Tour Guides

I cannot tell you the number of folks who have "toured" the house, but it is a bunch. With ten indoor rooms, a front and back porch along with a basement, there is a lot to see. Keep that in mind when you think that the photographs will never end! The good news is that all of the furniture has arrived and we love it all! Waiting those 45 days to get into the house felt like forever, however it did allow us to take our time buying what would both fit and we liked. 

So, there may be ten rooms, as a refresher, when this house was built in 1925, there were public rooms and all of the rest, including bedrooms that were meant to house beds. How the upstairs bedroom became so crazy big is still a mystery. You will soon see what I mean.

Let's begin the virtual tour, shall we?

The back porch, overlooking the deep backyard lot is home to this fantastic color of petunia. Seeing it in a downtown shop, I could not resist its' charms.

I showed you the living room before, but let's do it again, first with the empty room.

Before I move along, my friend Pam is questioning the stained glass and the painting over the fireplace and she does have a point. I am questioning the pale yellow, but so far have not come up with a better idea. Which means there is more thinking to be done! Here are the gorgeous windows and the wonderful light that I am dying over. Oh yea, she is also not a fan of the cornice boards!

And here are four fine folks enjoying the space. Well, make that five with Bruce in the foreground.Let me explain. Karen is in red and Jim has his walker in front of him. Those would be the folks that first moved to Murphy about 11 years ago and made us aware of this sweet town. Both are retired teachers and friends from church long ago. We visited them at their beautiful home, not far from here, the first time we came to Murphy which I wrote about here. 

Karen has many interests, one of them being genealogy and what you see above is British cousins who are visiting America. It is a familiar story, an American soldier in WWII falling in love with a British girl and raising the family in the US. Over the years she has found countless relatives that were previously unknown, although between the tour and chit chat about their travels, I neglected to get details. Who me? Yup it is true. Anyway we had a delightful visit and they very much understood the small rooms and the tiny downstairs bathroom.

One must walk in and turn sideways to shut the door. That is the original bathtub, however, someone must have painted it over the years because it is pristine! 

Here is my sweet honey at his desk, another find from the local, as in two streets away, antique store,  in what we are calling the office. Both of us have a desk and there is a small bookcase and another small table I will show you on another day because it is crazy cute.

Although he is wearing a brace in the photo above, his wrist seems to be much improved after a friend did a massage on it. We shall see how long it lasts, but speaking of him using his wrist, he could not be any more thrilled with his basement workshop. He's doing great things down there.

Both of us are learning to make things work with whatever space we have.  He decided to modify the existing workbench by expanding the top in order to accommodate his beautiful tool cabinet he built back when we lived in California when we were 25 years old.

Whether he's ever cut a piece of plywood with a skill saw before, I don't know for sure, but he sure made it work.

He also built the shelf above the bench. So not only did he do the addition but he added a new two-layered top. Just like days of old when he would stay up late building something. I love it!

I believe I mentioned that not only is the bathroom small, well, let's face it all rooms are small, but anyway the kitchen, while roomy enough in floor space, is sorely lacking in counter space. Nevertheless, I am making the best of it and it is working just fine.

Before we moved in we had ideas about how to make it more functional but honestly it is not bad at all.  Yesterday, while eating lunch after church, the doorbell rang. Because the door was open, (screen door closed), hearing the voice I thought it was Hank, however, it was Mr. Vespasian. He had been driving by and upon seeing the un-mowed lawn, he wanted to offer his guy's name. For three weeks in May the front yard grew naturally because we were doing the "No Mow May",  which you can read about by clicking on the link. Not great when you are new to a neighborhood and if we do it next year a sign would be good! Anyway, he sat down at our new dining table and, if you can imagine, I peppered him with questions and he answered them to the point! It made me chuckle. He's 86 btw. Apparently his wife Ruth cooked many a holiday dinner in that kitchen, so why shouldn't I be able to? We learned a lot including a ghost story that I will get into next time. That will keep you guessing I suspect. 😀

Speaking of the furniture, on Wednesday this happened. 

Yup, two deliveries! One way I figured I would manage my lack of counter space was by using the dining room table so I was very happy when it finally arrived. The guys were great.

Honestly it had been about a month since we ordered the chairs from a catalogue, so I'd forgotten what they even looked like. I could not be any more pleased. View towards the living room.

And the view towards the kitchen.

As if Bruce were not talented enough he is adding floral arranging to his skill set! I bought the "flowers" while we were in Orlando but then I am stymied as to what to do next. I ran over to the antique market place where we bought the above dresser/sideboard and found the vase for $10. The very next day we bought this there for $100.

There is something to be said for having separate rooms because they are so much fun to decorate! Not the style these days, but I am kind of like it. Well let's get real, we are loving it!

The other delivery was our new box springs and I do mean plural. A few weeks ago when the mattress came, it was impossible to get the box spring up the staircase! Try as they might, it just wasn't happening. The queen mattress was a pretty big struggle as well but with the two guys and Bruce pushing like a lineman it finally went up. The folks at Bellview furnishings were great and offered to order two that would fit upstairs. We have since moved upstairs ourselves.

Speaking of upstairs, both of us have lost weight managing a three level house! The above is a huge room for unknown reasons with several other rooms as well. Bruce set up my sewing machine in one of them.

I am tired of the red quilt, red not being a favorite of mine, so soon I will get going on something new for our bed. 

Down to the basement I go to do laundry. 

We have a walk-in cedar closet in our bedroom and there were probably 200 or more hangers in there. Plenty more downstairs too! 

We picked up the pieces from David and Randy including the piece under the mirror above.

In the little alcove there are two nods to home, the plant is in water as it has been since Matt put it together while visiting Orlando. The books are both gifts.

This morning we would normally be playing pickleball but the rain kept us indoors giving me time to write this account and give you, my dear readers, a tour. Now the sun has come out and I'm going to head to Ingles for some groceries. Randy and David are coming to dinner. 

More outdoor stuff to show you next time as well as a few other inside goodies. I've gotten a library card, paid a water bill, and we've made ourselves at home here in the house on Campbell Street. Not to mention giving tours sometimes twice a day!

Hope you enjoyed the tour. 

your friend,

Gail