The Auburn House

It is time to share a little about the Auburn house.

Both my husband and I traveled a good bit as a kid. Traveling is not really on our list of things we want to do upon his retirement. There are a few trips that would be bucket list items...for him it would be Alaska and Normandy...for me it would be Nantucket. Anyway big huge trips are not on our list of things we want to spend our money and time on, but we have always loved to visit our Alma Mater. It is just enough different in landscape from our coastal life. Day trips from Auburn antiquing or bike riding at nature spots are high on our fun list of things to do.

Over the past couple of years we noticed we spent less time at the cabin. We were either in Auburn or traveling and back to the cabin at night to sleep. We talked for a very long time about the idea of an Auburn house. As we verbalized it with the kids, they were very on board.

So, here we are looking forward to lots of fun times with our growing family. Plus, it is great to have a place that is a change of scenery.

This past weekend, we moved our cabin furniture into the new place, so here are a few pictures along with some thoughts for it.

I definitely think we need that Auburn flag on the porch that the previous owners had.
Also to the left you will notice the little side porch area I shared earlier this week. Behind that vine covered fence is the area I was sitting with the doggies.

Notice the part that sticks out on the left of the house...that is the dining area. You walk right into the living room from that bottom door and right into the master bedroom with the upper door. The upper porch has a really cool ceiling fan, so I put one of the patio chairs up there to see if we actually ever sit out there. It is like sitting in a tree house with the big oak right there.

Above is the side yard. The part to the right is the second porch area. We will need to add some chairs here. We are going to add a fence piece across this area too. It will come out from the side of the house and attach to the iron fence. The dogs will have two exits from the house and still be corralled as well as being able to enter from the garage to it. I didn't take any pictures of the very back of the yard. It contains the playhouse. 

The door where the steps are goes into the dining area...you will see in a minute and the door on the left goes to the garage. I think we will get a fire pit like the previous owners as well for this patio.

Now for some inside pictures. I almost panicked when we started moving furniture in, because buying all new stuff is not part of the plan.

The living room seemed very small at first. I don't think it is really all that smaller than the cabin, it is more the location of the door (well, two doors to the room.)

It is also painted a dark gray. Now, I actually love the color...just wasn't quite sure how our furniture was going to look at first.

My collection of cross stitch pieces would actually serve as my inspiration pieces as I will explain later.

Oh, and before I go further....the house is fully outfitted in plantation shutters. Anything I might not like was overlooked when I saw those babies. They are beautiful. Someone spent some money and I am SO happy they did.

Now, onto the couch. As I said I was about to panic on how to fit everything in there until everyone got in there and helped me move all the furniture around. 

Turns out the couch would only fit on this wall with anything else in the room. This is an early picture. Also note the table...more on that later.

The chairs fit opposite of the couch kind of. Like I said about here I was a little bummed about how things were going, but it got better.

I decided none of my lamps were going to work on the little table (remember the tables). I mostly have a stack of mess on the built ins. The built ins are so pretty. I would prefer not to have them in a second home...stuff to dust. However, I am going to style them minimally and plan to buy nothing. I am shopping the house to style them on my next visit. I also have a floor lamp downstairs that doesn't go up very high to try out behind the red chairs.

Back to the other side. I cleaned up that area a bit and styled the top of my pie safe that did fit perfectly in the niche.

A close up of the top.

We are using the pie safe for blankets and throws. The jar on top holds some cotton stems and greenery that I bought at Kirklands. I am buying very little new. I have more than enough to furnish the whole house. I did have to buy a shower curtain and rugs and this jar with the cotton.

Now to the tables... we decided to paint them. I will show you more later.

Before we move on to the dining area that juts out, this wall has a door that goes out to the first patio behind the vine covered fence.

The bean bags fit nicely here and I don't have a picture but another of my cross stitched pieces fit on that wall.

Oh, and we will have to buy an area rug. I have one in mind at Home Depot.

Now, onto that dining area that juts out.

You can see that this leads all the way to the back door where the steps were that led to the second patio. Lemony is shadowed here. BTW, the dogs seemed quite at home.

The dining area looks out to both patios. Both opposite ends have full windows like you see above. 

We added the leaf to the table and that is our guiding point for the painting of the tables in the living room. In fact, Jeff worked on them all evening. They are going to be brown on the bottom and then leave the natural on top. Hard to see from this picture, but that is what the dining room table is. The table is not what directed the color choices for painting the coffee table though...

I was looking at the cross stitch pictures I had hung by the front door and they are matted in brown and gray. That is when it struck me to paint the tables brown.

 Later, Jeff noticed the table had a brown bottom, so we definitely had a plan.

I will share them later again. I think they are going to be perfect.

This is the other side of the dining room. The kitchen is on the right.

The kitchen from several angles. I used all my old stuff. Nothing new here.

Right next to the kitchen's opening are two closets and the stairs going up. I will share upstairs later. 

Going towards that back door is a small bathroom and one bedroom downstairs.

Mother gets first dibs on the downstairs bedroom when she is with us.

I will share all of the beds and baths later as well as the backyard.

Let me just say...I love the house. 

I think it will be perfect for us.

It is not what I even knew I wanted a year ago, but I have been praying about it and I feel it is the Goldilocks house and location.

I will keep you posted, because well, we all love house tours...right?!

This one will be a little minimal and different than if I lived there all the time. I will decorate most of it over time. Like I said, I have plenty to carry every time I go. Of course, I don't really want too much to clean when I go.

In other stuff, I really planned to do a stitching post last week but time got away from me. Believe it or not the non rotational girl has stuck to her rotation plan. I have quite a bit done on 5 different projects. I hope to do a post soon!!!

I also bought something for the grand baby's room. I knew Lindsay wanted this giraffe and it would probably not get bought if I didn't get it, so....

then I just simply had to give it to her today when it came in. She came by after work. 

Much going on... life is very busy. 

Sandy