Making the house my HOME

It's been an exhilarating but exhausting process this moving business!!!!  Since all the furniture had been stored away for almost seven months, everything just seemed to need a washing!  So, after it was all wiped down and put in place, I concentrated on dishes, food and bed linens.  All the boxes were labeled with the room they were to go in and the contents; it was just a matter of finding the right boxes containing dishes to begin with and the bed linens to make the bed .... and then stocking the refrigerator and pantry with the necessary food and ingredients.  Fortunately, Knitting Daughter and Bee Keeper Daughter and a beloved niece helped tremendously.

The pantry shelves are being filled and things brought to order for easy location.  Knitting Daughter instructed me and patiently assisted in folding butcher paper (as we used to do to make paper doll chains) and then punching out designs to make 'lacy' looking shelf paper.  We carefully measured each shelf for the pantry and the linen closets.  Wonderfully Kind  (my beloved quilting friend) had recently moved and let me use some of the huge roll of butcher paper she had purchased.  We measured, cut, folded, and then paper punched until our hands were weak!!!!

The linen closet in the guest bathroom.

I am so eager to show you all the rooms, but I am waiting until the window treatments are done ... and some of the pictures are hung.  Every time I open a box marked "Pictures" I just close it back up and go on to another box.  The thought of deciding exactly where pictures should go is daunting to me right now.  For some reason, I want to live here a little longer and move through the rooms and stare at them before making a decision on where to hang things.

Since I am down now to 'just' picture boxes and about ten assorted boxes in the basement, and because the weather reports for later this week are rather depressing (a cold blast from Alaska - some kind of ARCTIC VORTEX or some such thing) with very cold temperatures headed our way, it seemed like a good idea to go outside and take care of some of the outdoor jobs before it became too cold.  Friday I purchased an electric start Toro walk behind mower.  After picking up a zillion little sticks and twigs and raking up leaves Saturday afternoon, I cut the grass.  Yay!!!  Success.  Check that one off. Then it began raining.  So .... today after church I completed some really heavy leaf raking in the back around the woods ..... and then cut some of the last flowers that had valiantly bloomed before the frigid weather hits.

The back yard is wooded for a good portion.  There is a band of grass around the back of the perimeter of the house ... but the majority of the back yard is plowed and mulched  and planted with small flowering shrubs, lots of perennial flowers and areas prepared for annual flowers, herbs and a vegetable garden.  The perennials that were in bloom and had some brave little blossoms still flowering were the Delphinium, lavender and some perennial geraniums.  Aren't they pretty?

The last little bouquet before winter!!!!

Hopefully soon there will be photos I can share of finished rooms with window coverings, pictures and homey furniture and touches.  A house is never finished, but at least things will be more like home and less like a hodge-podge with blank walls and with boxes waiting to be opened.  As my sister said, I am having fun 'playing house' like we did as children in Upstate New York.  It is still one of my favorite things to do!!!!

Blessings,

Janet