What I love about my house...

This post was inspired by Grace over at Sense and Simplicity after reading what she loved about her home - I happen to love several of the same things about MY home...err "shanty" as my silly co-workers like to call it (the FL house is "the shanty"...the TN cabin is "the mansion" - I work with strange not quite right crazy whack-a-doo interesting people.)

Like Grace said - we all look at, drool over, fixate on, aspire, and draw inspiration from magazines and decorator catalogs. Who doesn't love a Pottery Barn bathroom? Or a Ballard Designs living room? Then you put down the catalog and you see your room. You see what you want it to be...but it's not there. It might never be there, but it is yours and while you may not love everything about your home, you know you didn't buy it just to have a roof over your head - there was something about it that you loved...even if it looked like it should be condemned when you bought it - it had potential and you saw it.

I met my house in late 1996 or early 1997. I was 23. My parents had a collection of rental properties as I was growing up. One of my girlfriends had her first baby our sophomore year of high school and got married our junior year. At 24 with two little girls she was ready to divorce her husband and was looking for a home in which to raise rear her girls (one of my high school English teachers drilled into our heads that animals are "raised", children are "reared"...you win Pam Covert...you WIN okay?!) in a good school district. She found my home. I first met my home when she called and asked if I could talk my dad (Mr. Real Estate) into coming with her to look at it. We did. A few months later Mr. Real Estate asked the outcome of the ugly little house. My friend couldn't get financing or a co-signer...so she was staying married. He said I should buy it...and if I didn't, he would. So I bought it. I had just finished my college classes and was wading my way thru final exams. May 7, 1997 I received my bachelor's degree in business administration with a concentration in computer information systems. Later that week I closed on the ugly little house. Before and afters of the ugly little house and it's full story will show up in a later post, but you get the idea (and for the record I did actually go look at a couple of other houses, but buying a house at that time had not been in my plan - I was just fine in my pink bedroom on the lake with the fancy designer wallpaper and my parents footing the majority of the bills).

There was certainly potential...but it needed a lot of work. A lot...of work. Lucky for me, it was only about 7 minutes from my parents' house where I was living and I didn't move in until it was 99% done. My mom says she wasn't even sure I had moved...she just realized I hadn't come home in a few days and I must have flown the coop. Indeed.

Fast forward 13 years and here are a few things I actually LOVE about my house...

The lot...it's about 60'W X 180'L - there's a pretty big easement across the front due to the county claiming it for a 60' roadway (which will never happen - it's a dead end street with 8 lots on each side).

The windows in the family room - they go pretty much from wall to wall and obviously they let in a ton of natural light. Smirnoff likes the windows - she can at least look outside while she's stuck in her cage all day while we're at work. I don't love our collection of Mustang stuff (well part of the collection) up there anymore - it will have a new home once we get the addition built - funny thing, those windows will go away with the addition. This room will become a dining room at that point.

The deck - Mr. Paisley built the deck several years ago - it took him less than a week working on it after work. We use it year round...for us it's just another room. Mr. Paisley LOVE to grill...we have dinner out there, I sit out there with the iguanas and soak up a little sunshine (vitamin D...it's good for you), if i'm lucky I can catch a quick nap in the lounge chair on the weekends...it's very comfortable.

The kitchen...yes, it is too small, but I love it since Mr. Paisley refaced the cabinets and gave it a pretty serious makeover. Yes, I realize my curtains are hanging at a weird level. On the far right where you can't see it in this photo, there is a large "box" in the corner where the wall and ceiling meet. It covers the AC duct from the attic into the family room that was added on before I bought the house. This dumb box buts right up to the top corner of the window frame...thus the placement of the curtain rods...they're as high as I can put them with the box there (which will be there until we move the window wall out 4') - I figured they should at least match in height to make them look slightly less dumb. I could take them down I suppose.

The bathrooms. Both have been redone - although the master bath was part of the addition I had done prior to moving in back in 1997. My tastes have change a little bit since I was 23... go figure ;-)

The wood siding. It's almost all original. Remember how I said the house was ugly? It was covered with green and gray brick pattern shingles when I bought it. The original siding was under them in perfect shape (except a few along the bottom that had some rot from moisture issues).  

So there you go - some things I LOVE about my house. It's a shorter list than the things I don't like, but they do exist :-) What do you love about your home?