Castle Tours....

If you have a nosy, er..curious, tendency like I do, then you will enjoy viewing the homes that are posted by other homemakers on Candy's website, www.keepingthehome.com. It was great fun to tour these homes and see how others decorate or organize their castles. I've decided to join in and participate, posting pictures of my castle. I love my home with its many imperfections. We have our work cut out for us for awhile, but it will be great fun fixing it up to be the castle we desire. As for now, the Lord has blessed us both with contentment and we truly love it here. We inherited our house and some land and are so thankful for that. We have partly remodeled our home and I do so wish I had some 'before' and 'after' pictures to post (of the inside...the outside looks mostly the same).
Okay, before we go inside, I will take you on a tour of the land around which our house sits. We absolutely love the vegetation and the fields of green we have around here. The kids get to romp and play and it is great.


This is what you see as you are leaving my house, so just imagine coming up the drive instead of leaving. :o)

When you park and get out of your vehicle, if you look to the right, you will see this flower bed that's in need of some color. :o)

This is the view across the road from our house.This is the front of our home. We need some landscaping done (the cedar tree you can't see prevents much from growing on the right side of the front), but we will do it as we go along.


We love our front screened-in porch. We hope to paint the floor and repaint the furniture, but anyway, my son says, "Come on in!"What you see when you walk in the front door.

Looking to the left, you will see our main living area. Our two recliners were given to us and the red table I painted in our computer table. It was my husband's grandmother's table she 'started out' using.
To the right of the door, you will see our seating area by the fireplace. We do not have central heat/air, so this is our main source of heat during the winter. This house can get pretty drafty at times, but it is manageable. We enjoy the fireplace.
This is our dining area, straight ahead to the right. I hope to get a bigger table one day, maybe with a bench on one side, but it works and it was given to us when we first got married. The children have their own state/capitals placemats, so that is why there is only 3 of them. :) The highchair was one we used to sit in when we were babies and I confiscated it from my mom's house before she could send it to the Goodwill (it was at my grandmother's house).

We both play the piano, but rarely this one (too busy..ha). This is the area before you go into the kitchen. I see it looks pretty cluttered from here. I didn't do any special cleaning or decluttering before this photo session. :o) Now let's go through the door on the left and see what we find...

This is the room where Son, age 6 and Daughter, age 4 sleep. I loved their rooms. We work together to clean it up, but rarely are the floors this neat. :o) They love to play in here. If this new baby is a girl, I will most likely make this into the girls' room and repaint it...hot pink? I love bright colors. This current wall color is soo serene and refreshing. We worked hard on this room...on the ceiling are white boards just like around the sides. It makes for a cozy cottage feel. Come back out into the hall and let's go down to the master bedroom...

Our bedroom, which I really love. We recently 'inherited' this King Size bed from my husband's grandparents and we love it. We had dreamed about having a king sized bed and the Lord helped fulfill our desires. I just picked out this colorful, pink, floral (very feminine) comforter and I love it. I realize my wall color doesn't match, but I already have the paint for the walls--it will be a summer project. My son, age 1.5 sleeps on the toddler bed in the corner (most of the time, he sleeps with us).
Purposefully took a picture of the ceiling in our bedroom. I love it. My husband (and FIL) worked hard in this room...really hard. We have a beautiful ceiling in here and in the dining room. I would love to have it in our entire house...:o)


As you walk out of the bedroom, immediately to the left there is a master bathroom. It is currently in the throes of the remodeling process, so I didn't take a picture of it. There is also a linen closet directly in front of our bedroom door. Come back down the hall (this hall was very dank and dark before we moved in), let's go back into the dining room and into the kitchen....

The room I use the most. It has not been extensively remodeled by no means (notice the missing knobs on the cabinets)..just a paint job and a cheap, temporary rug put down, but I do love my kitchen. I could use more counter space, with my water distiller and my bread machine taking up lots of room. My stove is wonderful, too. It heats things so fast, you have to stand right there and not leave anything!
The view from my kitchen window....pear trees, fig trees, more vegetation and woods...
Come into the foyer...this part of the house was added on later (way before we got it of course) but has not been remodeled at all....

The foyer..the door really needs painting, doesn't it? The door on the left is another bedroom, but it is currently storage right now. I hope to convert it to a workable bedroom this summer. The curtain you see is hiding a book shelf and also my towels and extra toiletries are on the bottom shelf. The bathroom is on the right...come on in....My old-fashioned bathroom we currently use. It is a long walk to the bathroom from my bedroom (and those night trips are getting more frequent), but I do love this bathroom. My inlaws repainted it for me during my last pregnancy and I love the green. They also put in a new linoleum floor. I do look forward to a shower.... :o) Now, come through that door that needs painting....

I should've turned on the light for this picture. This is my large laundry area, or back porch. It is in a bad need of cleaning up and fixing up. I do have my deep freeze in this area and an extra refrigerator. This room is one of those rooms that everytime I walk in (which is wayy frequent because of the amt of laundry I do), I say, "I've got to get in here and do something besides stand over the washer"! Now to the right of this room, there is another very small bedroom that we use as a media room, I guess you could say. It has an old moniter in it where a VCR and a Nintendo can be hooked up. We rarely go into it, tho, maybe once a week, the kids will watch Barney. We have no TV in the house and hope to keep it that way! Now, you see that screen door on the far right? Let's go out it and I will show you where the kids play....
The kids' play area. Way back there is our garden that my FIL shares with us. We currently have corn coming up and potatoes. Garlic (beside the tree there) is everywhere in this yard! :)
Immediately to the right side of this view is....

The scuppernong (?) arbor and more play areas....Now to one of my favorite places....

My clothesline...yesterday was the childrens' laundry day, so it was full all day long!

Well, I had one more picture to share of the old barn on the left side of the house, but my little one is awake. I'm afraid he will mash something on the computer to erase my hard work! :) I hope you enjoyed my lowly castle. It's home to us!