Home Sweet Home

After floofing my porch last week,

I received a few requests to see the front of the house.

You know....you're right! 

I've shown you the back of the house and the gardens surrounding it,

but never the front.

So, after spending the morning mowing the lawn on a beautiful

summer-like day

with the birds chirping,

the breeze blowing,

and the sun warm on my shoulders,

I made like a professional photographer

(cough...cough)

and wandered around the house snapping shots.

I'm quite sure that one of our two neighbors was probably thinking,

"What in the world is she doing now....?"

while the other neighbor was nodding her cute little head thinking,

"Crazy Laurie's taking more pictures for her blog!"

Now, mind you.....we have not done a single thing to the outside of the house

except to have her re-roofed and re-shingled
(and some major landscaping, of course).

She wore sad, dilapidated shingles when we moved in

that would leave bits and pieces of black sprinkled across the yard
and driveway every time it rained.

Beneath the old shingles was the actual cedar shake roofing 

original to the house.

 We hated to have them ripped off

because they looked so cool as the attic ceiling,

but it wasn't logical nor energy efficient to keep them.
New roof boards were in the plan that would certainly help with our heating/cooling bills.

So, a few years ago we hired a company to tenaciously and courageously 

climb the steep roof to cover Heaven's Walk with a mantle of new, dark green shingles.

It was quite amazing to watch those guys clamber up that 12/12 pitch

and it made me quite nauseous to see them walking around up there 

without a care in the world.

They ran up and down that ladder like it only had three rungs.

While they were doing that,

a guy we had hired from South Carolina was repainting our barn roof.

No rope.  No support.  No suction cups on his shoes.
No Spiderman costume.
Nuthin'...

 Even the roofing guys were amazed.

You can see where he tested his sprayer with the new paint.

No way, Jose......

You couldn't pay me enough to do something like that.

I have a hard enough time climbing a six foot ladder.

I couldn't watch.

Hubby yelled up to Charles and asked if he had ever fallen off a roof.
"Only once!" he chuckled.
Once???

I think I spent that entire day feeling nauseous.

New roof is complete.

There are many ideas bouncing around in this noggin of mine 

that Hubby has yet to hear about....

poor guy.

One of them being a brand new front door.

A pretty one.

A vintage one.

One with a big window in it.

Complete with a vintage style screen door

that slams when it shuts.

Mmmmm.....yeah....a favorite sound of summer. 

Another thing on my wish list is a walkway leading from the front porch to the driveway

paved with old bricks

(like the one in the back of the house that Hubby and I made together a few years ago)

and a light post to brighten the yard at night.

It really gets dark out here in the boonies!

Waiting for the Limelight hydrangeas and hostas to fill in across the front.

I'd also love to replace the lights on the garage and house with farmhouse-style ones

and dump the Victorian looking ones.

And that 'widow's walk' railing over the porch?
It desperately needs to be replaced.
Hubby wants me to paint it.
Ummmm.....Hon, do ya NOT remember that I'm the one that can't climb a six foot ladder.....?

Recently dug out all of the Rose of Sharon bushes that were in front of the garage (too big!) and replaced them with Walker's Low catmint.

I'm still yearning for a pergola over the back deck

to help keep us cooler.

It gets really hot out there mid-day in the summer!

Or.....better yet......a screened-in porch.

Yeah, I like that idea even better.

Back of the house from the newly planted vegetable garden.

If we won the lotto, we'd replace all of the windows.

They're all a little wonky.

We'd also re-side the entire house in new white siding

and replace the black shutters with new ones.

The garage would get a new carriage-house style door on it, too.

But......until our money tree starts producing

or our train comes in

or some gracious, giving soul out there 

doesn't know what to do with some extra cash and

decides to send it our way -

I'll try to keep my ideas from crashing around too much 

and concentrate on just loving and appreciating where we are,

what we have,

and the peace and quiet that we've discovered out here 

in the country

inside this scrappy, old farmhouse

we call Heaven's Walk.

Peonies and sage

Peonies

Bumblebee in the sage

Wildflower by the old silo next to the barn

Lupine by the barn

{ Hugs }

(Oh, and my clay tags are now being sold at Doster Emporium AND Pine Lake Marina Gift Shoppe! I'm so excited! )

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