This old house.

    Hello again, remember me?  I realize I've dropped off the face of the earth lately, but that is just the way it had to be with all of the painting, moving, thanksgiving, and so on and so forth.  We are moved.  We are living in our new house that we can call our very own, and loving it, mostly.  It's a strange thing, moving.  It is so exciting and so exhausting at the same exact moment, and the two emotions war with each other and so you are left feeling listless and drained and brain-dead.  At least if you're like me.  So I haven't had much energy for going into raptures about decor and paint colors and new rugs on the blog.  Oh and we didn't have the internet until today.  That didn't help either.

   But, nevertheless, we're still alive and kicking and I can't wait to show a few pics.  My Grandma and Mom came out to help, and I couldn't even begin to tell you all that they did for me.  Painting, packing, babysitting, cleaning....they worked so hard and tirelessly and were just completely amazing.  I absolutely couldn't have done it without them.  But before I dive into a post/pictures of the new house, I think it's only decent to say a proper goodbye to our old one.

Goodbye old friend.

   The house we were living in before was big and beautiful.  It was over 100 years old with original hardwood floors, vaulted ceilings and lots of chair rail, white trim and beadboard, and even the original, white, claw foot tub.  There were scores of beautiful trees, apple, pear, and plum, and even a few California pines stretching up to the Heavens in the driveway. There was a garden surrounded by blackberries, raspberries and grapes that provided bucket after bucket in the summer time.   That lovely, drafty old house had 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a huge kitchen, a dining room, living room, sitting room, and large laundry room.  Also a wrap-around porch, deck out the back, and small balcony off of the master bedroom.  

It was every country girl's dream come true.

   A few people asked us why were were moving, rather incredulously, and, I get it.  It hardly makes sense.  It was perfect, in many ways.  Lovely place to raise a family, neighbors that FELT like family, and a breathtaking view every way the eye could see.  Waking up in the mornings the fog would be rolling in over the meadows on every side and the sheep would be lazily grazing as the sun peeked through a lit up the green of the fields and the blue of the foothills in the distance.  

But it wasn't OURS.

   We were renting, and while it was lovely and we loved living there, we couldn't call it our own.  And so I am thrilled to be a new homeowner, and I am ready for this new chapter of life, even if it means closing the pages of a pretty wonderful, lovely, special chapter.  

  So here are a few pictures of the old house, in terrible lighting.  I wish I could have snapped these during the daytime, and captured it in all of that beautiful, natural light, but as it was, the house never felt clean enough to take pictures of in "real life" and this was one night right before company arrived when it finally felt presentable enough.

   (Missed the cleaning bucket in the middle of the floor.  Ha!)

   I promise you the walls were not all mustard colored.  That's the horrible lighting for you.  They were all more of a taupe, or tan, or something in that color genre.  And I missed the girls' room, and our bedroom, and the laundry room and well....all of the bedrooms.  But I guess you can just use your imaginations.  A girl can only snap so many pictures in the 15 seconds before her company walks in the door. :)

   I can't wait to show you pictures of the new house. I have SCORES of "befores" and so now I just need to work on the "afters".  Although those might be a little while in coming because it is definitely taking some time getting this poor house back into order!  Hope you all had a lovely, lovely Thanksgiving. 

We certainly are feeling pretty thankful around here.