New House Pictures Before We Paint

It was a beautiful mild winter day, so here are some pictures of our new house. The fireplace chimney is in the living room. We are having it "closed" up and an electric insert with a mantel put in and drywall installed over the brick. That will help with our house insurance and besides open fireplaces are really inefficient. The chimney inside the house is exposed brick from the floor to the ceiling (and the ugliest brick I have ever seen - it looks like someone threw whitewash over it). Anyway, the insert is just for the "ambience". We have the wood burning stove in the family room if the power goes out and we need heat.

This is the house taken from the west side. Our
house faces north. We are thinking that we will paint the cedar with a solid hide colour - sort of a chestnut colour. We are also thinking of painting the shutters a grey blue or blue grey, along with the veranda and the deck. Just to get a little colour. And I still have the dilemma of what kind of plants to put in when the beds face north (same as our house in Belleville). I will wait and see what comes up. I think there are hostas but it is hard to tell with the dead sticks - they could also be daylilies. I love those kind of surprises - what is going to grow out of the ground this week.



This is the back of the house with the deck. We want to put shutters on the windows to match the front. The shutters are just 3 boards nailed to a cross board for support and screwed to the wall. The back is very plain and very brown. So give me your opinions on the idea of having the front porch, back deck and shutters in a blue grey?

Dad is in Nashville from today until Saturday, Mar. 3. He gets to use his passport for the first time. Those photos are soooooo unflattering. So while he is away, I am painting the bedroom ceilings, woodwork, walls and baseboard heater. The baseboard heater in the living room appears to be acting up. It came on yesterday and did not shut off, just kept getting hotter and hotter. So we cut the power to it. All our baseboard heaters are each on separate power switches ( you know - those black switches on the electrical panel in the basement or whatever they are called) and have their own thermostats. So we will probably have to have someone in to look at that. We have to get the plumber in next week to fix the taps and piping so I can hook up my washer and put in a small laundry tub. Always something to fix when you own a house.

I applied for my passport on Tuesday and it will be ready in 3 weeks by March 20 for pick up. My photo is really awful - even worse than the driver's licence. The government offices that we have been in have been really helpful, efficient and very friendly.

I emptied most of the boxes in the basement and now we can assemble our Ikea chairs. We are moving the big couch to the basement and getting another leather chair for the living room - so there will be the loveseat and 2 chairs in the living room. With a window on one wall, fireplace on the other wall and baseboard heater under the window - it makes it difficult to position the large sofa and we needed something more than the 2 Ikea chairs in the basement anyway.

Until next saga of the "House in the Fall River" - take care of each other.
Love from Mom/Grandma

We arrived safely in New Scotland (Nova Scotia)

First, here are a few pictures from our "old house" in Belleville after we had finished the floors, painted and made the house ready to sell.


John A. installed this nice new sink, vanity and mirror for us. I'm sure you all remember how awful the old one looked. Thank you dear son. (That was a tough week-end - two grandkids and John A. were sick.) The photo in the centre is the shelf we put in over the toilet to hold the towels. I discovered I do not like stuff behind my back while on the toilet.





No more bookshelves in the loft area.

It was really strange to see the For Sale sign and then the Sold sign. I cried. Thank goodness for memories.

Bet you thought you would never see this desk cleared off. However, before you rejoice, I must let you know that "all the paper" is just stored in boxes. It had to be sorted through yet which was what Dad did all the last night before the moving van arrived. But this looked nice for when the house was being viewed.

The dishwasher is gone. Isn't the bowl of fruit on the table a nice touch.

No Christmas Tree this year, just the huge poinsettias which were just gorgeous.

The west room was so green! Oh well, good thing we were moving.

This is our old bedroom. Nice blue eh! It went well with the chocolate brown bedskirt and tan quilt and drapes. The caribean scene went well with the room too.

I have to take pictures of our new house. Here is one of the family room with a pile of boxes to be emptied (mostly books). You can see the Ikea chair pads - which I hope to put together as soon as I can get some space. Also, our wood stove - on which we just had lessons on how to light. And which we probably won't light unless we have too. So the boxes are in the middle of the family room - the fireplace to the south end and the computer desk to the north end and the rebounder between the boxes and the computer desk. It is quite a large room and will look even bigger when set up properly.

Anyway, the living room ceiling is being replastered. We went out and looked at counter tops and electric fireplace inserts as the old fireplace in the living room will be sealed up.

We will take lots of before and after pictures. And I will try to get them on this blog as I go.

We are adjusting to living here in Fall River, now that I know where to buy traction sand (very pebbly sand which works really great) and I can get down the steep driveway. There are so many hills and gullies (sp?) not to mention the trees and rocks - big rocks. I'll get some pictures of those too.

Till next blog, and hopefully I'll get better at arranging the pictures and wording.

It was all over the place. Love from Mom/Grandma