Sassafras House

May 27, 2015 - The Little Room Project Continues!

I’ve been making progress in my project to revamp the small guest room upstairs in my house. There are only three bedrooms in this little old farmhouse, and this is my only guest room. As I posted recently, this was the “before” picture. I had been using it as a junk/storage room, so that photo...
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May 14, 2015 - The Little Room Project

There are three bedrooms in this little house, though I enjoy taking retreat attendees on house tours and showing them how there were once five bedrooms in this 1300 square foot house. The area downstairs that I use as a dining room was once walled off to be a downstairs bedroom. Upstairs, there was the...
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February 25, 2015 - Conquering the Nightstand

Yesterday, I posted about my nightstand challenge, in which I was actually going to attempt to put something together. Because I’m so not good at that. Most of the challenge is in my head. And I have to admit that there turned out to be very little actual challenge in putting this little nightstand together....
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February 24, 2015 - The Nightstand Challenge

I ordered this cute little nightstand over a week ago. Delivery was delayed because of the weather, but the UPS man finally showed up yesterday. Of course, it’s in a box, in pieces. Pieces that need to be put together. This is so not my forte. When it’s put together, it’s supposed to look like...
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February 19, 2015 - Bar Fly

Remember my bar in the cellar? Okay, so first there came this huge rat. I’m talking about the biggest rat I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’m not exaggerating! I have seen the rat. Once. He was climbing on the shelves when I walked in one day and he froze, like rat-in-the-headlights, and we...
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February 4, 2015 - Re-Design Redux

A couple of years ago, I did a re-do on my living room, trying to solve the problem of not enough seating. This is how I had things to begin with. This worked fine for me and Morgan, but with just a couch and a recliner, there wasn’t enough seating when all the kids were...
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January 28, 2015 - It’s Always 5:00 in the Cellar

The cellar is a curious little building behind my house, and has (oddly) become one of my favorite places on the farm. I’m not sure how old it is–the barn is from the 1890s and there was an original farmhouse here that burned down. The house where I live was built in the 1930s. I...
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January 21, 2014 - Goat Burger Is So Pleased

My Christmas tree can finally come down, nearly a month after the holidays. Ross is home! We had “Christmas” again at Sassafras House! Ross has two weeks of liberty after he spent four months in a submarine in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. They went to port in Bahrain, Diego Garcia, and Fujairah....
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November 4, 2013 - The Plague of Ladybugs

Of course, what I’m talking about is not really a ladybug. Not even this kind of ladybug. It’s this kind of ladybug: They are the plague, easily recognizable because they aren’t the rich red of our friendly ladybug. You know, the one who flies home because her house is on fire and her children are...
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March 5, 2013 - The Cistern

Yesterday I went out to drain the cistern under the house and I couldn’t remember if I’d ever posted about it. It’s just one of the numerous oddities about this old house. There’s a tank of water under the house. Seriously. Because I’m so dense, I never thought twice about this little setup to the...
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November 29, 2012 - Fiery Obsession

Yesterday, my wood stove man (aka Tim from the little store in town), came to check out my wood stove situation. A little background: I have access to free natural gas on my farm. This is fabulous! I have no particular reason to believe this well is going to run dry any time soon, though...
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November 20, 2012 - Re-Design Challenge

My living room suddenly turned into a disaster area when I decided to do something about the fact that the space just doesn’t work when I have a houseful. Here’s a photo from several months ago that shows how I’ve had it set up since I moved in here: This works for me and Morgan,...
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November 15, 2012 - Fireside Mystery

My latest intrigue at Sassafras House is the fireplace. WHAT is up with this fireplace? You can’t really tell from that picture. Let me move the wreath. (My neighbor Jim’s wife made that wreath.) This is an old house, built in the 1930s. You know they liked fireplaces big back then–but this fireplace appears tiny....
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June 4, 2012 - Design Updates

When I first posted about the house after I moved in, I had various ideas about how to deal with the space (and lack thereof). Six months later, here’s how things are looking! There is a back room that I was told was the original kitchen. This made sense–it is a much bigger room than...
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February 21, 2012 - The Short and Incomplete History of the Stairs

I’ve been off my painting mission for over a month now. No water makes cleanup difficult, so the plumbing issues took me off track at first then other issues tumbled in to take over. I’m going to post about my painting progress in part to challenge myself to get going on it again. I got...
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December 15, 2011 - The Studio

The studio at Sassafras Farm is built over the old cellar. The cellar was built into a hill behind the house, and the studio was, of course, a later addition. It backs to the house and faces out to the upper pastures. It’s accessed by the steps to the deck from the driveway. Or by...
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December 8, 2011 - A Few Reveals

I’ve been working hard painting. Sorta like peeing on the house, ya know? (Sorry for that analogy.) I have an intense need to make it mine. I painted my bedroom, then painted half of the downstairs–the living room and the dining room. I’m probably going to take a break from painting now and go back...
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December 6, 2011 - Let’s Go Upstairs

Upstairs! As you can see, the yellow paint is still alive and well in the stairway. I’m working my way from the living room, back through the house, and then around and up. It’s going to be a long process. If the paint color looks weird, that’s just lighting. It’s the same yellow everywhere. At...
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December 5, 2011 - Living Room Transformation

The living room is undergoing a transformation. This is how it looked when I moved in. This is what I’m doing to it now. I’m taking a soft neutral color (“sandbar” on the paint chip card–Walmart, for those of you interested in the color) throughout the first floor and up the stairway into the hall....
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December 3, 2011 - A Little Table

This little green table belonged to my grandmother on my mother’s side. I don’t know how or why it ended up green. Growing up, visiting older relatives, I saw many tables in this style and they were always stained, not painted. My mother gave me this table about eight years ago and I thought for...
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December 1, 2011 - The Cellar

I have an old cellar. I’ve always wanted an old cellar. I fell in love with my first old cellar at the slanted little house long ago, when I was a kid. (You can see more about that old cellar in this post.) I never imagined I’d have a real old cellar of my own....
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November 28, 2011 - Sassafras Farm House

Come see inside my “new” 1930’s farmhouse! (If you missed it, find out about Sassafras Farm here.) A couple of notes upfront. Most of the rooms are pretty spartan right now, furniture and not much else. I have strategically located remaining unpacked boxes in a few key areas so that I can deal with them...
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