THE WAY WE WERE...

Things are progressing 
very slowly here this week. 
 I thought I would be able 
to show you our
 new kitchen stove today,
 but the schedule got moved out 
so don't know when 
it will arrive exactly.

 The project
 that I told you came out of the Captain's
 five little words
 has been started
 but still a slow process. 

 So, 
while we are waiting,
 I thought I'd take you
 back to the past...

...and show you 
what the Cottage looked like 
when we first took possession.

 I wasn't blogging then and 
it seems like pictures
 were not a priority, 
so I don't have a whole lot to show 
but I can tell 
you how things were.

The guest room 
was wallpapered in 
green leaves and red berries 
with avacado green wall-to-wall carpeting.
  (Hmm, sounds like it might have made
 a pretty Christmas scene). 
 We stripped off the wallpaper and 
took up the carpet.
  The original fir flooring
 looked like an area rug
 had been placed and 
then painted with mustard gold paint 
around the edges of it. 
 We stripped the paint and 
finished the floor and
 that is the floor that we have today. 
 We painted woodwork,
 re-papered the walls and
 now it looks like 
the above picture.

The parlor and entry
 were both covered in
 a pinkish flowered paper and 
the same avacado carpet
 was covering the original fir flooring.
  We re-papered the walls
 of both rooms and tore up the carpet. 
 We lived with the original floors 
until I painted blue and white squares 
in the entry and 
decided to add carpeting 
back into the parlor. 
 We have since added 
blue and white flooring
 over the paint in the entry 
(which I now kind of regret) 
and although the burgundy carpeting 
still is covering the fir flooring 
in the parlor 
we hope to tear it up and 
just leave it in the
 original state again.

The sitting room 
looks like the above photo now 
but it has undergone numerous changes.  
When we first saw it 
a white wallpaper with a gold design 
was covering all the walls and 
the same green carpet was on the floor. 
 The green carpet 
was what showed
 but underneath there were
 four more layers of other carpets and 
all the doors had been shortened
 to accommodate that. 
 The sitting room 
is the only room 
that we didn't wallpaper 
but it has gone through 
more transformations than any other room 
except for the kitchen.

 Our first change was 
blue paint, blue and gray carpeting 
and white trim. 
It was done in a country theme and 
really was quite a pretty and inviting room...

...the second change was 
what you see above...

...we then changed 
back to blue paint but
still kept the burgundy carpet 
that continues in from the parlor.

Third times aren't always a charm, and 
that one was a great disaster, 
so we then re-painted it 
like what we see today and 
added the lighter carpeting.

Above, 
is how the dining room looks now. 
 A first choice of a new look 
for the dining room,
 after stripping off yellow and orange flowered wallpaper and 
gold shag carpeting, 
was red wallpaper with little yellow flowers 
and a white flowered border 
in red, yellow and blue. 
 I loved that room 
but a change came 
when I imagined that it 
wasn't fancy enough...

...so we changed to 
a yellow flowered,
 more formal,
 wallpaper.

When we bought the Cottage, 
this is the kitchen we inherited. 
 Early chaos and 
the only room
 that I have a
 "before" photo of.

This is our first change 
in the kitchen 
(sorry for the poor quality of the photo,
 but it was pretty darn sweet) 
and we kept it 
for quite awhile...

...then it was yellow...
and I think there was some
 red and white checked wallpaper, 
at some point, 
but now...

...this is where 
we are at.

 As I look back and 
remember some of these changes,
 I almost wonder why 
we made some of the decisions 
that we did, 
but such is life and human nature, and 
if I had to second guess myself, 
I imagine
 there will be a 
few more decisions 
in the future. 

While Old Man Winter 
continues to entertain us,
 I am hopeful that
 I will have some 
new news 
next week.


...Judy...

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