Throw Back Thursday - Front of the House and Formal Living Room

You may remember the closet at the bottom of the stairs post I did. It is a closet full of photos that stayed there for literally years after we moved into my hubby's home. My mother-in-law took lots of photos, but was more a scrapbooker type of photo organizer. She has any vacation or topic neatly arranged in albums, but the regular day to day pictures were mostly in boxes. 

Anyway a while back I was looking through the pictures trying to figure out how the side area looked and why there was no drainage problem then...blah, blah, blah...

I thought y'all might like to see the differences from when Hubby's parents lived here and now us. 

Warning...It will be very different. Don't judge me, but we all have different tastes and honestly I wasn't even sure I wanted to move here even though it was big, spacious, lots of storage, and ON the WATER! The reason was that it was so different from my tastes.

However waterfront changes minds, and with time I made it more my style.

The first pictures I will share this Thursday are the front of the house and the formal living room.

This was the front back in the mid-eighties. They moved in December 1984 and that was the first Christmas after Jeff and I married. All but two Christmas Eves have been in this house. One was the last Christmas my mother-in-law was still able to be sitting up and the next was the year she passed away. Those two the family met at our home around the corner.

So without further explanation here goes the front of the house.

The next two pictures are probably taken in 1985.

This was my mother-in-law out front. 

The biggest differences are the door and the garage door. The garage door was way too busy for me. Jeff didn't like the blue door, but at one point there was some blue tile in the walk up to the door.

We painted the house and toned down the brown all around and changed the gutters to a tan color.

My father-in-law out front.

That grass was so green. There trees are all different. The ones in the front are all maples and none made it through Hurricane Opal. A new one was planted and didn't make it through Ivan. We now have a Natchez crepe myrtle and a Japanese maple in the front.

The picture below is now.

Oh one more oldie...probably early 90's... rare snow dusting at Christmas. Garage is open. Oh and you can see the blue tile leading to door. I don't remember why, but that got damaged and had to be changed.

The rather dull door now, but more me. I am not crazy about the tile now, but I have to live with it.

Now for the side yard entering our circle. I don't remember this version. Tulips are planted there. What I do remember was literally the most amazing red and white impatiens beds you have ever seen. Everyone stopped to look at them.

You should always take pictures so you can remember.

now... 

I can't get over the trees and how much larger they are now. There is one that leans way across the driveway now.

Now for the Formal Living Room...

I can actually find only one picture of it. That is another reason why you should always take pictures of you house. You will want to remember things. 

It was basically the forbidden room!

My kids, Lindsay and Paul Allen remember it as the room they always wanted to go in, but Nana was very protective of it. 

In other words, they could only walk past it. 

She was very proud of it...having grown up in the depression, this was her dream room. In April of 1986, the home was on the tour of homes in FWB.

This was the picture for the newspaper.

My sister-in-law, Donna kept the tables, but we sold the sofa and chairs. The rug I kept for years, but after two teenagers, dogs and so forth and it being white and not really matching anything, I finally let it go. It was hard because I knew it was the real stuff and quite expensive. The price tag had still been on the bottom.

Now, for what I did to this room. I knew we would never ever walk in here. With a family room with a water view and the downstairs big room, it seemed pretty pointless to add more sitting room furniture, so I actually went with Hubby's idea. My only stipulation was it had to look nice.

Pretty different huh?!

I wish I could find  a picture with the chandelier that was hanging where the light is now above the pool table. It was gold and very ornate. I have kept it though... I think Lindsay might want it one day. I think it will come back in style. 

Well, there you have it for a Throw Back Thursday. 

More of these to come without so many words, since now I have set the stage for it.

Blessed to live in a home with history,

Sandy

Sharing today with Thoughts of Home on Thursday and Stacey at Poofing the Pillows...

http://www.poofingthepillows.com/2016/06/thoughts-of-home-on-thursday-17.html