Back to a positive thread subject: Our homes - part of getting to know one another

JohnT - sounds like you live in a special little piece of paradise

Alf - I couldn't imagine the no elevator part, that would be a killer for me

Mau - ah Hawaii, another paradise, spent a month in the Navy, got a taste of it myself

howard - my future d.i.l. is right from your area

bohemond - sounds like you know what you are doing, and doing it the right way, still a lot of work

billy - my mum claims as a toddler, she couldn't keep me from gnawing on the window sills, which were covered in those days with lead paint. wonder if that is why I became a cancer magnet later in life?

rob -sounds real nice. I am a big believer in keeping the older homes close to as original as possible. We did a restore on our 1765 Colonial in NH, a 1940 Cottage Style home in the other end of SC, and our 1910 home a few miles from here. Always felt an obligation to do so, plus enjoyed the authenticity.
How did you get by without a kitchen for so long? My wife would have gone out of her mind.

david

Viv,We will be in Japan for a couple of weeks in Oct, but can do.

We spent a few years in an apartment while clearing a portion of the 10 acres we bought in "farm country" in S.E. Wisconsin, and also researching builders as well as putting together design ideas. Finally found a builder we could trust and felt comfortable with and with his input designed our home, had it built, and moved in on September 11 of 2003.

It's a 2-story with three vaulted roof lines - one over the great room, another over the loft area and the third over our master bedroom on the 2nd floor. The three roof lines along with the two, 2-1/2 car attached garages with vaulted roof lines makes for a unique look.

With the exception of the three bathrooms all walls and ceilings are knotty pine tongue and groove, as are all of the ceilings. All floors are hickory hard-wood other than carpeting on the stairways, loft, spare bedrooms and rec room in the basement. We had the railings along the stairway to the loft as well as the edges of the loft overlooking the great room hand built out of rough hewn cedar logs as we needed something to break up the smooth/flat lines of the knotty pine.

The outside of the house is all 1/2 log siding; the front is all glass including three seperate patio door sets that lead out to the wrap around deck, along with some pretty cool trapezoids. We finished the basement/rec room about three years ago; when designing our home I actually had the basement layout planned so that 3/4's of it is "free span" meaning no support poles but rather a huge I-beam - I wanted an 8-foot pool table in the rec area and didn't want to worry about anything getting in the way!

We also built a 40'x50' pole barn, 1/3 of which is setup as livestock pens in the summer to suppport my wife's hobby of raising / showing barrows at county and state fairs. The rest is storage for tractors, trailers, etc. We're blessed to be surrounded by farms and woodlands; I'm able to walk to my tree stand to bow hunt in about 5 minutes. The house itself is set back some 800 feet from the county road we're off of in a grove of old oak trees so it's very secluded and quiet. Can almost forget that we're less than an hour away from either Milwaukee or Chicago.

We also have a 2nd home, back in my home town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It's an old "mining house" built in the '40's but upgraded in terms of furnace, electric and so on. Neat for me as it's the house right next door to the house I was raised in so when I'm up there I'm back in the old neighborhood.

Finally we've got property on a lake up there with the intention of building our retirement home in about 8 years or so, God willing. Would love to keep the current home in Wisconsin but we'll see......

I have a 3bed/2bath 1800 sq ft standard masonry home here in the suburbs of my town. Rectangular in shape, with the bedrooms and baths on one end of it and a nice, large den on the other end (where I spend most of my time, as one of the TVs and my computer, which I am using right now, is there). I often fall asleep in the den on the couch there, and just stay there for the night, rather than getting up and going to my bedroom.

My two sons are still living with me, and each has one of the other bedrooms. This is the house they were raised in, so they are quite familiar with it and comfortable in it.

The den opens up through a sliding glass door on to a nice, large sun room (down here we call them "Florida rooms") which I had built on just a few years ago. That sun room is now my "thinking place" where I go and sit whenever I feel like pondering. I find it very relaxing and pleasant to sit out there, especially on a summer evening when the rain is pounding on the aluminum roof.

The really interesting thing about my place, however, would have to be the yard. It's about a half-acre, and is just loaded with trees. I've got this huge laurel oak on one side of the house, which towers over it, and a nice, big sycamore at the other end of the house, also towering, and this produces an attractive "bookends" look when you look at the house from the street. There are also some large slash pines scattered throughout the back yard.

It was the developer's intention some 50 years ago when the houses here in my subdivision were being built to keep as many of the trees as possible when building the houses, and have them as part of the character of the neighborhood. He did a great job of that. That was a big reason why my wife and I bought this house decades ago, the beautiful tree-filled yards. In fact, if you look at my neighborhood using Google-earth (the satellite photos taken from miles up) what you will mainly see is a bunch of trees rather than houses.

As noted, my wife and I raised our two boys here, and they and I are still here. It's home.

