Still waiting to close and making plans.

NEWSFLASH:
 Well, my friends and family, word on the street is that we might actually get to CLOSE on our house this week! FINALLY! We have been waiting for what seems like FOREVER, but has actually been less than 90 days (but not by much!). Now that it seems to actually be happening, I feel like we are NOT READY! Isn't that CRAZY? I guess the truth is, I may not be ready for ALL THAT WORK. Hope we haven't bitten off more than we can chew! It was love at first sight with this place, but you know what they say: LOVE IS BLIND.

 

The outside of our little house is in decent shape. Just needs some TLC and landscaping, but the inside...well...that's another thing!

 

 

Though you may not be able to see it in this small photo, the interior features an art gallery - Crayon on the walls, the window sills, the doors and even the cabinets!

 

If you know of a good way to remove crayon before painting, please let me know.  I've tried WD-40. It worked, but it left a grease spot, which will be worse than the crayon to try to paint over.  I also tried magic erasers. They work pretty good, but disintegrate very quickly, and those things aren't cheap! The VOLUME of crayon would require us to float a loan for magic erasers, so I am looking at other options. So far the  GOOF OFF product purchased at Home Depot seems to work best, and a little goes a long way.

 

 

We will start work in the kitchen. I have decided to paint everything a pure white for now, including the ceilings. Then it will be easy to add accent colors as we have time and energy. I want to sit a spell in my home and get a real feel for it before the real decorating is begun. We just need to get things CLEAN and ready to move furniture in right now. IF we close this week, we will have just over a month to get the place move-in ready! Our house-sitting job in Willis ends on September 1st or thereabouts. Willis is about 20 miles from our new place so it is easy to go over for the day and work.

 

...and speaking of spending time inside the house, as you know, that is not allowed until after closing at least not unless we call our realtor and have her drive 45 miles to the house to unlock it.  So, when she opened up the house for us several weeks back, she asked us to be sure and lock the doors before we left.  I promised to do so, AND I DID. However, She never said a word about making sure all of the windows were locked.  Just so happens, the large window on the front porch was unlocked.  We have been climbing in as needed to measure rooms and windows and arrange newspaper furniture on the floor, etc..  And last week...Paul was out in the back yard walking around and FOUND two keys on a ring. Both keys unlock the front door!  It was meant to be.

 

 

 Does anyone know why realtors always open cabinet doors to take pictures of the kitchen? We have seen that A LOT.  Just curious about why.

My plan - always subject to change - is to replace the apple-green color with white, darken the wood cabinets a few shades. and to remove the upper cabinets on the back wall (shown below) to open up that space.

 

We will put up some open shelves there if all goes as planned to make it feel more like a farm kitchen. Stainless steel appliances are on my shopping list. I got a great deal on natural linen curtains, sort of  like burlap and in a taupe color from Tuesday Morning (love that place). These will go on the big dining room window and the living room window as well, to frame our view of the backyard and the stable further back, which is currently obscured by weeds and brush at the moment.
 

 We bought this beautiful (to us) door table made from reclaimed wood for the dining room, and have completed a collection of old ladder-back chairs with rush-bottom seats. I will stain the cabinets to approximate this shade of wood. We also found a glass top for the table at a resale shop. I hate to cover the wood with glass, BUT - the surface of the old door has large nail heads and there are crevices that would fill with crumbs if we didn't.

 

Below is another view of our dining room, The door on the left goes to the laundry room and out the back door. The purple wall you see is in the master bedroom.  The interior is quite colorful! It is a very open floor plan - exactly what we were looking for.

 

 

I started this blog as a record of our Pine Shadows Farm adventure.  Will try to keep it updated as time allows, and can't wait until I can start posting the AFTER Pics! Thanks for visiting. Your comments are always appreciated.