House Tour- downstairs

So, I realize I said, oh, about a year ago, that I would post photos of the inside of the house... and I never did. If you have been waiting and waiting for that day to come, you are in luck, my friend. At least sort of. I snapped some quick photos of downstairs before our bbq/shower the other weekend. I totally broke all the cardinal rules of home photography. I used a flash, the lights are on (it was pretty dark and dreary outside, so natural lighting was not working), and I did not style anything... It is definitely set up for the shower- with random extra seats in the living room, onesie decorating set up in the dining room, and tables set up for buffet style grub in the kitchen. But, you know, you at least get an idea of what our house looks like. Also, I only took pictures of the 4 main rooms: the foyer, living room, dining room, and kitchen. I did not take any pictures of the guest bathroom, Bill's office, or awkwardly large hallway (some day I would like to combine the weird hallway with Bill's office to make a family room/media room type thing. Some day.)

Our first stop is the foyer. You can see the main entrance to the house along with the little entryway (with a bench seat) in the bottom photo. You can also see our coat/shoe closet to the left. When we bought the house  this room was already yellow. We like the color. It is very low on our priority list of rooms to paint. It definitely could use some touch ups and plaster work, but, like I said, we like the color so it stays.

Next stop is the living room. The first photo is looking in from the foyer, the second is from the dining room. This room is top priority on the painting list. The beige overload is killing me. We have the colors all picked out (a muted turquoise for the below the picture molding and a light version for above the molding and the ceiling). Only issue is, we need the plaster (yep, lots of our walls are good old lathe and plaster) repaired before we can paint. There is damage on the ceiling from an old water leak (from before we bought the place) and there are various cracks and holes that need to be fixed.

And, now we come to the dining room. In the top photo you can see the door on the left leading to the kitchen and the door on the right leading to the weird hallway. The second photo is looking to the living room. You can see part of the framework for the giant pocket doors that can separate the dining room from the living room. Like I said before the dining room is all set up for onesie crafting, not so much dining.

Last up is our kitchen. The kitchen was an add on. From what we can tell is was originally a galley kitchen that took up the area of the funny hallway and maybe 1/4 of the current kitchen. The first photo is from the doorway to the dining room, the second is from the back door. I hate the red walls. Hate. And, if you'll notice we have no drawer or cabinet pulls. There is a lot I would like to do to this kitchen. A lot. The space is really big, but the layout is really poor. This project will wind up being such a big one that I think it will probably be years until we actually get around to fixing it up.

That, my friends, is (most of) the downstairs of our house.

A Sunday Stroll

We did not work outside today. Too sore. Too many blisters. The rest of the gravel will have to wait for next weekend.

We did, however, go for a nice walk. It felt nice to stretch out our aching muscles and Ralphie was in need of some exercise, as well. While walking I took pictures of some houses to share with you. Enjoy (hopefully). This funky Queen Anne is broken up into a couple of different units. You can’t really tell in this lighting, but it is a dusky lavender. I remember at one point when we were apartment hunting the attic unit in this place was available. It is accessible via a giant rickety looking exposed wood staircase around back. I cannot imagine carting everything up and down those stairs in the rain. I imagine the stairs must get supper slick. But, still, a really fun looking house. The second floor unit would be my pick. You get access to the turret and have a sweet balcony big enough to bbq on. The yellow house on the left has gone through some major renovations these last few years. In fact, you can still see some scaffolding up against the right side of the house. I think they have done a nice job updating the house. It looks great. I also really like their fencing, particularly the gate. When we finish fencing in our side yards I would like to add some cute gates, possibly similar to that one…

