Bought a House
Created a Home
In August 2013 I bought a house in Fort Worth and moved from Granbury to Fort Worth. I was looking for something smaller but fell in love with something bigger. The price was right and I loved the neighborhood which I've already shown you in a previous post. I moved into the house in October 2013 and have spent a year redecorating. It's almost finished--enough so that I can invite you inside. I'll start with "before" pictures. This is what it looked like when I bought it.
This is the dining room viewed from the living room.
The living room viewed from the dining room.
The front door
The previous owners converted the patio into a sunroom off the kitchen.
Kitchen and sunroom on the right. Notice the wall outside the windows. It surrounds the house. I have very little yard which is good for me because I'm not a gardener and don't have to pay a yardman much to keep it up for me. It is NOT so good for Sadie Lou who wonders what happened to her big back yard in Granbury with golfers and other dogs and squirrels and pecan trees. She does like our twice-daily walks, however.
This is the loft upstairs which is now my TV room, office and studio.
This is the master bedroom, very heavily draped. The two doors lead to his and her bathrooms.
Have you noticed the absence of something yet? Besides furniture?
Color, perhaps?
The previous owner was definitely into neutrals.
And beige carpet.
(I hate beige carpet.)
So the transformation began. I took down all curtains and drapes. The windows are now shuttered or bare.
Polo Leon (isn't that a cute name?) painted every wall in the house.
Shutters were installed.
Ahhh! Much better. Let in that light!
We hung stuff. Thanks, Hobart.
I made stuff. (Notice anything alive in this picture?)
And, of course, I bought stuff.
More stuff.
LOTS of stuff.
Buying stuff is definitely the most fun part of redecorating.
Here are the before and after pictures of the living room, looking down from the loft.
I replaced the carpet with hardwood floors.
It was difficult to find a suitable coffee table so one of my granddaughter Maria's friends, a college graduate in architecture and fine arts, made one for me--using a variety of specialty woods--and also made two side tables. He's an artist!
Check out the detail.
Eye-level view of living room
Dining room
Those are giraffes on the middle of the table.
My sunroom/office, just off the kitchen
Eating area in the kitchen
Occasionally, I cook.
My bedroom, the coziest place in the house.
This corner of the bedroom is where Sadie Lou and I end our day. She hops up in my lap, I comb and pet her, we talk about our day and plan for tomorrow.
There are two master baths. "His" has a shower.
"Hers" has a tub.
This is the other side of "hers".
Now let's go upstairs.
This is the grandkids' bedroom--trundle bed--and also my sewing room.
Guest bedroom--king-sized bed. Come visit me!
The loft--TV room/office/studio/game room.
It's a great place to hang out.
When I'm feeling ornery, I toss Sadie Lou's toys over the rail. They land in the living room and she has to run all the way downstairs to get them. It gives me a little break and her a lot of exercise. =)
So this is my new home. I love living in Fort Worth, close to my friends and family. Except for the politics, Texas is a great place to live and call home.
Life is good.
