314 Catawba Street

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A little Smilebox I made for you, my little dream farmhouse.

A Clubhouse

Chloe wants to make this fort at 314 Catawba her clubhouse. She is always making a clubhouse with her friends. I hope she will have that opportunity. With a little bit of repair it should make a great clubhouse or playhouse for kids. Gatlin has been to this house with me a few times and loves to slide down this slide. I can't wait for him to be able to slide down it anytime he wants too and be able to have a lot of fun out here with his cousins Aiden and Andrew. I can just see them now. I will sit on the back screen  porch and relax with my ipad (which I don't have), or a magazine and a cup of lemonade and watch the kids have a good time in Grammy's back yard. Do you see the frost on the ground? This picture was taken on a cold frosty morning in December. Just be patient little clubhouse and you will have lots of children playing with you soon, by springtime at least. The spirit has spoken to me this evening, as I write this post, that it will all happen this spring.

You can see the steps to the clubhouse in this picture.

How relaxing this little porch on the back of the

house will be.

Victorian Gingerbread.

I love it, Victorian gingerbread. And 314 has two rows of it all around the front porch. In the summertime, red hanging geraniums will look so pretty contrasted against the white trim. I need some wicker furniture and rocking chairs to sit in and enjoy the morning or evening sunset. Wow, I can't wait! The ceiling of the porch is even painted the traditional southern blue. I have heard that the reason the old folks painted their ceiling porches blue was that the color blue repelled flying bugs. I don't know if it is true, but on this porch it makes for a relaxing, soothing feel. Don't you just love the porch spindles and little gate to the front door?
I could have not fixed this porch up better myself, so thanks to the young mom who owns this house right now for fixing it up for ME!

Want To Relax?

I want to relax in this tub. Fill it up with nice warm water and bubbles and lay back and let all the tensions and stress of life just disappear for a little time. This is the tub in the master bathroom of our 314 Catawba. Thinking of how to decorate this room, I am thinking of a very pale blue with bright white trim. Since I have a new chenille bedspread in a dark blue for my bed, I feel I must paint the master bedroom a pale blue like it is where we live now. I don't want to waste a good bedspread. So I have decided to carry the blue on into the adjoining bathroom. I plan to use the two flower printed drapery panels in our present bedroom on either side of the windows in this picture. With a long decorative curtain rod I can put very light blue or white sheers between the panels to cover the windows plus the wall in between. I think it will look so lovely. From there I will have to be led by inspiration, but I have plenty of decorative pictures and accents already to use in this lovely bath to make it a room to enjoy and relax in. And, I can't wait for that very first bath in this tub!

I ran across these two pictures for inspiration:

This bath has the same window set up as 314 Catawba

I love this color of blue for the beadboard. I could add beadboard wallpaper to our bathroom and steal this idea. Isn't it pretty?

My Future Kitchen Renovation Idea

How do you think this kitchen would look with a country cottage redo? I am thinking that to save money the original cabinets could be resurfaced and new doors and drawer fronts added. Everything in white is the way to go. The counter tops could be in a light green quartz just like the ones we have in our new kitchen at our old home. Keep the fridge and glass top range for now and add a new dishwasher and stainless range hood. Change out the sink to a blanco silstone like we have now and a new faucet. Replace the window over the sink with a slider window to give a more open view. I have loved the new window we put over the sink in our present home. Do the backspash in the same aqua and black glass 1" tiles we have in our kitchen now. Lets keep the fan but put a new glass fixture on it. It will end up looking so fresh and country cottage. I just know I will love it and can't wait to get started on the renovation to post here sometime later this year.

Ideas:

White cabinets like these from Kraft Maid

Quartz Counters just like this one, but in a jade green like we have in our home now. I love it.

White Blanco Granite Sink

Brushed Nickel Faucet

Ceiling fan like we have in our home now.

Slider Window Over Sink

"A Room With a View"

I love this picture. It is a picture looking out of the second floor window in the hallway. It looks out onto Catawba Street, the street that if you turn right will take you a few blocks down to the little town we are hoping to move to. If all goes well and we sell our house where we live now we will be able to buy this 1935 farm house. All of the family is excited to move to this little spot.

I love the nice long sidewalk that leads from the front door to the sidewalk on the street. I love that two big old oak trees to the left of the sidewalk. They will shade the quaint and lovely wrap-around front porch from the afternoon sun. I plan to walk each day down the sidewalk, past the post office and down small main street of town. And then I will walk back home. This is will be my walking exercise each day. If I am lucky, Gatlin and Chloe will want to come with me and we will talk about things we see along the way. Along the front of the yard is a nice stone "fence" that goes along the whole front of the property. It looks like it is made of smooth stones from the river. I am supposing that it was lovingly laid by one of the first owners of the house to hold up the bank in front of the yard. I really love it though. When I move in I will spend some time cleaning it up and making it stand out a little more. I can't wait for that day to come. If prayers are answered and the Lord is willing to put his stamp of approval on this hopeful and anticipated blessing, we will be moving in by the time the dogwoods begin to bloom this spring. Hold on little cottage farm house, I will buy some new dogwoods and plant them in your yard to grace your yard from this year forward. Just hold on and we will be there soon.