If you notice in these pictures the skies differ drastically. The weather today has alternately been gorgeous and warm with blue skies and big puffy white clouds to dark ominous massings with gusting wind and torrential downpours. Ah, spring in the PNW. This house is cute. I love the wrap around porch and bay windows. I like to imagine that the second floor balcony is off the master bedroom. How perfect would it be to drink coffee and read a book out there in the morning? Well, despite the fact that it is a Western exposure, not Eastern. Oh well, I guess drinking some wine or microbrews and watching the sunset wouldn’t be half bad either. I keep being drawn to blue houses. I just really really like them. Hurm. It is always interesting to see the basically the same house interpreted 3 different ways. Well, that is when it is a period home. If it was track housing it would be a completely different story. Ugh, track housing developments. You might find this shocking, but I like the blue one the best (You win again, blue. You always do.)This little green stucco house is so darned cute. It is unusual to see stucco painted a mint green like this. I would never think to do it, but it works here. I love the arched windows. I also really enjoy their landscaping out front.I love this house (which happens to be owned by one of my colleagues). I really like their color palette, especially the reddish brown accent color on the trim and gutters.  It really highlights the relationship between the exterior paint and the exposed brick chimney. We have talked about doing a similar palette on our house, but switching the black for dark brown, and the light green for more of a tan/cream. On our house you can only see the very top of our chimney, so I don’t know if they reddish trim would be as striking.  Then again, I do love blue houses… Well, that’s it for this weekend. Happy Spring, everyone!

It’s a Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood

If you live in the Pacific Northwest you know that we seem to be experiencing an early Spring. I walk to work (I am a lucky girl) and every day I notice more and more plants sending up shoots, as well as, buds turning to blossoms on trees. Last weekend my husband and I (and our dog) took advantage of the unseasonable warmth and sunshine and went out for a nice long walk around some historic neighborhoods in Tacoma. I took along my little point and shoot camera to capture houses that I find inspiring.

This lovely house is just a few blocks away from our own. I just love the colors. We are constantly contemplating what we should do to our exterior. I am drawn to blues, but I just don’t know if our block could handle another blue house (there are currently 5!).

You know what makes this house even better? It is next to this fabulous Tudor. Sigh, the Tudor was on the market two year back, but far out of our price range. It just slayed me though, as it was on the route I walked from work to the bus (back when we lived in an adorable little apartment near a zoo). I’m glad that the house found a buyer and that they are treating it well. Also visible is my husband (and supposed blog co-author) and our dog.


Here is the front of the house:

It has a really good sized fenced yard, with a sort of overgrown English garden look to it. There are a good amount of trees on the lot too.

It is just crazy to have trees flowing so early! I can hardly believe it is early February, let alone that these photos were taken at the tale end of January.


Anyway, on with the house!

This mansion is insane! I am so curious about its history. You can’t really tell from this shot, but it has sweeping views of the Puget Sound, the Cascades, and Mt. Rainer. The other thing you can’t really tell from this shot is that the house seems to be falling into disrepair (or, hopefully, a very slow repair?). The other side of the house is missing a bunch roof shingles, among other things. In the 4 years I have lived in Tacoma I have yet to see any exterior improvements. Of course, I have no idea what the interior is like, but, boy, would I love to find out! I would love to see this place be turned into a bed and breakfast. I’d book a room even though it is only a mile away.

I really enjoy the Corinthian columns on this house, as well as, it being a double lot. We have Doric columns on our house, which are also great. I guess you could say I am just a big fan of columns in general. Also, you can see the backside of the mansion behind the blue house.


Originally our house was a double lot, but it was parceled off sometime after the 1920s. It would have been so glorious to have a huge yard and garden on the North side of our house instead of a duplex. Yet, then again, if it was a double lot we probably wouldn’t have been able to afford our house anyway.

Here is another exterior color scheme I really enjoy, the view of the Sound isn’t half bad either. Bonus, there are no green houses on our block! Okay, there is one really pale gray green house, but it barely even counts, plus, the owners were mentioning how they plan on painting…

Fake Bernini in Tacoma! I enjoy this way too much.

The last house of the day is directly behind our favorite bar, The Parkway Tavern. It it so unique and urban looking. The dense shrubbery out front kind of obstructs the view, but trust me, it is fantastic. Its look is very unexpected in Tacoma. I imagine it fitting in a much larger city, maybe in a block or row houses or something of that ilk. I don’t know if that is logical or not, but, whatevs. I adore this house.


My batteries started going low on me pretty early on in our walk, so the quality (and quantity) of images is not what I wanted it to be… Oh well, I can assure you, we will take more walks and Tacoma has many more beautiful houses. Perhaps, I will even take the time to wade through my photos from a weekend spent last year in Port Townsend (a town known for its Victorian architecture) and our honeymoon in ‘08 to Victoria, BC. After all, I am pretty much house bound for the next two weeks, as our big bouncy dog had major surgery this last week and he has to stay pretty much immobile for the next two weeks and needs a lot of care and attention. So, expect a lot of posts… or, at least, one or two more.