This dear old house of ours...

(click all pics to enlarge)

Oh, what do I say about this house?  I've been trying to begin a series of blog posts about this lovely old house, but between one thing and another, nothing is coalescing.

 Not on paper... not in print... and certainly not in my mind.

How do I go about putting a "feeling" down, when I simply can't put my finger on exactly what it is that I feel?

I love the house... that's a given.  

It's not perfect, and it's certainly not modern... but to me, there is something almost "timeless" and rooted about it, that makes me feel absolutely content.

It feels solid. 

And it feels enduring.

As well as jumbled.

You see, although the title company says that this old house was "built" in 1943, when you take a look at the interior with the various building styles and additions and extensions that have been added throughout the years,  something tells me that this beautiful old girl has been around since probably the 1920's, if not earlier.
The architectural details, and the wide yellow pine boards used for the walls, just don't add up to the early 1940's to me.

I've been told about a woman who still resides somewhere in this area, who was actually raised in this house (along with her sister and 3 brothers) and as she's considerably older than I am, so
  I'm absolutely positive that the county records are wrong.

What was once the "girls room" for the 2 sisters (which is/was the largest bedroom, before the "master-suite wing" was added about 5 years ago)  is barely big enough for a double bed, and the brothers only access to "their" sleeping area in the attic, was by using a narrow and very steep staircase in the girls room.

 This picture was taken from the very bottom of the attic stairs... and  the old iron bedstead I now have in here, barely fits.
If you want to walk around to the other side of the bed, you have to stand on yourtippy toes, go sideways, and sort of lean over the end, just so you can get around the end of the bed.
It's a squeeze... let me tell ya! 

Looking from the "living room", you can see on the ceiling directly in front of the bedroom door, that there's a badly patched spot - and it looks as if it was where the original wood-stove pipe went up through the ceiling.  It almost looks as if they simply popcorn plastered right over the decorative flange doo-hickey around the pipe.
Which to me... makes absolutely no sense to have a stove right in front of a doorway... unless the original door was elsewhere.  But who knows?
Surely someone does, but it's just a matter of finding who does, or maybe checking with the county for further records or clues.

  And if that was the girls room, with the boys using the room for access to the attic...  I guess it's anyone's guess as to what room the parents used, for sleeping in.

Was it this little room directly off the kitchen, that we are currently using as an office / computer room?

Certainly not the "bedroom" in the back of the house, because it's actually more box-room sized... with little or no space for any bed I've ever seen.  There's no way you could swing a cat in that room, without getting fur in your mouth. But it's the room closest to the "original" bathroom... so who knows?

Originally, this was obviously a pretty small house, and it had a wrap around porch on at least 3 sides.  Two of those porches have now been enclosed, which is nice in some ways.... but to tell you the truth, I think I would have preferred that at least one of the porches (probably this side one) had been left as it was. 

I mean.... it's a nice space and all now, and I do like it.  I eventually plan on putting a nice sized area rug in there, along with my wicker furniture and other what-nots that I don't want out in the weather... and it is where I'll eventually be doing my sweet tea sippin'.
The windows do open real real wide for letting the breezes through during the hot summer nights, and I like that. 
And I've even toyed with the idea of  putting a day-bed out there... for when it's too hot to sleep indoors, or for guests.
But still, I love doing my porch sittin' from a less enclosed space. 

In the picture below you can see the third side of the original 3-sided wrap-around porch...  We're currently using it as the cat room, just until we can get their enclosure finished, (just outside of the windows, on the upper grass area) so they'll still have access to the inside, but won't be living indoors all the time.

You can also see the "sort-of" newly built garage  just below the rest of the house in this picture...
   The window centered just above the garage is our bedroom, in our very own master bedroom "wing" which includes a pretty darn big bathroom as well.
Sounds pretty high-falutin', doesn't it? 

 Yes, there are "things" I would have done differently if we had been here years and years ago...
 but all in all, this house just touches something deep in my heart. 
I love it.
In spite of all the paint and windows and "additions" that they've tarted this old girl up with... you can see her timeless beauty beneath it all.

I'm home.