher. I can have clean counters most of the time now.
The family room is the best. It's where we spend most of our time. The seating is comfortable. The TV is in here. The computer, the scanner, the printer, the CD player, the radio. We also have a nice roll top desk, the exercise bike and the tread mill. The big cozy recliner chair is very popular and there are more book shelves. These were here when we first looked at the house. Since we had lots of bookshelves in our house in Bakersfield, we wanted bookshelves in our house in Sacramento. There is a window opening from the kitchen into the family room and you never feel isolated when you are in the kitchen and the others are in the family room. We had that in our house in Bakersfield, too. We think this house was just made for us. All in all it is a very good house and I love it. I never want to move.
Our backyard is small. However, there is room for our picnic table, a few lawn chairs and our trampoline. In our raised garden bed we have some flowers and we always plant tomatoes and peppers along with some other veggies. Along with our peach and nectarine trees we have a plum, an apricot, an apple and two oranges trees. We are going to plant a pie cherry tree this year.
I was going to write some more about other houses we have had but I don't have time today. I will another time. That's all for today - for the second time! Here's hoping I don't push the wrong button and zap it all away again.