This is the virtual tour of the home we’re calling Crooked Acre (it differs from Crooked Acres because it just has the one acre. No “s”, see? Yeah, I see a lot of confusion ahead.)
Click on any picture to see the full-sized version at Flickr.
A straight-on shot of the front of the house.
To the left is the empty half-acre where there will be a garden, fruit trees and possibly some chickens.
To the right, the driveway (which is NOT steep like the driveway to our previous home, thank the lord) and our neighbors. I’ll never understand why people would buy an acre and then build the house to the side, so it’s as close as possible to the neighbor. Fortunately, we have really good neighbors.)
Moving closer to the front door.
The bed in front of the front porch. Nandinas, liriope, and a boxwood. That’s gonna change, probably to something that includes Hellebores.
Front porch, looking toward the street.
And the front porch itself. It is HUGE. It is also going to eventually be screened in.
Front door open, and you can see a bit of the staircase we immediately fell in love with.
A look into the living room/front room. You’re going to see that I didn’t make any attempt at picking up before I took these pictures.
The living room/front room area from the other side.
From the front room toward the living room.
And another shot of the living room toward the back door (which leads to the screened porch.)
A look into the dining room. We don’t have a dining room table yet. (As far as stuff on the walls – I basically used whatever nails were left behind. As we patch and repaint the walls, pictures will be moved to other locations.)
Another shot of the dining room. I don’t love the color, but I don’t hate it either, so I’m not in a rush to repaint this room. I did raise the chandelier quite a bit so Fred wouldn’t walk into it – I’m not sure if it’ll be staying or not, but it’s fine for now.
A view into the kitchen from the dining room. The refrigerator is new (we bought it); all the other appliances are badly out of date and will be replaced, but they all work okay for now.
The cabinets are old and there’s some water damage. It looks like a lot more cabinet space than it actually is – I see a kitchen renovation in our distant future, but again: it’s fine for now. The one thing I absolutely loathe are those cabinet pulls (I had no idea how strongly I feel about cabinet pulls), and I’ve already replaced them, but you can’t tell because I took these pictures back in August.
The door to the right leads to the garage. The doors on the left are cabinets (deep and dark and lead to clutter). The cabinet straight ahead is a drop-down ironing board. There’s a space to the left at the end where a litter box lives. Naturally it’s the most popular litter box in the house.
The view from next to the litter box, toward the kitchen.
Looking toward the dining room and living room/front room area.
And out the kitchen to the living room.
Apparently I took a lot of pictures of the living room. That’s a gas-log fireplace.
From the kitchen doorway looking toward the staircase/hallway.
About halfway down the hallway, exactly where you’d expect a half bathroom to be is… the laundry room. Laundry needing to be folded, washer, dryer, litter box.
At the end of the hallway to the right, the master bedroom.
Master bedroom from the other corner, looking into the bathroom.
And from the bathroom doorway, looking across the room.
Master bathroom. That tub is awesome (to look at, at least. I haven’t taken a bath, because it’s too hot for baths.) I do not love that big awful cabinet on the wall. I do not love the color on the wall or the trim. I absolutely screamingly loathe the cabinet pulls.
A bit of the shower (the water pressure’s awesome), the cabinets. I see a bathroom renovation in the distant future.
And a shot from the other side of the bathroom. The toilet has been replaced with something from this century.
From the doorway of the master bedroom. That doorway to the right is a half bathroom. Straight ahead is the computer room.
The aforementioned half bathroom. Fred and I are half-seriously talking about switching this bathroom and the laundry room. And yeah, that’s another litter box.
Computer room from the other side.
From the landing looking down.
Top of the staircase looking down.
Fred’s bedroom. (Fred and I don’t share a bedroom, something that makes people who have been married less than 10 years gasp and clutch their pearls and people who have been married more than 10 years gasp with envy. He’s a light sleeper, I like to stay up later than he does. It works for us.)
He started out with his office in the sitting room, but this room is directly over the master bedroom (my room) and he never keeps his frickin’ feet still, so he’d be in there sounding like a 10-piece marching band while I was trying to sleep and I was ready to kill him, so he admitted that the sitting room gets too hot, and moved his stuff into this side of the (very large) bedroom.
And looking back toward the hall.
