The New House

Our new house is really Greg's old house.  Greg's grandparents built the house in the late '60s, so when they both died their only child (Greg's mom) inherited the house and Greg's family moved in.  (And I have put a few things in the "wrong" place--like the TV and the cups). After all their children left home, Greg's parents moved into a smaller home and now we live in the big house.  And it is big.  It's over 5000 square feet and sits on 7 acres.  To put that into perspective, our Provo house is about 2800 square feet, and we rented out a little less than half of that.  So we went from living in about 1400 square feet to 5000.  Needless to say, we don't have nearly enough furniture and I have a lot more to clean..  Not only are there more rooms, but all the rooms are much bigger than our Provo house.  I keep a lot of doors closed.  I closed the door to the basement.  We don't even bother with it.  I also closed to the door to one of the bedrooms and the dining room.    But just to give you a taste of the house, here's brief tour of some of my favorite things.  

First, we now have an official entry way, which would be nice if we ever wanted to contain any unwanted guests, but seeing as the house is not visible from the road, we don't get any guests--other than ones who know the house is here--namely Greg's parents.

Here's the entryway.  this is the first thing you see when you walk in.  I love the black man and my little orphans.  And did I mention, it has a stone floor and super vintage (original to the house) hanging lamps that add a touch of...Greg says Grandpa, but I think it's unique.

To the right of the table pictured above, is a double doorway and two steps down into the nice room, as my family would call it.  This is where we would receive guests, if we ever had any.

Here's a shot standing on the steps down.  

And here's the same room from a slightly different angle.  This is only about half of the room.   Behind me is enough room for a full-sized grand piano, a computer desk, and a hutch, which is what Greg's parents had there when they lived here.  We have a rug and a box of pictures I have yet to hang.  Oh, and the hutch because they didn't take it with them when they moved.  Like I said, we just ignore large portions of the house because it's just so big.  To my left is a sliding door out to a balcony, which has a slanted roof, so I always feel like I'm falling when I go out there, besides the fact that Rex can fit his head through the guardrail, so we just leave that door locked too.

Things I love about this room: The couches face each other.  I hate going to people's houses and having to crane my neck around the TV to see people.  I love just being able to look straight across at someone. And the fireplace.  It reminds me of the fireplace my cousins had at their house when I was a kid.  It's a full five-feet long and probably 2 feet wide, just big enough to be a stage--I can not wait to put on the best nativity scene ever on my little stage.  I also really like this arrangement of white ceramic containers.  It's a a bookshelf behind the couch.  It makes me really happy.

Our next room to highlight is the formal dining room (Greg's grandparents did a lot of entertaining).  It's up two steps and behind the fireplace in the nice room.  As mentioned, we don't have the furniture to fill this house.  Our kitchen table is now our entryway table and our dining room table is now in the kitchen so the dining room is empty.  And despite what you might think about living on 7 acres, we don't have anywhere suitable for Rex to ride his bike and there are a lot of bugs here and other critters, some of which are poisonous so Rex is only allowed outside when Dad takes him on adventures.  Most of the land is just covered with trees (did I mention that I'm not a huge fan of trees?), so I made the dining room into Rex's bike room.  He rarely stays in the dining room with his bike, but that's where we keep it.  Here he is riding his trike around this morning in his trike room--he quickly drove into the kitchen and then rode it down the hall to bed tonight.  And he's the one who insists on wearing his helmet even while riding indoors.  So the nice room is to the left in this picture and I'm standing in the doorway to the kitchen.  If you walk through the kitchen you get to my favorite room in the house.

 The chapel.  Seriously.  This room has orange shag carpet, vaulted ceilings, wood paneling and orange stained glass.  It's amazing.  It honestly looks like a chapel.  When I talk about the house with people that knew the house when Greg's parents/grandparents lived in it and I call this room the chapel, they know exactly what I'm talking about.

 So this is the door from the kitchen to the chapel.  It's hard to tell but the stained glass window is directly behind the TV.

  Just inside the door and to the left is this little corner--Rex's toys.  I love that I can see him playing while I make dinner.  I know exactly what he's doing and I can just watch him, which is creepy but he's so cute.

 Turning around is my craft corner and another huge fireplace.  Notice how messy it is.  I don't even have to clean up my crafts because there is so much room in this room.  I just leave them out.  I've always wanted a craft room.  To the left of the craft table is another sliding door that leads out to the front patio.  The house kind of makes a loop around itself in the front.  We also keep this door locked.

Lastly is the TV and computer, which were already featured in a previous picture, but here's a slightly better shot and you can see the stained-glass window and vaulted ceilings a little better.  To furnish this room, Greg raided the basement so all the stuff in here is on lone from his parents.

Things I love about this room: 1. It's like a chapel.  If we ever need any extra cash, we'll just start our own church.  2. It's huge.  We can do all our activities in here.  Rex plays; I craft; Greg plays his video games--and we're all still in the same room--with room to spare.  3. It's right off the kitchen so I don't feel so lonely when the boys are playing while I'm making dinner/doing dishes.

The rest of the house is a bit of a mess right now, but look forward to future highlights of my favorite things about this house.