My Love of Old Houses

Robin, over at A Bird's Life posted some photos today of lovely old homes in her town. It got me thinking how I have always loved old houses and wished to live in one.  Since this was not to be I have tried to make changes in our house that make me think I do indeed live in my dream house.
 38 years ago we moved into this house which my husband built. It was a small 2 bedroom house with a finished basement with 2 more bedrooms ( we had 5 children under 12 ). There  was nothing charming about it I'm afraid. A very basic house that was close to all schools, an arena, and a park.

Through the years the house as grown, and also been changed quite a bit. Fortunately my DH is a great carpenter and could do all these changes with very little help. One of the first things he did
 ( when we had lived here about 10 years) was to add on a small ( 7' by 8') room which I call my Buttery. ( I already had a pantry in the kitchen so it had to have a different name). We have our freezer, a second fridge, and lots of storage here. I even have an old wood window, the kind you have to push up to open ( pretty sure that window was found on someone's free pile).

I really wanted a fancy glass door for this special little room and we found this one for $5 at a garage sale.  The flooring is fir that my DH was able to get very cheap because there was so little of it ( but enough for our small room).

On the wall opposite the tall built in cupboards, over the freezer , my talented husband built  these upper cupboards. ( The clipboard hanging on a nail over the freezer is my freezer inventory.)

About ten years ago we needed more space. A teenage granddaughter was moving in with us, we still had one son at home, and we had decided to make the basement into a 2 bedroom suite and have another son and his family join forces with us. The addition consisted of 2 bedrooms and one-and-a-half baths. This hallway was ground level ( the rest of the house is up 5 steps) and the door at the end of the hallway leads to the suite. I LOVE how the corner of the door had to be cut off!! The door on the left is a bathroom and the one on the right goes into my Christmas closet.

These stairs go up a ways then there's a landing that leads to the kitchen and the rest of the main floor. Continue up these stairs and there's another bedroom and half bath. Planning how this was all going to go was both scary and thrilling .So many ideas and options.

 Another thing we've done is change as many door knobs as we can to the old glass ones. We used to be able to find them for a reasonable price but now they've become too costly.

This has turned out to be a very long post. If you're still reading you are amazing. Thanks for visiting me today.

      Granny Marigold