Weights, weight bench, cat stuff.
That’s the kitten room at the other end of the hallway. (I didn’t actually take any pictures of the kitten room, but it shows up a lot in the blog posts, so I think y’all can figure that part out.)
The upstairs bathroom. When things settle down and I’m ready to start painting and such, this is going to be the first room we deal with. Ripping out/replacing that cabinet/sink is at the tip-top of my list, as well as painting.
In that room is the shower (which is fine) and toilet. Also, a big closet.
That nook is Fred’s writing area. (It already looks different, actually – he made a simple built-in desk.)
View into the back yard from the bathroom window. That roofline to the right is the screened porch.
Screened porch from the other end.
And the deck along the back of the house.
The box Fred made so that the cats would have two ways onto the screened porch from the house.
The cats come out that window (through a cat door) into the box and then into the screened porch. (There’s no way outside from the box. They have to come into the screened porch and go out through one of those cat doors.)
A look out into the back yard to the left.
The back yard to the right. (That door that appears to be leading into the depths of Hell is the storm shelter.)
the garage door and to the gate to the front (side) yard.
Fred put cat fencing around the trees on this side of the yard so that the cats can’t climb the trees and drop into the neighbor’s back yard. (I can easily imagine Archie doing that.)
From the back corner of the yard, looking toward the house.
Looking along the back of the back yard.
And the other corner looking toward the house.
On the other side of the fence is the empty lot where our garden/fruit trees/possibly chickens will go.
Storage shed, garden shed (which could be turned into a chicken coop, but needs a lot of work first), and carport.
The end of the house overlooking the future garden area. That window up top is the window to Fred’s sitting room. The lower right window is the computer room, the left is the master bedroom.
Okay, how many pictures of the sheds did I need to take?
Ooh, carport. Very fascinating. I apparently felt you needed to revel in the glory.
From the sheds looking toward the house.
By request, the storm shelter.
Looking down into the shelter. It’s bigger than it looks. However, if it were up to me (and funds were unlimited) I’d yank it out of the ground and put a storm shelter in the garage. But alas. Just keeping my fingers crossed that the tornados avoid us.
Looking up from the storm shelter.
So that is the tour. I took those pictures in August and as it turns out, we did a huge room-swap last week so that now I’m in what was Fred’s room, my computer is in what was his sitting room. He’s in the master bedroom (I don’t mourn the loss of that awesome bathroom because guess what? I can still take a bath in that tub. Fred’s nice. He shares.) and what was the computer room is now his office (as in, where he works) and also where his own personal computer is. God only knows what we’ll do next – I should plan to do another virtual tour in 6 months. I very well might do that! (And I very well might not. Only time will tell.)
That was totally cool! And, yeah, that staircase!! Woo hoo! Thanks. So glad you’re happy there and good luck with all the projects.
Love your home and your plans for it. Just curious, do you take your cats with you when you have to go to the storm shelter?
Thank you for sharing Robyn…this was awesome! I love your home and how things worked out for you and Fred and the Furkids. Absolutely beautiful.
Oh yeah, separate bedrooms are a must for us too. He’s a light sleeper, jumps every time I move and he “poofs” really loud instead of snoring and I snore, lol!
I don’t know why, but I imagined something more rustic like Crooked Acres 1.0. I understand your desire for balance between the convenience of town living with the quiet of country life. I hope this is your forever home. Moving is a b*itch.
I’m the laziest of all people. I moved into my house in, gasp!, 2000 and the only room that got painted was the bathroom. I couldn’t imagine taking on a house renovation by myself as I’m also a scaredy cat. There is so much that needs fixed in my very old house, I’d just like to throw a lit match and run.
Love your new home. I hope you and Fred share many happy years there. 🙂
Beautiful home and yard, also the sheds are just gorgeous. I agree with your color opinions. Will be interested in seeing the home after the painting is all done. You have a wonderful sense of humor, especially concerning the 10-piece marching band comment. I feel exhausted just reading about all the projects you are planning to do! Thanks for all the pics!
What a great place ! I know you ll love it and so will the kitties! That storm shelter gives me the creeps but very necessary .
Great new house! This kitchen reminds me a lot of the one at Crooked Acres, and I can see a swing and wood chairs on your front porch. Thanks for posting all these photos.