Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Ten on Tuesday - Home, Sweet Home

Today's Ten on Tuesday topic is 10 Things I Love About My Home. I live in an old house, which means tiny little corner closets, one bathroom, and lots of maintenance, but I do love many, many things about it.

  1. My kitchen. It's not the granite countertop, six-burner stove kind, but my husband and father-in-law knocked down a wall and redid it themselves when we moved in, and it's just about perfect for me. This was a huge upgrade from having one cupboard and about nine square feet of countertop!
  2. Our mud porch. This is what we call the room where we enter from the side door. It used to be a small open porch, but it's now enclosed, and makes a great place to hang your coat, take off your shoes, and hang my plants in the winter. 
  3. The front porch. It's a wonderful place to sit and knit, read, and watch thunderstorms from.
  4. Our new furnace. We replaced our 36-year-old one last year and it was such a relief last winter to not have to play furnace lottery. We still have to replace several hundred feet or more of cast iron pipe that winds around in the basement to carry hot water to the radiators with copper pipe, but since this is almost as expensive as the furnace, we're saving up.
  5. The attic fan. We don't have central air, but we do have a gigantic attic fan that can help cool the house somewhat (as long as there is cool air outside for the fan to suck in!)
  6. The sounds in my home. This old house has squeaky floors and doors, and the lovely clanking and comforting hissing of steam radiators in the winter.
  7. The yard. We live in a small borough "in town" but are lucky enough to have a big double lot, so it feels a bit more rural. I may occasionally complain about mowing the yard, but it's good exercise, and we also have some huge shady oak and maple trees, the garden, and the perfect place to view fireworks from.
  8. My clothesline. I really enjoy the process of hanging my laundry out to dry. The first thing that John did when we moved in was put up my clothesline, and it's served me well. Today I'm racing the rain to see whether my clothes dry first or get wetter from yet more rain.  
  9. The barn. Even though we live in town, we're lucky enough to have a barn. It used to serve as the home for a large herd of dairy cows, and then housed circus animals when one of the previous owners of the house was a veterinarian with Ringling Brothers. Too bad the town ordinances won't allow sheep!
  10. My family. It's mainly just John and I that live here now, but this house will always be home for Ryan and Justin when they visit. The measuring lines on the kitchen doorway clearly state that!

What do you love best about your Home, Sweet Home?

13 comments:

  1. What a pretty porch! The downstairs of our home is old too and had 3 tiny closets. Clearly the prior generations were minimalists. And I have too much stuff!

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  2. I love the lines on the kitchen doorway! We lost our lines when the kitchen was renovated. That's a pretty sweet barn...are you sure they would notice the sheep? :-)

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  3. Your porch looks so inviting! We are all so fortunate to have such warm and beautiful homes.

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  4. I would love to sit on that front porch with you, sipping wine, knitting and chatting!

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  5. that front porch has my devotion! I do not have any porch and wish I had one. I do have a patio but it's not the same. I love how you wrote that it's home for your boys! Love to read your list.

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  6. I am in love with your front porch! And I wish I had a clothesline....Thanks for sharing your home!

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  7. I love these old homes. A lot to love about yours

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  8. That porch, Bonny! Oh . . . that porch! I long for a porch like yours! You entire home looks wonderful and inviting. And a barn, too. Oh, wow. . .

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  9. Our house will never have a front porch so we put in a patio. It's not quite the same, but it'll do. I use a clothesline when I can, but it usually means more ironing; and now that my daughter's confirmed her seasonal allergies - trees, grasses, pollen, ragweed - we're kind of stuck using the dryer :(

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  10. I love that porch! is the ceiling painted blue? most southern porch ceilings are... I guess to look like sky? and I had no idea about the barn. so cool that you've got all that space "in town".

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  11. Fabulous!! I love your porch. I live in an old house, too, and know all about those sounds... it's nearly impossible to sneak up/down our staircase! It all sounds so wonderful, but I'm especially smitten with the barn!!

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  12. Color me extremely jealous of your gorgeous porch! I love older houses; the house we left in Mpls house was built in 1937, and our first house there was built in 1907. We also lived in a rental from the late 1800s -- lots of beautiful dark woodwork in the entrance and the open stairway and around the fireplace.

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