We live in a coastal town about 100 miles North of Seattle Washington. It’s called the “Gateway to the San Juan Islands”. Perfect place for boating, crabbing and whale watching. Fishing, way too expensive for me with little gain. Purchased our home in 1989 after being transferred from Baton Rouge La. I remember looking for the thermostat to turn on the A/C as we moved in August. No A/C in any of the houses here. Come to find out it’s really not required as it only reaches the 80’s for about 2 wks a year. So, no big A/C bill for me. House was built around 1975 split level with 4 brms, 3 baths, with 2 car garage. Unfortunately, we don’t have a water view without going on the roof. Nice home to raise 3 kids in.
The first big thing I did was to enlarge the garage to hold all my muscle cars I was restoring back then. I added gas heat and put a nice TV and stereo system. I spent many hours in that garage.
A few years ago I did a interior remodel with the help of a good neighbor. Retextured all the walls, put in rounded corners and removed all that “pop corn” off the ceiling and retextured. Remodeled the kitchen with hickory cabinets, granite (blue peal) countertops. Not a easy thing to do while living in the house at the same time as doing lots of drywall work. Kitchen was completed gone for two weeks. We washed dishes in the bath tub and cooked on the barbeque pit most nights. Plus my wife hates dust so every room had to be closed off while working in it.
Last summer I started another project building a outdoor kitchen. Keep in mind that we live in Washington state where it might rain on us at anytime. My first design was just a roof and open on all four sides. Well, the inspector didn’t buy that so we put small walls on each corner. (Never know we just might have a hurricane here I guess)
Wife didn’t like that, so now it’s more of a outdoor room and only open at the cooking area. It did come out pretty cool. I call it my “Cajun Man Cave”.
I’ll be retiring at the end of this year and can’t wait to my next project.
bertb

81 - my little subdivision is much like yours. in the early 50's, it was one of Easley's first subdivisions, and it was built in an area of peach orchards and huge water oaks. most of the oak trees were saved, sounds like you got a great yard there, my wife loves spending more time outside than she does in, I am the opposite.

sc - that's a big house there. glad you are no longer underwater, hope it keeps appreciating for you. never had that problem, since I bought this house in 2005 before the economy tanked, and bought it for 40% of value at that time in a private foreclosure deal. home prices here in western sc never really dropped much as it did in most parts of the country. real estate is hot again here, starting to become a seller's market for the first time in years. my house is worth about 2 1/2 times my current mortgage balance, so I know I got some real equity.

bertb - what a perfect location you live in, sounds wonderful

logo - I am with you. I can design and think through all these building projects, but don't have much of the skills myself, I usually blame it on being left handed and clumsy. most power tools are a disaster waiting to happen to me. thinking of a circular saw that cut off a finger tip of mine many years ago, just couldn't operate it right handed, so my other hand was in the wrong place at the wrong time. watching me use a chain saw makes most people cringe and ready to call 911, because I have to hold and use it cross handed, amazing I never cut off my head, lol

susan, love your story of the cottage on the lake in VT, what beautiful country. spent much time exploring vt when we lived in NH. would love to see the cottage

A Yooper said...


We also have a 2nd home, back in my home town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It's an old "mining house" built in the '40's but upgraded in terms of furnace, electric and so on. Neat for me as it's the house right next door to the house I was raised in so when I'm up there I'm back in the old neighborhood.

Finally we've got property on a lake up there with the intention of building our retirement home in about 8 years or so, God willing. Would love to keep the current home in Wisconsin but we'll see......

My wife's grandfather was from Calumet, and I've visited the copper country a few times. Where in the UP were you? My in-laws have a lakeshore place on Higgins Lake, (mid-state Michigan), and we miss that very much.

We're in Tennessee now, with a 1500 sq ft 3 bedroom ranch on a 2/3 acre suburban/rural location. Our open back yard faces a wooded hillside with a small creek forming our back boundary. There's a 30-40 foot hill starting right there, so we have a very beautiful natural setting. We screened in our covered deck, and spend hours sitting out there enjoying the Tennessee climate, and all of the varied guests at the bird feeders. We're about 30 minutes from downtown Nashville, and just love living here! The people are just as warm as the climate.

We built our place in 1995. Suffered lightning and termites, But other than building back porches that's about all we have done other than fix this and that on a regular basis. Design is a compromise. I wanted a big wood house with large porches, she wanted a more Federal look. So I took a wood house plan and adapted the outside to suit her. Built porches on the back later all by myself to my specifications. Those were two long hot summers. Rather than bore you with all the details, I have Flickr pictures that you may or may not enjoy. On the termite issue, we had to basically rip out and replace the whole backside of the house. Word of advice, if you live in the humid south, get your place inspected and treated now. Think I'd rather do the daVinci again before dealing with the termites.

www.flickr.com/photos/ironreb/sets/72157623423350868/

www.flickr.com/photos/ironreb/sets/72157602138854858/

www.flickr.com/photos/ironreb/sets/72157606214765502/

www.flickr.com/photos/ironreb/sets/72157603240737759/

www.flickr.com/photos/ironreb/sets/72157603934916220/

Hey Redwing - I'm from the very western end of de U.P. - Bessemer is my home town. I know Calumet real well as I've been through there a million times. I also looked pretty hard at land around Calumet when considering buying land "back home" - but was fortunate to find the house in Bessemer as well as the lake propery on Lake Gogebic, in Bergland.

The Copper Country is beautiful, isn't it? Especially in the fall when the colors are out. Copper Harbor up at the top is great, and there's nothing like the view from Brockridge Mountain.

Thanks for asking - I always like sharing my "Yooper" stuff!

Careful Purg - don't lump us true/blue Yoopers as"MI folks" - if we had our way we would have seceded back in the '70's - trying to be the "51st State", 'Superior.' 

Nothin' personal on those of you below the bridge of course!!!!