I saved this on Pinterest so I could use this idea in front of the window looking out on our sidewalk. Don't you love it. I already have a chair just like this and a mason jar. Must plant some peonies there though!



A Simple Stepping Stone



Just a simple stepping stone to the stairs of our new home. Why was this stone chosen to set at the bottom of the steps to the kitchen door? Did it have significance to the owners who put it there? It is quite thick, rectangular in shape, and pretty large so it had to come from some interesting place to be chosen to be the only stone that graces this little stoop. I would love the know the reason they picked it out and brought it to this house to serve all those who enter in. Service is the calling of this roughly hewn gray rock. But oh what a service it will perform for us when we move in. I can't wait to honor it's calling by daily stepping from the little stairs of the stoop onto this special stone. Or stepping upon it's roughly hewn surface as I happily make my way to the kitchen door.

Do You Like This Wallpaper?



Oh my! There was a time in my life that I would have liked this wallpaper. I think in the 80's. This is the foyer of our dream home from the front door window. But, the wallpaper exudes a familiar feel to my heart as I look into this front entrance to the house I hope to make my home. Can you see through the door into the kitchen? As I look through that door  I imagine myself walking through it to the many tasks that I would have to take care of in that big kitchen. I look at the walls, and floors of the foyer and even the wallpaper and feel like it is my room, my home and I am just passing through with some domestic task that I am on my way to perform. I hope that I will be passing through this foyer one day soon as I enter the home for the first time as the new owner. And, oh yes, I will be changing the wallpaper.

Stones From the Past



What an intresting well building. It is all built of stone. Where did these stones come from? Perhaps they came from the Catawba River which is about a mile away from this 1935 farm house we want to buy. Perhaps they were just dug up on the old farm that was part of this property at one time. Who built the well house? It would be interesting to do a history research of the property to see who owned it in the 1930's. I think that I will do that one day soon. In the meantime, our plan for this well house is to put in a new floor without covering the old well which might be need some day. The roof needs complete repair and then we were thinking about putting in shelves and using for our food storage room. Things would probably be kept quite cool in there in the warm months of summer and insulated from the cold in the winter. Restoring it for a useful purpose seems to be the right thing to do. Perhaps someone else that would buy the house would just tear it down. We have other ideas for this unique old stone building.

Note: Do you notice the ray of sunshine illuminating the entire structure in the second picture? I like to think of it as God's indication that his light is shining over this place and one day soon it will be ours. Just maybe!

Frozen Little Angel- Waiting For Her Family

Ohh,, it is so cold here the last few days. The first few days of January have been chilly. We have experienced a pretty warm fall and winter so far. As each new day dawns, I think of how it might feel to be in our new home at 314 Catawba. Our home right now is nice. It is a typical brick rancher but we have improved on it and have it the way we want it now. Ready for selling too. Our property here is very nice. Why would we want to move? We need a change. Kelly needs new adventures, Gabe is excited about making new friends. Chloe is happy to want to be near her two cousins, Rahlee and Jade. Poppy is looking forward to a new ward to get acquainted with and I look forward to new decorating possibilities. Something I love to do. We look forward to cutting our gas bill in half. We should not be more than six miles from anything we need to go to in our new town. Here we are way out in the country, about 13 miles from the main part of town. We have a long list of pros for moving and not much of a con list. Prayer has been a part of this idea and fasting too. We feel so good about it that we have no fear when it really happens. This chilly little angel in the bird bath will be all thawed out by the time we come to make her our own.

Just A Dream- that I hope will come true!

I am creating this little blog to keep a journal about a dream that Dad and I have of moving to our 1935 farm house in the little town not far from where we are now. There are many reasons that we have decided to give up our wonderful piece of property here and move on, and all of them are so logical and real to us. If the Lord is willing, this tale I tell will come true sometime in the months to come. Our dream will be realized and we will reside with our little family in a small town not far from where we live now. But, it will be a new start for us and new adventures for everyone in our family. We will live closer to several of our children, but leave others behind. Others that we love too, but need to know that mom and dad are not so close now and, "Wow, we miss them. Maybe we need to take stock of our lives and remember what we were taught and begin to live the lives that Mom and Dad taught us we could." Yes, this is our dream. Will it come true or will I delete this blog someday and forget this dream? Forget it and accept another path that the Lord wants us to pursue. We shall see. In the meantime, I write my feelings about the 1935 farmhouse dream. Maybe one day this will be read by all and we will really be living here:








314 Catawba Street