Pencil Shavings Studio

Unbelievably, we’ve been in our  new house for a year now. I guess I can stop calling it the, um, new house now. I cringe slightly now when I drive by the old house; I see that the landscaping we took such care in creating is now sad and dry-looking. The yard isn’t maintained the way Simon used to. I can’t help but wonder what the inside looks like now, too. So, in honor of our new house, let’s take a look back at our old house.

I loved our old house. It was our first little nest — the place we came home to after our honeymoon. Simon had bought it while we were still dating. I loved it when I first saw it; it had such great charming, vintage detail. It had belonged to a grandmother, who had been the only owner of it since the late 50s. When we bought it, we said to ourselves, “All it needs is a little paint and some new flooring.” As if that were no small feat. Many hours of sweat, tears, and paint later, we realized that maybe it was going to be a bigger ordeal than we had previously thought. There were three different types of carpet, all icky, concealing some pristine hardwood floors with minimal damage. We had them completely restored and stained to a gorgeous dark brown. Of all the things in that house, those are what I miss the most. Those gorgeous floors.  ::sigh:: Ok, moving on.  Of course, we ended up doing more than just the walls and floors. We also had the windows replaced, and did a good deal of landscaping in the front yard. The tree pictured above had to go the way of the dodo — it died and was cut down. In its place, a little crepe myrtle.

I also fell in love with our little vintage kitchen. The cabinets were white powder-coated enamel – the brand was Youngstown, and they were in perfect condition. Most people would probably walk in and think they needed to get rid of them, but I was so glad that they were still there. The floors were originally the ugliest linoleum you’ve ever seen. It didn’t matter how often i mopped them; they were a perpetual shade of dirty. Sixty years of hard work will do it to you, I guess! We replaced them with a DuPont laminate in a slate gray color. They really were good floors.

About a month after we were married, I stuck dinner in the oven to be ready for when Simon came home from work. When he walked in the door, I opened the oven. Dinner was cold. Uh oh. Our big ol’ workhorse oven had bitten the dust, so we had to get an all new one. Same for the dishwasher; it died a year later. We found both the oven and the dishwasher on sale in the dent-and-ding sections of our favorite appliance store.

I just shake my head when I look at these pictures and see all the junk sitting on my countertops. There wasn’t room to stick any of my appliances, (or apparently my cereal boxes, either!) so everything was out on the counter.

Grandmother’s china cabinet in my sunny yellow kitchen. This house had such good light.

This was the front living room (above). It had the most beautiful color on the walls — a robin’s egg blue. It was original to the house. I would really like to recreate this in our front living room in the new house. It was just so soothing. I loved being in that room.

My little experimental bathroom. It was originally wallpapered with ’50s pink poodles (complete with gold flecked detailing). I ripped it off the walls pretty quickly; this bathroom was a myriad of colors before we landed on black and white stripes. I loooooved this tiny little bathroom.

Street view at night. We also had new outdoor lighting installed right before we moved.

Dining room. This room was probably 15 different colors before we landed on the right color. It was a north-facing cave of a room, with no direct sunlight. These are the hardest rooms to paint. Remember that rug? It’s up in my office now. My sister-in-law made the slipcover for the cornice board over the window.

The spare bedroom. There were only 2 bedrooms in our little house. It started out as my office (above) and then was transformed into a nursery (below).

Our bedroom. It was soooo tiny! It had two little closets that were stuffed to the brim. Our kingsize bed was mammoth in that tiny room! Poor Simon barely had any room to squeeze around onto his side of the bed.

Family room/TV room. It had the ugliest wood paneling. I had it painted white early on. For the life of me, as I look at these pictures, I cannot figure out why I did not have the painters paint that back door too. That was not smart. There’s tiny baby Jude and Mazie the Chihuahua in that picture, too! Aww, memories!

Well, Old House, I hope that your new owner is enjoying you as much as we did! I don’t really miss it all that much, but it is fun to look back at all these pictures. It was quite the journey!